Let's work on: LGBTQIA2S+ identity exploration

I was diagnosed with autism when I was a kid. My parents were very supportive! They worked so hard to help me adapt to the world and worked even harder to adapt everything they knew about parenting to meet my needs. They never made me feel bad for having different needs than many of my peers. Sadly, not all of my teachers were as understanding, and sometimes I would begin to think that I was “too much”.

I felt a little bit strange about my gender for as long as I could remember, but I didn’t know what to make of it. The strange feelings got stranger when I hit puberty. I was uncomfortable in my own body, but I wasn’t comfortable talking about it either. I really didn’t want to be “too much” or different in yet another way. 

I finally talked about it to a counsellor whom I was seeing for support with social skills. My counsellor told me that there’s an overlap between neurodivergence and gender-variant identities, and encouraged me to simply be curious about my identity without judgment.

I came out as nonbinary to my parents a few months later. They were a little surprised!  They also said that they were happy for me getting to know myself more fully, and asked how they could better support me now.