One must also commit to the idea that autism is equally prevalent in both men and women and simply underdiagnosed for women, and that the reason young girls are typically better at masking the syndromes is purely due to socialisation and cultural factors.
silver-and-ivory said: I mean I think this might be true
anaisnein said: using today’s relatively broad definition of autism, this seems completely intuitively obvious to me, tbh
timtotal said: yeah, this seems entirely reasonable?
One could perhaps test this by looking at children diagnosed at very early ages due to being nonverbal, which seems less likely to be confounded by socialisation issues.
Then there are gender differences in schizophrenia, which presents at different ages and at different rates.
The hypothesis being put forwards is that you can tell nothing about the preferences, psychology, or personality of a group based on their genetic or physical attributes alone without knowing their culture and socialisation.
(The weaker version of this hypothesis is that you can, but the information is so weak as to be useless).
It would be convenient, but seems scarcely credible.
Presumably age at least has a measurable statistical impact, even if gender does not.
Well, we know that testosterone is not a placebo. The idea that it could have no impact on the relative rates of various mental illnesses seems, to me, absurd.
