The Sexual Politics of Autism
Imagine you walked down the street and asked random people what autism is. What would they say? My guess: They’d talk about social skills, and the rising prevalence, and probably the vaccine nonsense. And they’d almost certainly mention that it happens to boys.
The idea that autism is a mostly male disorder is pervasive in the news, pop culture, and scientific circles. And it’s not just an academic curiosity. Last year a popular fertility clinic in Sydney, Australia, reported that about five percent of couples went through in vitro fertilization just so they could select a female embryo and thus lower the kid’s risk of developing autism.
The sex skew in autism is real: A diagnosis of autism is almost five times more common in 8-year-old boys than in 8-year-old girls, according to the latest statistics from the CDC.
But it’s not that simple. Most people don’t realize, for example, that autism’s sex bias changes dramatically depending on the severity of the disorder, with so-called high-functioning autism (a problematic term that usually means having an IQ above 70 or 80) showing a ratio more skewed towards boys. The ratio also varies wildly depending on who’s calculating it.
Read more at...