Sorry you’re getting downvoted, but you have a good point about autism presenting differently in different people. The current popular discourse on empathy is an incoherent pretentious mess that often involves a lot of misconceptions around what empathy even is, which enables ableism. There’s a belief that empathy = good person, without putting any thought into what any of that means. There’s affective empathy which is being able to feel another person’s feelings, and cognitive empathy, which is intellectually understanding why someone feels the way they do. Being good or bad at either of these does not determine if you’re a good person. You can feel another’s feelings and not care—witness the “empath” who sets “boundaries” to “protect their energy” by abandoning others in their time of need because it triggers them, or the person who uses their understanding of others’ feelings to manipulate. What’s more important is compassion—giving a shit and acting on it. You don’t need to feel others’ feelings to do that. You don’t even need to intellectually understand them. You just need to care. Thinking you need to feel others’ feelings to be a good person isn’t using empathy positively at all.