The only differences are in how some of them manifest, and the article is written from the perspective of a neurotypical trying to explain this to other neurotyoicals.
That page only mentions (paraphrased):
“Autistic Girls are more likely to train themselves with scripts for social settings than Autistic Guys.”
I agree with that one. I learned how to do that from the autistic girls I grew up with, and had as young friends.
“Autistic Girls tend to hyperfocus on ‘more socially acceptable subjects, such as animals, books or celebrities’, as opposed to Autistic Guys who tend to hyperfocus on ‘trains or technology’.”
I want to argue against this one based on the definition of ‘socially acceptable’, but I also realize that wanting to argue about that is itself not socially acceptable to neurotypicals, so, touche, I suppose.
“Autistic Girls are, apparently, more likely than Autistic Guys to internalize their struggles and develop anxiety, depression.”
Uh, I’d say for that last one, no, there’s no difference, other than the neurotypical social stigma against guys expressing that they have any kind of mental health struggles being much, much stronger for guys than girls, so guys just don’t talk about it / admit to it / even recognize they are experiencing it.
You don’t even have to be an autistic guy to figure that one out pretty quickly, hooray heteronormativity.
So uh, yep, they’re not polling / doing studies thoroughly enough, with proper methodology.
Every single other thing they say is just as true for Autistic Guys as it is for Autistic Girls, untill you get down to the ‘Why Autism Might Be Overlooked in Females’ section, where they basically just say:
‘Female autists are better at social mimicry and also expected to be more social than male autists, so they tend to be harder to spot.’
… which is true for neurotypicals, I guess?
(see previous comment about how neurotypicals do not enjoy discussing what ‘socially acceptable’ is. try to get them to define it, solidly, robustly, without contradictions, and they will almost always fail, and they will also almost always get angry/frustrated with you this.)
(autists talking to other autists about this topic… they/we do not tend to get irrationally angry, as universally as neurotypicals do… so, thats a way you can try and suss out if someone is or is not autistic… but neurotypicals tend not to employ this method, because it causes them discomfort.)
This is all true. It’s also in addition to the horrific misogyny of the medical establishment. Not only is autism underdiagnosed in women, almost all conditions are understand in women. Including acute heart attacks.
This is partly for sort of valid reasons (they routinely exclude women from clinical trials because of unknown pregnancies putting the baby at risk), partly for stupid but understandable reasons (women are harder to study because of cycle effects, managing trials need to run longer and collect more data, which costs more) and partly because of rank misogyny.
If I were a woman, I’d be terrified of dealing with health care professionals of any kind.
I think at this point the conclusion should basically just be that anyone should be rationally terrified to deal with the US healthcare system, as it is broken and corrupt in essentially every way possible.
I once saw a video called “Spelunking on the Spectrum” which is about how some of the main characters in Dungeon Meshi have been picked up by the autistic community as representing 3 main stereotypes of autistic individuals, and one of the things said in there has always stuck with me: the idea that the same traits in autistic men that are seen as strange or off-putting are seen as womanly, demure, or attractive in some other way in autistic women. Simply because of how those behaviors are perceived or interpreted based on the gender and appearance of the person performing them.
This is why autistic folks tend to disproportionately be some kind of gender queer.
Because it is immediately, extremely obvious to us that gender is basically just made up, and is essentially arbitrary.
Awkward, shy, somewhat clumsy, quirky girl who is secretly some kind of genuis within some realm or topic?
Well, she’s an adorable (adorkable) and relatable character, and a desireable love interest for a genuine guy.
She also usually just needs some kind of entirely superficial glow up scene to transform from ugly duckling into a stunner.
Awkward, shy, somewhat clumsy, quirky guy, who is secretly some kind of genius within some realm or topic?
Oh, he’s a troubled child, his story is going to either be a tragedy or a rags to riches format tale, where he has to change essentially everything about himself, or find a way to channel his genius into something acceptable and safe, and he is always only ever going to be tolerated, never accepted, and learn to isolate from and/or reject society and interpersonal relationships to a fairly extreme extent.
