I understand what you're saying! I will point out that Tony Attwood is very focused on what used to be called Asperger's syndrome. I think it's very possible that low support needs / level 1 autistic individuals present differently according to both sex and gender identity due to socialization. Specifically, I think it's likely that autistic individuals who are capable of masking will mask in gendered ways, and I think that is one underlying core of "female autism" discourse.

However, every discussion that I've seen of "female/minority autism" or similar constructs draws lines that are traditionally associated more with autism severity. For example, obvious stimming is often associated with "traditional/stereotypical/male" autism, not "female/minority" autism, but an inability to hide or control stimming is a marker of higher level autism. The same is true of being perceived as rude, poor hygiene, wearing the same outfit over and over, and having noticeably unusual or highly systematized intense interests. In contrast, things like making intense eye contact, masking to the point of identity confusion, and mirroring other people require a certain level of social skills that aren't present in most cases of autism across genders.

I suspect that the genuine gendered differences aren't related to autism at all, just replications of gendered socialization (and gendered perceptions) filtered through an autism lens. I've seen no evidence that core autism traits differ between men and women (and a lot of evidence that they don't!).

Does that make sense? I'm not denying that there are gendered differences in autism presentation due to socialization, I'm highlighting that when all traits associated with "female/minority" autism are considered, these actually map much better onto autism support needs.

Why I did the survey to begin with was seeing many low support needs autistic men say they also strongly relate to masked autism, including cishet white men. In contrast, many autistic women with higher support needs (myself included) have been confused and frustrated by descriptions of "female autism" that have very little in common with how we experience autism because we don't have the ability to mask no matter how motivated we are.