New Autism Magazine – Masking, Issue 1

Recently, I was in contact with the amazing Olivia Armstrong to do an interview for a new magazine, Masking. It’s all about showing autistic voices talking about issues that matter to the autistic community. This is great for everyone to read – whether you’re autistic yourself, have a family member or friend who is, or just want to be more informed. It’s well put together and well written, highly suggest a read!
Here’s my contribution, a section about gender bias in diagnosing autism:

“It took 19 years for someone to suggest that I might be on the spectrum, after years of therapy and obvious symptoms, such as meltdowns, growing up. These were labeled tantrums, and I was considered to have anger management problems. Girls are socialized differently, so if you’ve got a social disability and are being judged against criteria set up for a group of people who are trained from birth to socialize differently from you, there’s going to be a difference and people won’t pick up on it. You don’t fit their mold.”

“There’s theories out there that being autistic means I have a male brain. I don’t see how that’s possible, since I feel female and am very happy as a female. It feels kind of dismissive of my identity as a female to say that I must be male in some way to have the neurology I do.”

“For a while I was told I was possibly bipolar. This didn’t stick because I didn’t get the right sort of mood swings, but suffice to say it took a while and several bad theories before realizing that ASD fit me perfectly and explained everything.”

That’s just a small portion of the amazing autistic voices in this magazine, and I highly suggest giving it a read to support this emerging journalist! To show her you want an issue 2, show your support by voicing it on social media and liking her magazine’s twitter page (@MaskingMagazine)

issuu.com/maskingmagazine/docs/maskingmagazineissue1

 

 

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