nextstepcake:

aforaffort:

I genuinely wonder if asexual people are more likely to also identify as some form of genderqueer or trans*

Do you guys know of any decent studies in this regard?

There haven’t been any formal studies, but there have been informal community polls that have found higher rates of trans*, genderqueer, or other non-cis gender identities among the ace community.

For example, Asexual Awareness Week Census did find a significantly higher number of non-cis respondents:

Female 64.1%

Male 14.1%

Gender neutral 12.0%

Androgynous 11.4%

Gender queer or gender variant 11.1%

Gender fluid 8.0%

Unsure/confused 7.5%

Questioning 6.6%

I don’t have a gender identity 6.2%

Other 4.3%

*(the survey allowed multiple responses, so one could, for example, check androgynous and genderqueer and questiong, so percentages don’t add up to 100)

There’s also some older data from the 2008 AVEN survey:

Genderedness: 
Respondents had a write-in box to describe the gender with which they currently identified.

137 (80.1%) of asexuals assigned female at birth currently identify as female. 
17 (9.9%) currently identify as something other than male or female (such as androgynous, neutrois, agender, bigender, or genderqueer) 
9 (5.3%) currently identify as male 
8 (4.7%) currently identify as female, but with some reservations (such as “nominally female” or “female… reluctantly”) 

56 (81.2%) of asexuals assigned male at birth currently identify as male. 
9 (13%) currently identify as something other than male or female 
2 (2.9%) currently identify as female 
2 (2.9%) currently identify as male, but with some reservations 

3 asexuals who did not provide a birth gender currently identify as male. 
2 asexuals who did not provide a birth gender currently identify as something other than male or female. 

1 born female and 1 asexual who did not provide a birth gender did not answer. 

I’m not sure what rates of non-cis identities are in the human population as a whole, but the numbers here seem rather higher than average. 

As for why this is, it’s not completely clear. And there still isn’t enough reliable data to say for sure whether there is any correlation or causation. However, I have heard a few theories on why this might be:

-people who are questioning one aspect of their identity may be more likely to question other aspects of their identity. 

-people who are out as one non-normative identity may also be more comfortable coming out as another non-normative identity, as opposed to staying closeted. 

-Also, people who become involved with the ace or trans* or other queer communities will be more likely to be exposed to the theories and labels of ace and trans identites, which may lead them to discover things about themselves that they may not have if they had never been exposed to such concepts. 

Of course, it could also simply be response bias or random error, since it wasn’t the most scientifically rigorous survey. Still, I think this would be an interesting subject for future study. 

EDIT: also, I think I’ve seen mentions of asexuality in studies of trans* people, but they are usually a side note. Still, that could give some insight into the rates of asexuality among trans* people as opposed to trans*-ness among asexual people, which I haven’t seen as much data on.