Girls are very good at ‘masking’, or imitating behaviour [meaning their symptoms may not be noticed]. Girls do this more because we’re brought up more to perform to social expectation whereas boys are encouraged to be more brave. Girls with ASD are used to imitating behaviours to camouflage and disguise ourselves in the hope of gathering empathy and not disturbing the expectations. I’ve had to suppress many anxiety attacks and squeeze my personality and make it seem like I have all my ducks in a row. A lot of features of autism are not in line with what it 'is' to be a woman. And girls get scared of that – like, does it mean I’m not human? No, it means you are human and you should just be you but social structures can be a torture at times and it’s made harder by the innate craving one has to belong. You want to belong, everyone does.