i just want to swim with you

Do you know of a reliable and freely available online self-diagnosis tool oriented specifically for girls, women, and other female-aligned people? Most self-tests I find online seem male-oriented. I have read about recent research getting at the gender bias in autism diagnosis, but I have yet to find a freely available online test or self-diagnosis tool that seems to reflect this newer information.

Most self-tests I find online seem male-oriented. I’m not sure that’s true?  I mean...I don’t see how an online test can have a bias, as it’s just a computer.  The sexism bias for diagnosis comes in from doctors, who look at a female-appearing person and think “Well she can’t be autistic because she’s a she.” and then they give skewed results (unintentionally, but they absolutely do this).

But an online test is a computer.  It just scores the answers YOU gave, and that’s that.

For argument’s sake I’ll go pick one and go through it here and see.

Okay so I found this one , and it even says it’s for adults, cool!

I’m not gonna list every question, but I’m seriously gonna look for ways this thing could be biased in a sexist way.

2)  Do you talk to friends at a party the same way you would talk to co-workers in the office?

Okay yeah, this one could have sexism bias, because females are going to be trained by their peers MUCH harder to talk differently at a party than they would at an office, and that’s just females in general, and has nothing to do with autism.  You’re right, this question is super sexist.

3)  Think about your daily routine. Would you say you follow the same schedule every day of the week, and don’t like unexpected events?

4)  Are you always bumping into things, or tripping over your own feet?

Okay I don’t see any sexism in those two questions, those are just strictly factual and masking can’t cover them up or anything.

6)  Do you prefer to play individual games and sports like golf, where everyone works for themselves, instead of team sports and games where everyone works toward a common goal?

AHAHAHAHAHAAHAH “sports” are you kidding me okay this test gets an F for sexism

NEXT!

Let’s try this one:

1) I prefer to do things on my own, rather than with others.

That’s a perfectly good question!  So far so good.

3)  I find myself becoming strongly absorbed in something – even obsessional

Much better!  It’s asking about special interests, but it phrased it as “something”, so any answer of any interest would qualify, this isn’t sexist or even classist, I lik this one so far.

4)  I am very sensitive to noise and will wear earplugs or cover my ears in certain situations

5)  Sometimes people say I am being rude, even though I think I am being polite.

Still good!  I went through this whole test, and it was really well worded, wasn’t sexist at all or even misleading, I actually really recommend this one.

So...while I don’t know of any tests that are “female-specific”, I actually don’t think you want that.  I think what you want are tests that aren’t sexist, and just accurately judge whether a person of any gender is autistic.  

So avoid that first one, that was sexist as hell, but that second one was pretty good.

However, with these self-tests, I reccommend just taking a bunch of them.  None of them individually are very accurate, it’s just an online quiz after all.  But if you take a bunch of them and score as “likely autistic” on most of them, then that’s a stronger indicator you’re probably autistic.  And if you take a bunch of them, if a few of them in there are sexist or biased in some other way, it won’t matter as much, because you’re taking a bunch and going off the results of the whole, not just the one.

So that’s still my advice as it’s always been with these online tests.  Take a bunch.  If you take six and five of them say you’re autistic, you probably are.  If you take six and five say you’re not, you probably aren’t, and if one or two were biased in some way that’s not as big of an issue then.