now we talk about how girls aren't seen as autistic, because of the Boy Genius optic, but trust me, it's just as big an issue that girls aren't seen as smart and or that smart girls got unfairly clinicalized in ways that smart boys didn't. Lots of things that would get girls seen as defiant, were/are things that boys were simply allowed to be. Girls in lots of culture contexts simply weren't even allowed to be smart.

Finally, "not just boy geniuses are autistic, really mediocre girls are, too!" isn't the brilliant take you think it is

You have to question the gendered optic of "genius" to begin with.

Either there are mediocre boys who are autistic as well, or there are girl geniuses you are missing. Masking Discourse often assumes that autistic girls basically go bimbification or Stepford to pass, but that boys never ever do the same thing to fit in with other males.

Finally, I think some of it is that we normalized "weird smart girl" as non-threatening but demonized weird smart boys. Weird Smart Girl hobbies often just aren't even seen as autistic. Sometimes you don't get diagnosed because people around you don't see you as a problem that needs to be contained. I legitimately just got away with a ton more than a boy would've