Autism a sex linked trait or not?

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If Asperger's syndrome was sex linked, it would be caused by mutation(s) on the X chromosome.

I was led to understand that in the very low functioning end of autism, females become more common. One hypothesis I encountered pointed out the degree of cognitive/mental dysfunction in diagnosed female Kanner autistics might indicate sex/gender difference in regards to socialisation. Because females as a population do have brains that can be demonstrated to perform better at social tasks, it takes a greater level of damage to to achieve the same outcome in terms of measuring performance on social tasks. Females ends up not being diagnosed as much because social dysfunction is used to measure impairment, and diagnostic criteria are male focused.

I find it not unlikely that autism occurs at similar rates in both gender/sex populations, but because diagnostic models concentrate on symptom clusters drawn from research on a disproportionately diagnosed population, and because diagnosticians tend to measure impairment in females relative to males with autism rather than relative to their gender/sex peers, females in the mid to high functioning range are under-diagnosed. This is not dissimilar to the kind of skewing that can/would occur when an adult is evaluated by comparing the skill/competency/impairment profile against children rather than their age-peers. Since females perform better at social tasks as a population, there is no reason to suppose that this would not apply to autistic females, so really diagnosticians do need to more readily compare potentially autistic females social/communication skills/performance to their gender/sex peers (neurotypical females) rather than comparing them to male autistics when evaluating impairment in this skill/competency set.

Ah, thank you. You explained that very well. Before I was wondering why females don't get diagnosed more, because I figured the standards are higher for females than they are for males, so a female failing at social interactions would stick out more. But I think you're right. I have been branded very masculine because my social skills are not up to NT par. People always think I'm just a tomboy, or even transgendered. But if females are being graded on the male scale, even a female below average social skills may still be considered 'normal' on the male scale. I get it now!