I don't think I should be on here.

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That's where I hope Purvis shall make headway on your behalf, not just for autists in general, but female autists. I think she did several interviews about it. I still have to track them down to watch, Youtube allowing. She's also quite good-looking, very chatty and articulate, and seems super-clever, so I hope that keeps her in the spotlight.

There's another famous late-diagnosed female autist in the UK: Christine McGuinness (recent ex-wife of Paddy McGuinness), who seemingly defies the conventional idea of autism.

I think this anti-female autist stance has roots far older than Simon Baron-Cohen's male/female brain autism theory, but has not been helped by it. Last month, he commented that he regretted making the description, as he found it had not helped understanding of autism in the wider public. (I didn't see that posted as news here at WP - was it?) I have previously seen he was strongly critisised by feminists for this theory, but I think for very wrong ideological reasons: they took him literally, so enforcing sexism, whereas I understood he was appealing to a common gender stereotype to highlight something - that autists tend to engage in very technical behaviours, even if they are artistic, which is typically, but wrongly considered the sole domain of masculinity.

What I do want to say going back to female autists is that 10 years ago I found a rich seam of female autists via Tor Project blurb on Twitter (as it was then). They were all bi/lesbian, skilled programmers and mathematicians, generally super-clever. They were also very much into transhumanism, of which transgenderism is a subset. One of them attempted transitioning to male. I believe the motive was for a female to be able assert oneself better in a toxic-male dominated world.

I had a male autistic acquaintance from long ago, very right wing, who highlighted a Google employee's tweet - a female coder - who was exasperated that her male colleagues would spend the entire weekend coding for a hobby - something women would never do, she claimed. And yet that collection of female autistic lesbians would do exacly that. I figure that woman was not autistic. You see the confirmation bias that the world runs on against female autists.

I now believe that traditional gender stereotypes are nutured, and are still being nutured according to sex, and female autists tend to mask else break under this, if they cannot resist it. Male autists can also break, under the enforced machoism of the male gender stereotype. This can even lead to transgenderism in male autists. Transgenderism is a controversial topic fraught with toxicity, and I hope my words here shall not trigger a flame war. I have an elegant argument that addresses the contradictions within the trans-terf wars, but I cannot contain it within the margin here /fermat.



Please! I stick to a tight circle of sites I visit, but I like a heads-up on where the troubled one are.

So I was doing astrophysics, and we came to General Relativity (/humblebrag!). GR uses a maths called "tensors" very heavily. It took two years for Einstein to master this maths. He had to stop everything else to get on top of it. I can make a joke that while tensors properly describe physically tensing things into twisted shapes, they also tense students emotions into despair. When Einstein wrote tensor equations in his little notebooks, he made an abbreviated tensor notation to save space. After he publish GR, everyone copied his notation. The trouble for me was that this was an abomination: indices were made to look like powers (like x²). My mind could not accept this abuse of notation, this ambiguity, and I failed the course.

I do not have dyslexia or dyscalulia, but that notation just was not right to me. I've since found online webpages that explain all this more clearly, and I'm beginning to put it all together now.

The point I'm making is we all have our limits where we can get to by ourselves, and then after that we need aids: good books to teach; calculators, computers to solve the maths; new AI software to find new ways to solve. Why not assistive technologies, or just downright patience and understanding?

It's a funny thing, isn't it, that life, civilisation, technology, has made us live longer, know more, be more productive, all with the aid of inventions, but we have these social Darwinist judgmental types who frown upon the needs of disabled people. "If they need assistive technology such as wheelchairs / NC headphones / braille writers / subtitles, they just can't survive in the real world, and are best left to die at birth". Fine. You compute the optimum premium for the insurance company to charge customers without this unnatural computer technology then. It turns out that insurance companies depend on actuaries to do these calculations, and they are very knowledgeable technically, very well paid, and many I suspect are (undiagnosed) autists. These terrible judgmentals can be the same people who'll, come the apocaplyse or whatever, find to their horror that they can't get anything done to fend for themselves. The ones who scream "somebody do something! while trying to get a signal on their smartphone to call 911 (sorry Americans, I tend to think of an American boss stereotype here, but we have them in the UK for sure, too).

I am the very rare MtF transgender with passing privilege. I can play golf with older guys for hours and they gender me as female. I get social clues and interact too easily to be considered autistic when presenting female.

