Gaydar

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So, I'm a queer sixteen-year-old girl (who asked a question a few weeks ago on this forum about being asexual). I've known that I wasn't straight for a few years now, and am pretty comfortable with it.
I've been aware of the concept of "gaydar", being able to tell if people are straight or gay/bi/etc. for a while now, but for some reason I never really believed that was a thing. Because other than playing off of blatant stereotypes, I've never been able to tell someone's sexuality (in fact, I'm usually wrong). But recently I was talking to some of my NT queer friends and the topic came up. Apparently they can all tell others' sexualities pretty accurately.
So that got me wondering. Is there any chance my broken gaydar is autism-related? Do any of you have the same difficulties telling peoples' sexualities, or is it just me?

I'm bisexual and have the same problem. Sometimes I have a suspicion if they have some stereotypical traits, like a male with a higher-than-average voice, but I'm pretty much clueless otherwise. It sucks, because apparently it's really easy to hook up with other men, but I can't tell who's of a different sexuality and open to that.

i have the opposite. i can't tell anyones sexuality and never have any presumptions about it. hell there was a really camp guy i knew back in school and i still couldn't tell he was gay (which he was, confirmed). hell one of my worst bullies in primary school turned out to be gay, he even has a boyfriend. never picked up on that either, even though he was quite camp during primary school (all the parents suspected it)

I think it's about sending and receiving social cues. I've learned some of them over the years, so I believe it can be done. I think there's a big difference between having clues about what someone finds attractive in general and knowing how they feel about me specifically.

I tend to put out a lot of signals about being open-minded. I would rather get to know what's unusual about people, anyway. I think this helps, since it gives people an opening and it makes me pay attention to what they're hinting at. If I'm not paying attention, I'll probably miss the cues. I think a lot of managing social situations comes down to paying attention to the right things, and believing the signals even when they don't make logical brain sense.

I had a girlfriend years ago who dubbed my abilities in this respect "greydar."
I cannot even understand that another person is actively and not at all subtly hitting on me, let alone detect the subtleties of anyone else's sexuality without, as you say, resorting to tired stereotypes which really mean nothing.
Take the whole "metrosexual" thing - straight men who act like gay men. Then there are bears - the blokiest blokes you'll ever meet, gayer than a fruitcake. There are femme "lipstick" lesbians who project straight and so on.
I think there are your more obvious cases - camp queens who "Daaaaarling" you, or your classical stone butch dyke-on-bike, but I think this has shifted as societies become more comfortable with a mixed expression.
I do however think autism comes into this - detecting sexuality has to be at least in some ways based on social cues, and many autistics are blind to this form of communication - I know I am.

It's possible. Mine is horribly broken, as well. I also have the 'greydar' problem that C2V mentioned. I can't tell when folks are hitting on me, except when men do it. Or it may just be that men are the only ones I attract (but I'm not attracted to cis men). I try to pick up on the stereotypical stuff, but it often fails me.

I have no gaydar. It does seem to be a real thing for other lgbt folk though, so I assume my lack of it is down to being autistic.

I generally don't try to guess or assume someone preferences because that leads to problems heh

I can, rather frequently, tell if someone is gay.

I don't bring it up to that person, though....unless the person brings it up.

More interesting question: Can people tell that you are gay? Like all the gay aspies? I get mixed responses, some say they can tell, others are much less certain.