Foreskin Morbidity in Uncircumcised Males
Sneppen and Thorup, Pediatrics 2016
"In our patient population, we found that 7.2% (95% CI 3.4–11.0) were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as a concomitant disease (Table 3). A recent Danish study calculated the prevalence of ASD in Denmark to be 1.5% among boys."
Association found between ASD and childhood penile surgeries. This is reference 1, next toot has #2.
Ritual circumcision and risk of autism spectrum disorder in 0- to 9-year-old boys: national cohort study in Denmark
Frisch & Simonsen, 2015 J. R. Soc. Med.
"We confirmed our hypothesis that boys who undergo ritual circumcision may run a greater risk of developing ASD. This finding, and the unexpected observation of an increased risk of hyperactivity disorder among circumcised boys in non-Muslim families, need attention"
If you were waiting to buy my in-depth history of #autism and #neurodiversity, NeuroTribes, it's now really cheap at Amazon. The New York Times called it "Beautifully told, humanizing, and important." https://a.co/d/fDNysnr
Spring, ffs. There are songs, even symphonies, glorifying birdsong written by everyone from Paul McCartney & Fleetwood Mac to Frederick Delius, Vaughan Williams, & Messiaen. But, I swear to god, if you're neurodivergent/misophonic, some bird 'song' is the aural equivalent of being waterboarded.
Autistic and non-autistic transgender youth are similar in gender development and sexuality phenotypes
Fischbach et al. Br J Dev Psychol. 2024.
"Neither autism diagnostic status nor continuous autistic traits were significantly related to any gender or sexuality phenotypes. These findings suggest that the developmental and experiential features of gender diversity are very similar between autistic and non-autistic transgender adolescents."
Gran: “He’s never done any of it in a malicious way. Why didn’t the school system put in more filters, or firewalls, to prevent children from getting into that?”
County Spokesperson: "Threats to over 100,000 students’ safety, including hacking, will be met with the full force of the law and applicable District policy."
I'm trying to arrange a $93 loan for myself to be paid off Wednesday. It would need to be etransfer so if any Canadians can, help a home out and shoot me a dm!
I’ve realized it’s physically impossible to demonstrate how to ride a bike when the only bike available is one for 8 year olds. So anyway, he took to it quite well. Sat on it, wore the helmet with no sensory issues, even peddled forward-ish some of the time and steered. Balancing is going to be hard to teach. He’s sort of kind of got the concept of “brakes” but I wouldn’t trust him to use them. #autism
This has been said before, by many people, and far better than I will. But it bears repeating, probably as often as it can be.
Autism is a neurological difference. We think and process differently. We just don't work in the same ways as others. Most of us, growing up, are more than aware of this. But not necessarily why, or to what degree. We just recognise that we are different. But, this isn't exactly something that can be discussed. Often the feeling is nebulous at best, other times it can feel embarrassing and far too personal. But in any case, trying to talk about things like this, especially as children, is never going to be a particularly safe or wise choice.
So instead, we bury the feelings deeply and try to get on with life as best we can. This is normally done through learning to mask and in avoiding as much as possible those situations where our difference is made most noticeable. In fact, many of us get so good at this that we can wander for years, or even decades, through life without ever reaching the understanding that we are autistic.
But when we do reach this stage, it involves a process of coming to terms with it and understanding what it means. It requires months, often years, of research to come to terms with and to overcome the false stereotypes and ableism that many of us carry. This is what is called self-diagnosis and sometimes it is as far as we go. For many of us it is enough, or we have reached a point in our lives where getting an official diagnosis is not worth it. Or even possible. Many systems, whether on purpose or not, make it all but impossible for people over a certain age, or people of colour, or female presenting, to be able to get officially diagnosed. Or it is simply too prohibitively expensive to even try.
It is for this reason that the vast majority of autistic spaces welcome all those who think they are actually autistic, even those that are only just beginning to explore the notion, the self-diagnosed and the officially diagnosed. Because this is all the actually means, that we think we are autistic, as opposed to those who aren't, but who still want to speak on behalf of or about autism. It is also why the actuallyautistic hashtag and @actuallyautistic group are open to us all too, not to divide autistics into those diagnosed and those not. Because that is simply a distinction over the route to the knowledge, not the knowledge itself.
