Beyond the Binary: A Neuroscientific and Lived-Experience Critique of Deficit-Centric Frameworks in Autism Diagnosis and Gender Research

Two recent contributions to public discourse on autism—Professor Uta Frith’s widely circulated 2026 interview arguing that the diagnostic spectrum has become untenable, and Dr. Sue Franklin’s response asserting the primacy of a gendered corrective lens—each illuminate important fault lines in contemporary autism science while simultaneously reproducing epistemological constraints that have long limited the field. Both positions remain tethered to deficit-centric, externally-observed paradigms that underweight neurobiological evidence for masking and camouflage, marginalize the evidential authority of autistic lived experience, and fail to account for technological and multimodal accommodations now demonstrably available. Drawing on converging evidence from cognitive neuroscience, sensory neuroscience, wearable technology research, and participatory research traditions, this article advances an integrative framework that affirms diagnostic breadth, validates the female phenotype and advocates for frameworks inclusive of gender-diverse autistic individuals, and positions adaptive technological design as both research methodology and equity imperative. The article argues for evidential pluralism—the principled integration of neuroscientific, behavioral, technological, and first-person knowledge in autism research and support systems. The spectrum is not too broad; it is, at last, beginning to include the people who were always there.