Is masking a survival instinct?

Hmm.. Still don't quite get it - though I wonder if that is me. I have never quite fitted in socially and accept that. People think I am very clever - I probably am but not very quick processing so although I think things through more deeply I arrive after everyone else has moved on IYKWIM. Your interview analogy is hard too as I find interviews easier than most social interactions as the rules are more straightforward. At least I have learnt when people laugh at my Tibtom-ism they are mostly doing so kindly. So I guess I struggle with the concept of masking to fit in as I don't understand how you do that.

Really interesting thread.

Perhaps all girls are expected to mask, with that being a much bigger task for girls with ASD.
'Boys will be boys', they get a lot longer to learn to moderate their behaviour around others.

I mask because I got tired of being bullied and mocked - it has nothing to do with rape culture.

I don't know that it's true that boys mask less. My ds1 masks more than me. Hence, 'asd traits' rather than a diagnosis of autism.
I would think that in the same way girls struggle to get a diagnosis, boys who mask will struggle.

I think masking is about lots of different kinds of safety.
For girls I think that masking and echopraxis could sometimes look like going along with sexual behaviour that is unwanted.
So it could lead to being more vulnerable.
Plus the huge risk of suicide.

I would describe it as constantly trying to be someone else in a play. Imagine a film character that you really admire and think is good at handling life in the film, and you have her role in a stage production.

Except no-one gave you the script and you didn't get a chance to rehearse. You only find out you've got your lines wrong when the audience boo you.

It's like that whenever other people are around. Every emotion or reaction you have has to be filtered through "What Would Film-Heroine Do Now" and you have a constant, well-founded fear of what will happen if you slip up and respond too spontaneously.

Not to mention it’s doing all of that at the same time as sensory overload is going on. But only for you. Not anyone else.

Something like sitting in an interview in a second language while wearing an itchy jumper, with lights flickering, weird smells and an intermittent nearby trombone player. All of which is undetectable to everyone else.

Not sure it is only or mainly about rape risk, but certainly a safety in numbers element. I think there is a bit of a tit-for-tat thing in attention to other women that means you are either 'in' or 'out' if there is an unspoken tipping point consensus in a group where women hold sway. Men may compete more for attention from some women, without a huge amount to lose socially, whatever the women's attention to them/ liking/ social behaviour may be.

www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/costs-camouflaging-autism/

This is quite good at explaining it. It’s a bit like continually translating in your head what goes in and what comes out. Like being in a interview level of consciousness but for every interaction.

Mask or continually end up in difficult situations. There’s a much larger weight of expected social behaviour and understanding of nuance on girls/women. It begins getting more difficult with peers at about 8 and gets harder every year.

I don't understand masking. Do you mind me asking what sort of things you do when you mask and what you do when you don't? What was it you could stop doing in lockdown behaviour wise?

Having both an ASD son and daughter, I can see the huge effect of female socialisation on her. There's a whole list of things which are more 'acceptable' for him to do, and a whole list of things which she's supposed to be worried about.

You could argue that becoming a trans boy is the most extreme way of masking the vulnerability of being an ASD girl.