If being neurotypical is the ability to successfully wear the mask of neurotypicality, without becoming exhausted or detached from your sense of self, then we can accept that it is possible for some neurodivergent people to wear this mask.
We can also say that it is sometimes beneficial (if draining).
Could we similarly describe autism as the ability to authentically wear the mask of autism? Or to experience the world autistically? If so, some neurotypical people may be able to put on that mask.
And I think it would be beneficial.
But the question must remain open: do ‘autism’ and ‘neurotypicality’ operate the same way — are they both masks of some kind? My instinct tells me that it is more complicated (of course). And that ‘autism’ refers (in most ordinary usage) to some failure to mask. ‘Failure’, because governing attitudes often disparage autistic ways of being, so it can feel like a failure in many contexts, though by no means all.
This would align with my experience in the drama studio. Moving the body with or without a neutral mask, but in a context in which the requirements of social masking are removed, thanks to the facilitator’s invitations or the mask itself. Here, rubbing their shoulder against a wall, balled in foetal position, moaning, whistling, gazing out the window, everyone seems a bit more autistic.