Much to my shock I realised that I could be autistic when I was 53, roughly 7 years ago. And it was a shock, even though I suspect a very small, well hidden and very much ignored part of me, might have suspected. No one told me about it, or suggested that it might be the case. I did not see myself in relatives, the way so many of us do. I just happened to come across an autism test online and for no particular reason, took it.
It was that, that started me on my path to realising and finally accepting the truth that I was autistic. But, looking back, I sometimes find it hard to understand how I didn't know earlier. So much of my life now, just screams autism at me. But even ignoring the horribly ableist and medieval view I had of what autism was, the main reason why I didn't was probably because I could mask, both from myself and others, so well.
It was, I realise now, a life lived in denial. A denial of how much things bothered me, how much effort I had to put into things. Even a denial of the things I knew I couldn't do. Because this is the thing about appearing to mask so well, for so long. It is, in a sense, a lie. I couldn't mask well, if at all. Not all the time. Not in all situations or circumstances. There were things I just couldn't cope with, or even begin to deal with. But the trick was, that I either knew about them, or learnt the hard way about them and then I could manage my life to avoid them. Because they were things I could live without, without affecting how I appeared to be coping. Things that didn't affect the way I lived, even if they did affect my sense of worth. Because, how broken did you have to be, not to be able to go to crowded events, like a sports match, or a concert? Or to be able to deal with the socialising of a large gathering, or a family event, without having to hide in the kitchen, or forever outside, or break down in a toilet?
It was all part of how I masked myself from myself. The internal masking, as I like to call it. If I couldn't cope, then I was broken. If I couldn't stand something, then I was too picky, or sensitive, or I simply needed to learn to ignore it. And somehow I did learn. I learnt how to cope with noise and smell and visual overwhelm. I learnt to not let things bother me. To a point at least. There was always a step too far, when I couldn't, or didn't have the energy any more to maintain it. And this did take energy, a lot of it. Something I've only realising now that I don't have the energy to spare to even try it. Or the ability to, in many respects now that I know what I was trying so desperately to hide from.
Because when the truth is known, it's far harder to deny it. It's far harder to live the life where appearing to cope, is as good as coping. Where blaming yourself, is easier than seeing others faults. Where ignoring the pain, makes the pain go away. It's hard to see the mask as a benefit and always a good thing, rather than the shield and tool it always was.
I am constantly feeling overwhelmed. I can't believe there are people who struggle the same as I do in situations like floods and wildfires, or trying to stay alive in places like Yemen or Syria or Gaza.
Autistic brains be stupid. Well, obviously not stupid, they just seem to work, or not work, in mysterious ways.
The main one that has always got me, about mine, is that I have no memory for sound, absolutely none. I can't remember a song, or a sound. I can't remember what my parents sounded like and none of my memories carry, for want of a better word, a soundtrack. I can remember what I was thinking and what others were saying, but not hearing them say it, nor any other sound. I also don't dream in sound, at least as far as I know. All my dreams are silent.
And yet, and it's a big yet. I have an excellent memory for voices and sounds. Like many autistics I have near perfect pitch, at least when I'm hearing others sing, or music playing. Just don't ask me to reproduce it, because I can't. If I meet someone I haven't met for a while, then I will almost certainly not recognise their face, or remember their name, but there is a very good chance that I will recognise them from their voice. I am also very good at detecting accents. Even the slightest hint of one in, say, an actor pretending to be an american, will get me searching Wikipedian to see if I am right about their actual nationality.
So, if I can tell the sound of a Honda CBR engine two blocks away, or a voice, or an accent buried deep, I must have the memories to compare against. And yet... nope.
"The real understanding for me, years now in the making, is that a tree in blossom is more than the fruit it yields, more than its own fleeting beauty. It is a network, a living system of relationships."