Using a social perspective to autism, I would appreciate if there were a way to classify someone as autistic without calling it a disorder. Yes, we have difficulties, but from a social perspective, a lot of them come from society being structured to meet the needs of allistics. They get guidance, acceptance, and ultimately privilege of a world that is designed for them, while we have to try to meet their expectations. From this perspective, we’re not disordered, but oppressed/marginalized. How does that make us disordered?
I agree that there are different levels of functioning, and that some individuals might meet criteria for a disorder due to autism spectrum characteristics, so that would be valid. However, many individuals would function quite well in a setting that was designed to raise, educate, and accommodate autistic brains.
Anyone have any insight or ideas on this?
There’s a theory that suggests that having homosexuality is socially beneficial, because it means you have some non-rearing adults helping care for the children, similar to why humans live so far past the ages where they would normally be able to bear children, since they can still help socially raise the kids. It’s been observed in birds, but there is a bit of disagreement over whether that’s the case there, or whether there’s some additional species-related complications at play.