Of course, no problem and thanks for reading!

I think your 1st and 2nd points are on the nose. I do not have ASD but have an official ADHD diagnosis and damn, did I have to jump through some hoops to get to a professional who could do a proper evaluation; small wonder people get fed up with the system. All of this transgender ideology nonsense just makes me more convinced than ever that we need way better mental health support...

I’m involved with the Reddit ASD community, and whenever this topic comes up, it gets super heated with half the people saying derogatory things about trans people and the other half calling those people Nazis. It’s a real clusterf*ck.

Not gonna lie... that sounds kind of hilarious hahaha. I won't participate but is there anywhere I could read those if I were curious? Just on like the r/autism subreddit, for example?

I think this divide is a clash between a few different symptoms of ASD...

With ASD, we’re just kind of stuck with these problems. Sure, we can work on them, but that’s really hard work, and we’re never going to be “normal.” These other “conditions” offer a framework for understanding ourselves that puts the onus on others, and on medical interventions, not on ourselves, and may offer some (false) hope for normalcy.

So, our propensity for skepticism ends up clashing with our overwhelming desire to fit in somewhere. Which one wins out depends on the person and their mental state, I suppose.

That is SUPER helpful, thank you for explaining! That makes a lot of sense... Seems like the word "gullible" could in this context, then, be broken down into several parts-- a part related to distress caused at having ASD (struggles with navigating the world and fitting in might make an individual feel desperate, and thus fall prey to cult tactics), and a part related to mind/body disconnect that would make it harder to tell when someone is bullshitting you about mind/body feelings and sensations.

I’m not sure what I hoped to accomplish with this wall of text, but I hope someone finds it interesting.

Lmao, that was me with this post.