There's a lot a lot a LOT of resources out there about how children-perceived-as-female are routinely misdiagnosed because we're much much more strongly punished for not learning how to pass as allistic.
You were almost certainly working much, much harder than other kids: that counts as a "special need". But, as you say, whether or not that's true doesn't matter; all that's important is that it would make your life better.
You can do this, and I can try to dig out the stuff I talk about in the first paragraph there - in particular, there's a fair amount of stuff on the diagnostic criteria for adult women as distinct from default (i.e. male) humans that it might be useful for you to look at. (I don't promise I'll get to it any time soon - I'm kind of frantically treading water on several fronts at the moment - but hopefully the pointer at least can help, and I will absolutely be cheering for you every step of the way.)
Re: So what I needed to see this morning.
You were almost certainly working much, much harder than other kids: that counts as a "special need". But, as you say, whether or not that's true doesn't matter; all that's important is that it would make your life better.
You can do this, and I can try to dig out the stuff I talk about in the first paragraph there - in particular, there's a fair amount of stuff on the diagnostic criteria for adult women as distinct from default (i.e. male) humans that it might be useful for you to look at. (I don't promise I'll get to it any time soon - I'm kind of frantically treading water on several fronts at the moment - but hopefully the pointer at least can help, and I will absolutely be cheering for you every step of the way.)