Published on 12, July, 2020
With the increase in realisation that many women with autism often receive late diagnosis (often after several misdiagnoses) it seems odd to see the result.ing effects which I worry are repeating the mistakes of the past.We are reiterating the importance of gender as the determining factor of how the condition manifests. My lived experience says otherwise. - indeed by ascribing "autistic gender norms" in reverse you can pretty much summarise my journey to diagnosis. I would argue that there is a different way of interpreting the information that makes more sense to me based on my lived experience and the disparate expressions of gender (in fluidity, rejections of ascribed roles etc) within the community.What is termed Female ASD categorised by Masking, observational assessment leading to trial and error (fake it till you make it approach) is more about extrovert personalities seeking to fit in and adapting seeking to pre-empt and avoid problems leading to internalising challenges where as the signs traditionally observed which led to the current gender imbalance are active external reactions to present internal challenges. Active external reaction/Meltdown vs Inactive external Reaction/Shutdown if we continue to gender the two main presentation types we only see two out of four quadrants of the xy graph.NT Societal understanding of gender roles and associated traits led us to where we are - by thinking about male and female autism we will continue to have late or no diagnoses for those like me who whilst male have the lived experience of "Female" ASD.Is there any research being done on this?Hope that makes sense and interested to hear thoughts.
The gendering of autism has existed since its earliest clinical descriptions, and has more recently been compounded by Simon Baron-Cohen’s “extreme male brain theory.” Feminist scholars have rejected this as gender stereotyping masquerading as science.
The effect of excluding female narratives from autism studies has resulted in the under diagnosis of autism and inappropriate diagnoses of social anxiety, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
The persistence of the myth that autistic individuals lack ‘theory of mind’, together with the addition of the intersectionality of gender clichés, has only exacerbated clinical misdiagnosis.
Given the higher than average occurrence of trans and non-binary individuals among the autistic community (40% by some estimates) the notion that autism is a mainly male condition is being increasingly questioned.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6546643/
I accept that the gender bias goes back all the way but believe we are merely compounding the error. From a linguistic/semiotic perspective, by labelling one presentation type as female you have created a signifier that epitomises potential confirmation bias, i this case both consciously and subconsciously.We know that there are two presentation groupings - we know the historical information for the gender bias in diagnostic number -for that exact same reason the second presentation group became known. We know that despite each presentation type having a far larger preponderance of one gender making up its members - neither is gender exclusive. To therefore label either presentation with a gender signifier is then just factually inaccurate and misleading.That the majority of individuals presenting with type a = Male & type b = female is not doubted but given what er know about the history that may well be precisely because of this conceptualisation of gender.It is the presentation of sufficient indicators that determine diagnosis, of either type - gender not being a criterion.