Theory of mind, as described by autism specialist Simon Baron-Cohen (1997), is the ability to (metaphorically) read minds. Baron-Cohen has postulated that those with a fully intact theory of mind can ascribe—or imagine—the mental states of others. Those with an intact theory of mind can imagine understanding, imagine emotion, imagine empathy, imagine audience.

Those defending their autism diagnoses frequently find themselves defending what they know and don't know, what they feel and don't feel. If one claims to be autistic and empathetic, one must be faking an adjective.

Essentially, the current medical discourse surrounding autism has concluded that autistics cannot remove themselves from their own bodies, their own brains. Lacking a theory of mind means lacking a conception of audience, means selfishness and egocentricity to the umpteenth power.

We autists are trapped in our hollow bodily shells, unaware as to why Jane is crying or why our professors need transition statements in order to understand our sophisticated and autistically-logical arguments. The audience portion of our rhetorical triangle met its doom in a freak accident of metaphorical proportions. We are oblivious. We are pathologically and rhetorically inconsiderate. We are mindblind.

Or, at least that is how the normative narrative about us goes.