Well, of course, a non-autistic person cannot know what it's like to be an autistic person because they are not having their experiences. But that's true of all people to some degree. It's even true of other autistic people to some extent, as we are all a bit different. For example, there is a guy who comes to my improv group who has Asperger's, but he is very different to me. Totally different type of person. And he seems to not have a problem with sensory issues like I do, because he will happily hang out in the noisy bar afterwards, whereas that seems like a total nightmare to me.

Yes, I wrote my article based on my own experience. Sure, I phrased it that sentence as if my experience applies to all autistic people. But you've kind of done the same thing with your last sentence too.

The irony here is that we are both autistic, but have had very different experiences. Which kind of highlights my point that autistic people are different from each other. Just because I'm autistic doesn't mean I've had the same experiences as you or will come to the same conclusions about autism.