Autism is mentioned a couple of times in this thread, with a link to transgenderism implied or stated. The idea that autistic brains are more male is unfortunately popular because it gives existing prejudices a sciency sheen. "Women like talking, because ladybrain. Men like doing, because manbrain. Male-brained man said so. Has big forehead. Must be true."

The extreme male brain hypothesis comes from probably the most prominent autism researcher, Simon Baron-Cohen. It relies on the assumption that most autistics are male and its gender essentialism has been criticised:

Baron-Cohen is misled by an unpersuasive gendering of certain capacities or aptitudes in the human population.

Baron-Cohen and his team also conducted one of the largest studies into autism and gender dysphoria which claimed there is a link. However, it suffered from obvious selection bias: the participants were self-selecting Cambridge students. Many other studies also claiming to find the same link also suffer from weak methodology: small size, self-selecting, self-reporting, etc. I have not read the entire corpus of research in depth but the evidence for a link between autism and gender dysphoria looks unconvincing to me.

I'm an autistic male. It's precisely because I'm autistic that I see gender as a system of absurd and unjust rules. Autistics tend to have big problems when forced to do things that don't make sense. I have a feeling that what researchers see as gender dysphoria in autistic subjects may often simply be us doing our thing.

Whatever you think about TRAs in tech, please don't use 'autistic' as a synonym for 'asshole'.