I think I had several issues presenting male. The first is that short guys are on the bottom of the social totem pole.
This isn't helped by the fact that dressing well is extremely difficult because they don't make clothes that fit men my size. Growing boys have "gorilla arms" and altering sleeves is hard. The second is people using their limited cognitive resources figuring out my gender. I think I learned female social interactions rather than male ones being around women all my life.

I wear the same clothing sizes as models which makes it really easy to dress nice wearing female clothes.

That sounds frustrating not being able to get the resources you need and also have a parent claim the diagnosis with a misdiagnose when it wasn't. Yeah, autism assessments are crazy expensive and it sucks. I was lucky after doing MANY exhaustive searches that I found one covered under my government insurance. My therapist actually found it for me. She referred me to a place that her coworker went in for her own autism assessment.

To be honest, I'm not diagnosed either but I'm here, mostly lurking. It seems like people here are really inviting and friendly. As far as Reddit goes, I stay away from that website. They like to gatekeep a lot, and I noticed that some autism subreddits are REALLY rude to those who are self-diagnosed/self-suspecting.

Sure, a diagnose can be helpful for practical reasons (ex. work accommodations, disabilities, medications, therapy, etc.), but not everyone can get a diagnosis and some people don't really want it (ex. my younger brother refuses to get an official diagnose). I think as long as you know in your heart, it doesn't matter what other people think. If someone tells me they're autistic and didn't get a diagnosis, I wouldn't question them to be honest. It's hard already having to deal with the specific types of issues + sensory profiles that we deal with, and I am not doubting that others are going through it too.

I wish I'd had the choice not to get diagnosed. Getting a diagnosis in childhood seems to hit differently than getting a diagnosis as an adult or self-diagnosing. If you're ''mild'' like me, a childhood diagnosis feels more like a hinderance and I was conditioned to feel ashamed of being ''the kid with the label''. I was actually more capable and socially aware than what the stupid diagnosis suggested, and I entered adulthood believing I was backward and disabled. But since hitting my 30s I have realised that I am not disabled, I'm just different. But I am NOT suggesting autism means a difference, as to many autism is a disability and I respect that. But to me personally, there is nothing I am really lacking socially, I just have a quirky, goofy way in my manner, probably more down to ADHD. Anxiety can be disabling for me though, but my anxiety traits don't really line up with the common autism traits that affect many people with autism.

Well, they've yet to kick me out.

I joined the forum wondering if I was autistic, mainly due to an off-hand comment made by an online counsellor. The service was quite general, they couldn't offer support for anything specific. Nor could they diagnose me with anything. So I figured I'd join a forum, maybe see if anything clicked.

Ultimately I realised that it didn't. However, I still like it here. It has sections that other forums I've used don't have. Also, I have an interest in the subject. I have a significant amount of friends who were either diagnosed later in life or they are dating someone who is diagnosed. It's good to learn about such things.

However, I'm not NT. I also suspect I have dyscalculia, OP. Frankly, people have been telling me that it's likely since I was eight years old.

The tests I've had done have confirmed that I have severe visual-processing issues. Unfortunately, that's often been dismissed by others because I seem fine or I don't seem like the type.

Still, I've come to terms with people being dismissive. I tend to just refer to my issues as 'my general chaos' or dyslexia-adjacent. I know I likely have some attention issues as well but I have methods that work for me. Usually. Admittedly some of those issues may be trauma based. I don't know. Live and learn I guess. If I ever stop procrastinating on going to therapy, maybe I'll find out some day.

I think you SHOULD be here

Um...you could know for a fact that you are not Autistic and still be on WP.

If you knew for a fact you were not Autistic and did not find Autism at least a little interesting then I think it would be odd for you to be on WP...but as long as you were polite I think you'd be allowed on WP.

The reddit thread makes a good point about autism being a marketable category now. I have mixed feelings about those quirky humour tshirts being sold on the high street. Some are amusing but I question if the number of shirts sold exceeds the number of buyers with the credentials to wear it. Having "a touch of the tism" is an identity that carries a lot of social cache in this day and age. And people use words like autism and on the spectrum in the same way that people say "I'm sooooo OCD about tidying my house", but about having hobbies or something. Meanwhile people with more a frank, less quirky and relatable presentation still get bullied for being cringe.
That being said if you relate to the things people talk about on WP then you're allowed to be here and talk about that.