I think any way you try to split autism into subtypes it only creates more barriers for autistic people to overcome. If services are aimed at type A they have to prove they are A enough and not too B to access them. It becomes easier to exclude them.
I often quote this tweet which I feel captures how this applies in functioning labels language
But I'm disturbed by an increasing number of people talking about the 'female phenotype' of autism. I don't think there's male autism and female autism, I think there's autism and so far we are only good at recognising how it tends to look in males.
I like to call this the extreme male bias and talk about it afflicting professionals wherever they interact with autistic people 🙃
'Female autism' essentialises the lesser researched aspects of the autistic experience and again puts up barriers for people e.g.:
I was talking to someone recently who works on an autism charity helpline and she said they have plenty of initiatives aimed at supporting autistic girls now but she dreads the calls from the parents of boys as there's nothing she can offer. This is unfair.
Female autism also perpetuates the idea that gender is a binary and people have to be either male or female but surely by now we know that (especially for autistic people) gender identity is far more complex than that?
Too many non-males fit the 'female profile' for it to be truly female! And that's an ok thing, I don't think saying this stuff also applies to other people should be seen as a threat to feminism...
Autistic women and girls are prejudiced against because they are female, others are also prejudiced against because of their gender identities and for many other reasons, we don't need to play most afflicted top trumps.
I see autism as a unified whole not divided into subtypes. Sure there's many co-occurring conditions which are seen alongside autism and many autistic traits can also be stand alone conditions but I'm not convinced the complexity means we need to carve it up into bitesized pieces
I'm mostly thinking aloud here, other perspectives most welcome!
