Wikipedia says that 1-2 in 1000 people have Kanner autism, and 6 in 1000 people have ASD. I'll assume for the purposes of my Sad Math Exercise that people with Kanner autism don't have the same level of language that I do. This obviously isn't true for all classically autistic people by the time they're adults--not by a long shot--but given that some of the non-Kanner ASD 4-5 in 1000 might have PDD-NOS and not have good language, I will just go ahead and estimate that 4 in 1000 people are ASD people with good language. I only want to have relationships with people who I can communicate with using words.
I only want to have relationships with women. ASD people are four times as likely to be male so that means 1 in 1000 people is a woman with ASD and good language ability.
I am a woman myself, so I must have relationships with people who are same-sex-attracted. According to Wikipedia, 5% of American women had "frequent or ongoing homosexual experiences" according to a survey done in 1993. This isn't really an accurate way to figure out how many women are SSA, because some SSA people don't have any frequent or ongoing sexual experiences at all, but for the purposes of my Sad Math Exercise I will pretend that the number of straight girls who do things with other girls for attention is equal to the number of SSA girls who don't do anything at all, and say that 5% of American women are SSA. 5% of 1 is .05 so .05 in 1000 people--.005%-- is an ASD woman with good language ability who is attracted to women.
If you add G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate to a planet's air processors, 99.9% of the people die of lethargy and .1% turn into Reavers. If I go to to a planet where there are 20,000 people and Pax has been added to the air processors, there will be one person I could have a relationship with, and 20 Reavers.
This doesn't bode well.
The flaw in these statistics is the assumption that you are equally likely to interact with every person on the planet. If you benefit from interacting with Autistic people, then you are more likely to look to spend time with Autistic people and try and find places where you can do that, be it through advocacy or a social group or a more traditional support group or the online world or what have you. If you are most interested in meeting Autistic women who have same sex attraction, than the most logical conclusion might be to try and find social settings where you are more likely to have an opportunity to meet people who would fall into that category. For example, by starting or joining a group or a listserv for GLBTQ adults on the spectrum or by getting involved in autistic women's groups or things like that.
ReplyDeleteHope you don't mind me commenting on this post. I saw the link on when of your newer posts and the error in the math occurred to me. Also, I like the Firefly reference! :)