I’ve only been tangentially aware of some of these debates. I was diagnosed as autistic in a clinical setting by a therapist I was seeing to work on coping strategies for PTSD.

When he suggested I might be on the spectrum, I agreed to diagnostics out of a sense of curiosity and intellectual engagement, in the same spirit he seemed to offer them. I ended up having a fairly good experience. I trusted my therapist, and I guess since I am the sort of white man with stereotypical signs of autism, he formally diagnosed me pretty quickly.

I only agreed to tests because I wanted to know what he thought and what the diagnostics suggested. I never used the diagnosis for anything other than as springboard to read about autism and other people’s experiences with autism — in an effort to understand myself better.

I did have one weird experience after writing an article about my autism. I got invited to a support group on Facebook, and in order to join, I was supposed to share certain details from my medical records that I thought were private and inappropriate for sharing. So I declined. I got really weird vibes after that, I think because people were questioning my diagnosis.

On the other hand, I don’t do (at all) well with indirect communication, which is of course part of my autism. So maybe I’m wrong; maybe they were really fine with things and I misinterpreted their negativity.

But whatever the situation, I didn’t join the group because I didn’t like the gatekeeping. And that’s a problem, for all the excellent reasons you point out.