Girl, Interrupted

Autism Was Once Considered a Male Condition but as New Research Comes to Light, a Growing Number of Adult Women Are Being Diagnosed With the Disorder.

- Lauren Sams

HELEN HOANG WAS 33 when her daughter’s preschool teacher suggested the little girl might be on the autism spectrum. “When she started talking about the symptoms, I thought, ‘Oh wow, that’s me.’” Hoang, the daughter of workaholic parents, says her family was “too tired to notice or care when I listened to the first 17 seconds of Madonna’s ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ on repeat for hours, or avoided the neighbourhood children because I didn’t know how to play with them.” But that conversation with her daughter’s teacher was something of an “aha” moment – it sent Hoang on a “journey of exploration” that resulted in her own diagnosis on the autism spectrum at the age of 34.

“It was such a relief,” she says. “When I was told I was autistic, I felt highly validated. It was a relief to know I wasn’t alone.” While she was unsure how her family would take the news – “I worried they’d be disappointed or ashamed, or worse, that they’d start to treat me differently” – her fears turned out to be unfounded.

Hoang has just released her debut novel, The Kiss Quotient, a love story between an autistic woman, Stella, and her male sex worker (yes, it’s reverse Pretty Woman, and yes, it’s very good). “In many ways, Stella’s journey to self-acceptance paralleled mine,” she says. “Prior to my diagnosis, I put a great deal of effort into changing myself to fit in, and getting to the point where I could be open about my differences and embrace them was a struggle.”