The problem with dating services for autistic people.

Peter said:

Autistic men (diagnosed) outnumber autistic women by orders of magnitude

1. Why do the women - or the men, for that matter - need to be diagnosed? Isn't self-diagnosis sufficiently valid?

2. Your posts give the impression (to me, at least) that you are only discussing how to facilitate straight / heterosexual pairings. Is that intentional? If so, is it appropriate?

Peter said:

It is not practical to attempt to address relationship difficulties in autism by assisting (diagnosed) autistic people in forming connections with each other only.

3. Conversely, couldn't it be argued that two autistic people would make better matches? (eg higher likelihood of mutual loyalty, etc).

Not arguing - just asking. :)

1. It's an issue if the service is designed to give autistic people an advantage. which is what we are talking about here, giving autistic people an advantage to componsate for the disadvanteges they face. People would have an incentive to pretend to be autistic for that advantage.

3. I think there is a not of evidence that they do in such rare cases when those matches occure. But there simply aren't enough auistic women to go around. It's even worse when you consider that a disproportionat number of them are gay / asexual.

Re 1: With waiting list delays for autism assessments often stretching into years rather than months, wouldn't requiring a diagnosis unfairly discriminate against those who are actively seeking their diagnoses, whilst "only" being self-diagnosed in the meantime?

I apreciate it's not ideal. But neither is setting up a service for autistic people only to have it used mostly by non autistic people. I supose you might acept a doctors letter confirming that someone is on the waiting list for a diagnosis as a compromise. I think GPs are unlikely to refer the kind of NT looking to con their way into a dating program.

And lots of autism frendship services already ask for doctors letters regarding compitency before you can join.

I apreciate it's not ideal. But neither is setting up a service for autistic people only to have it used mostly by non autistic people. I supose you might acept a doctors letter confirming that someone is on the waiting list for a diagnosis as a compromise. I think GPs are unlikely to refer the kind of NT looking to con their way into a dating program.

And lots of autism frendship services already ask for doctors letters regarding compitency before you can join.