'Bodies that never grow': How psychiatric understanding of autism spectrum disorders affects autistic people's bodily experience of gender, ageing, and sexual desire.

This study looks at how doctors and society view autism as mainly affecting boys and children, which causes problems. Girls with autism are often missed or diagnosed late. Adults with autism are sometimes treated like children, which affects how people view their relationships and sexuality. The author suggests we need to better understand how autism affects people throughout their lives, not just in childhood.

This theoretical paper examines how medical conceptualization of autism as a male-centric, pediatric condition impacts autistic people's experiences of gender, aging, and sexuality. The author argues that diagnostic gender bias leads to under-identification of autistic girls, while the infantilization of autism affects adult autistic individuals' sexual expression and aging experiences. The paper suggests that autistic people's diverse bodily experiences challenge normative assumptions about gender, aging, and sexuality, questioning both medical authority and social representations of autism. This critical disability perspective highlights how psychiatric understanding of autism may inadvertently contribute to discriminatory practices and misconceptions about autistic adults' capabilities and desires.

Clinicians should be aware of potential gender bias in autism assessment and avoid infantilizing autistic adults. Recognition that autistic adults have sexual desires and relationship needs is important for appropriate support provision. Assessment and intervention approaches should acknowledge autistic people's experiences across the lifespan, not just childhood presentations.

This appears to be a theoretical analysis without empirical data collection. No sample size, methodology, or systematic data analysis is reported. The paper presents conceptual arguments rather than evidence-based findings, limiting the strength of conclusions about specific impacts on autistic individuals' experiences.

This paper investigates the intersections of gender, sexuality, ageing in the way autism spectrum disorder is medically described as a discrete category. On one hand, the construction of autism as a male-centric phenomenon results in a significant gender gap in autism diagnosis, with girls diagnosed with autism significantly less and later than boys. On the other hand, the focus on depicting autism as a pediatric condition exposes adult autistics to discriminatory practices such as infantilization and contributes to the disregard of their sexual desires or to the misconception of their sexual behaviors as dangerous or inappropriate. Both infantilization and the supposed inability of autistic people to "fit" into adulthood have a significant impact on both sexuality's expressions and ageing experiences.

My study suggests how fostering knowledge and further learning on the infantilization of autism can bring important insight into understanding disability from a critical angle. By challenging normative notions of gender, ageing, and sexuality, autistic people's different bodily experiences question medical authority and social politics and criticize the public representation of autism in the broader social space.