… I had figured this out, these differences in cultural norms and narratives, by like age 9.
Heteronormativity is weird, irrational thing that neurotypicals do, but again, as previously mentioned, attempting to discuss things like this with most (not all, but most) NTs simply makes them angry, because their brains are not wired to actually analyze social contexts in detail and specificity, with consistency, without contradiction/hypocrisy.
Their brains are ‘good’ at socializing, because their brains evaluate socialization in a fuzzy, subconscious, non explicit way. That makes them faster at generating actions within a social context, but it also usually makes them into hypocrites with double standards and low self awareness.
But, those latter things don’t matter so much to them, because their concept of ‘good socializing’ is very much weighted toward rapidity of responses as being indicatory of authenticity and good character, and deliberation indicating something like scheming, generating a lie.
To put it in less autistic terms: They just don’t think about it, and/or they just bullshit their way through most social situations.
For autistics, this socialization norm is reversed:
Deliberation indicates authenticity and good character, rapidity indicates unseriousness and potentially lying, or dangerous levels of impulsivity / lack of emotional self regulation.
I can easily strike up a wonderfully polite and interesting conversation with an autistic woman who I randomly meet during the course of my day.
Whereas trying to do this with a neurotypical woman is next to impossible. A quick, polite conversation, sure thats not too hard (now that I have almost 4 decades of practice), but a lengthy one that isn’t awkward or immensely uninteresting?. Very difficult. Would be even more difficult if I were less broadly physically attractive.
I’m closer to 40 now than I am to 30… I’ve been in the world a bit.
The idea that neurotypicals can’t sniff out an autistic woman from an NT woman is literally laughable to me, its the easiest thing in the world.
Unfortunately… the vast majority of psychologists and such, well, they’re neurotypicals, so they’re kind of slow on the uptake of understanding how autists work, and they’re also usually too proud to admit ignorance.
How are they different?
They’re not.
The only differences are in how some of them manifest, and the article is written from the perspective of a neurotypical trying to explain this to other neurotyoicals.
That page only mentions (paraphrased):
“Autistic Girls are more likely to train themselves with scripts for social settings than Autistic Guys.”
I agree with that one. I learned how to do that from the autistic girls I grew up with, and had as young friends.
“Autistic Girls tend to hyperfocus on ‘more socially acceptable subjects, such as animals, books or celebrities’, as opposed to Autistic Guys who tend to hyperfocus on ‘trains or technology’.”
I want to argue against this one based on the definition of ‘socially acceptable’, but I also realize that wanting to argue about that is itself not socially acceptable to neurotypicals, so, touche, I suppose.
“Autistic Girls are, apparently, more likely than Autistic Guys to internalize their struggles and develop anxiety, depression.”
Uh, I’d say for that last one, no, there’s no difference, other than the neurotypical social stigma against guys expressing that they have any kind of mental health struggles being much, much stronger for guys than girls, so guys just don’t talk about it / admit to it / even recognize they are experiencing it.
You don’t even have to be an autistic guy to figure that one out pretty quickly, hooray heteronormativity.
So uh, yep, they’re not polling / doing studies thoroughly enough, with proper methodology.
Every single other thing they say is just as true for Autistic Guys as it is for Autistic Girls, untill you get down to the ‘Why Autism Might Be Overlooked in Females’ section, where they basically just say:
‘Female autists are better at social mimicry and also expected to be more social than male autists, so they tend to be harder to spot.’
… which is true for neurotypicals, I guess?
(see previous comment about how neurotypicals do not enjoy discussing what ‘socially acceptable’ is. try to get them to define it, solidly, robustly, without contradictions, and they will almost always fail, and they will also almost always get angry/frustrated with you this.)
(autists talking to other autists about this topic… they/we do not tend to get irrationally angry, as universally as neurotypicals do… so, thats a way you can try and suss out if someone is or is not autistic… but neurotypicals tend not to employ this method, because it causes them discomfort.)
