Kimberly Steele

I think for a lot of autistic people, myself included, it's because we suck at inferring other people's expectations from context. If there are clear, explicit rules that are at least occasionally (but fairly) enforced, then what other people happen to want from us is less relevant: we can point to the rules and they usually have to leave us alone.

This also, I think, makes us more sensitive to the sort of double binds you see in wokeness, where the rules can just be reinterpreted as needed, and so you can never be sure what won't get you in trouble later.