ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. — For Feroza Mehta, the reigning Mrs. Minnesota International, the path to self-discovery didn’t involve a stage or a sash. Instead, it came at age 37 through a diagnosis that finally explained decades of feeling like an outsider: autism.
Mehta is now using her platform to raise awareness about how autism presents in women—a demographic she says is frequently overlooked or misdiagnosed due to a phenomenon known as “masking.”
A former TV news reporter, Mehta says her professional success in communication initially made the diagnosis a shock. However, she explains that many women and girls experience a “quiet” autism, where they study and mimic the facial expressions, tone, and body language of those around them to perform “normally.”…