Otter's Art + Writing

The [ original source ] for these is highly gendered.

Under the cut, I am retyping the original source in gender-neutral language, as atypical autism traits do not only appear in girls.

If you are Autistic and your autism matches this profile, it does not mean that you must be a girl; it just means your autism is a kind that often gets missed by traditional diagnostic profiles. These traits were commonly found by researchers in cisgender girls, but they are by no means exclusive to cisgender girls.

The traits are split into four categories.

I adapted this post in early 2015 from Rudy Simone's website. I had come out as nonbinary shortly after my autism diagnosis in 2011, and although Ms Simone's literature was vital to my diagnosis, I began to feel estranged from it even though it still applied. It frustrated me that it acknowledged that many autistic people feel "half male half female", but stopped short of acknowledging that we may therefore be nonbinary or transgender.

It also frustrated me that I had friends who I saw exhibiting many of these traits, but who dismissed Ms Simone's literature as potentially applying to them, even though it may have been helpful, because they were men (both cisgender and transgender). I felt frustrated that something as easily adjustable as the pronouns in the post left them unable to comfortably access the information.

So, I changed the pronouns. I did not change anything else about the content. Any other additions were explicitly noted as being from me (the typist). If you check the notes, you can see many varied people who understand themselves better now they can access this information without being misgendered by it.

The first academic usage of the term "atypical autism" that I can find was in 2016. It was not a term that I was aware of having a definition at the time I wrote this post. What today is called atypical autism was, at the time, exclusively referred to as PDD-NOS. I had two friends whose diagnosis was PDD-NOS; they never used or had heard of the term "atypical autism", even though it has become a commonplace term for PDD-NOS in the intervening six years. If I were to retitle the post today, I would choose a different term, simply to avoid the confusion; this post is about an underdiagnosed variant of autism, not PDD-NOS.

Likewise, the DSM-V had only been out for a year at the time, and information from it was still in the process of being diseminated. The Autistic community was still discussing our feelings regarding the removal of the term Aspergers and the introduction of the term Autism Spectrum Disorder. These things were not certain givens; many people had different feelings about them. Therefore, I avoided using either term, in order to avoid alienating anyone. This is the only other change I made from Ms Simone's original text (as, when said text was written, Aspergers was a commonly used and widely accepted term).

Finally, at the time I posted this, I was recovering from having been stalked and harassed by a member of the Autistic advocacy community throughout 2013 and 2014. She was fairly well-known and respected by the Autistic community in her country, and I feared that if she knew it was me who had posted this, she would work to discredit it and it would potentially not reach people who needed it. That's why I posted to a semi-anonymous sideblog at the time, and why I feel safe claiming the work now, seven years later.

Other FAQ's:

- It's up to you what to do with the information if you feel this post resonates with you. There is no set path or requirement. If you feel comfortable and able to pursue a diagnosis, I recommend referring to Ms Simone's original work as the inspiration if at all possible; I feel like most psychiatrists won't really take "some post I read on tumblr" as an appropriate source. Likewise, do not feel ashamed if you feel unable to get a diagnosis, either practically or due to the consequences of a formal diagnosis. If the information helps you take care of yourself, then it has served its purpose.

- Any judgement that is read into the description of the criteria should be directed to Ms Simone, as I did not edit the tone, sentence structure, or language used to describe symptoms.

- Meltdowns are called meltdowns; if you have ever had one, I feel you will understand why. It's not the same as simply a heightened state of emotion - it denotes a loss of self-control that I always feel mortified by afterwards. I believe the term meltdown is appropriate.

- My editing of Ms Simone's work has not removed or superceded the original. If you find the use of the gendered phrasing important to you, then the original work is still there, and far more famous than my edit. All I did was make the information accessible to people to whom it applies, who would otherwise have been excluded by said phrasing.

Thanks for reading and I'm so, so glad my post has helped so many people.