((If it is not obvious, I am an autistic guy.))
This is all true. It’s also in addition to the horrific misogyny of the medical establishment. Not only is autism underdiagnosed in women, almost all conditions are understand in women. Including acute heart attacks.
This is partly for sort of valid reasons (they routinely exclude women from clinical trials because of unknown pregnancies putting the baby at risk), partly for stupid but understandable reasons (women are harder to study because of cycle effects, managing trials need to run longer and collect more data, which costs more) and partly because of rank misogyny.
If I were a woman, I’d be terrified of dealing with health care professionals of any kind.
Yep, everything you’ve said is true too.
I think at this point the conclusion should basically just be that anyone should be rationally terrified to deal with the US healthcare system, as it is broken and corrupt in essentially every way possible.
I once saw a video called “Spelunking on the Spectrum” which is about how some of the main characters in Dungeon Meshi have been picked up by the autistic community as representing 3 main stereotypes of autistic individuals, and one of the things said in there has always stuck with me: the idea that the same traits in autistic men that are seen as strange or off-putting are seen as womanly, demure, or attractive in some other way in autistic women. Simply because of how those behaviors are perceived or interpreted based on the gender and appearance of the person performing them.
I have not seen this, but uh, yes.
This is why autistic folks tend to disproportionately be some kind of gender queer.
Because it is immediately, extremely obvious to us that gender is basically just made up, and is essentially arbitrary.
Awkward, shy, somewhat clumsy, quirky girl who is secretly some kind of genuis within some realm or topic?
Well, she’s an adorable (adorkable) and relatable character, and a desireable love interest for a genuine guy.
She also usually just needs some kind of entirely superficial glow up scene to transform from ugly duckling into a stunner.
Awkward, shy, somewhat clumsy, quirky guy, who is secretly some kind of genius within some realm or topic?
Oh, he’s a troubled child, his story is going to either be a tragedy or a rags to riches format tale, where he has to change essentially everything about himself, or find a way to channel his genius into something acceptable and safe, and he is always only ever going to be tolerated, never accepted, and learn to isolate from and/or reject society and interpersonal relationships to a fairly extreme extent.
… I had figured this out, these differences in cultural norms and narratives, by like age 9.
Heteronormativity is weird, irrational thing that neurotypicals do, but again, as previously mentioned, attempting to discuss things like this with most (not all, but most) NTs simply makes them angry, because their brains are not wired to actually analyze social contexts in detail and specificity, with consistency, without contradiction/hypocrisy.
Their brains are ‘good’ at socializing, because their brains evaluate socialization in a fuzzy, subconscious, non explicit way. That makes them faster at generating actions within a social context, but it also usually makes them into hypocrites with double standards and low self awareness.
But, those latter things don’t matter so much to them, because their concept of ‘good socializing’ is very much weighted toward rapidity of responses as being indicatory of authenticity and good character, and deliberation indicating something like scheming, generating a lie.
To put it in less autistic terms: They just don’t think about it, and/or they just bullshit their way through most social situations.
For autistics, this socialization norm is reversed:
Deliberation indicates authenticity and good character, rapidity indicates unseriousness and potentially lying, or dangerous levels of impulsivity / lack of emotional self regulation.
I can easily strike up a wonderfully polite and interesting conversation with an autistic woman who I randomly meet during the course of my day.
Whereas trying to do this with a neurotypical woman is next to impossible. A quick, polite conversation, sure thats not too hard (now that I have almost 4 decades of practice), but a lengthy one that isn’t awkward or immensely uninteresting?. Very difficult. Would be even more difficult if I were less broadly physically attractive.
I’m closer to 40 now than I am to 30… I’ve been in the world a bit.
The idea that neurotypicals can’t sniff out an autistic woman from an NT woman is literally laughable to me, its the easiest thing in the world.
Unfortunately… the vast majority of psychologists and such, well, they’re neurotypicals, so they’re kind of slow on the uptake of understanding how autists work, and they’re also usually too proud to admit ignorance.
updated comment just for u…