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Life Timelines and Milestone Shifts in Transgender & Neurodivergent Folk
May 2023
Disclaimer: I’m by no means trying to claim my experience as The Trans & Neurospicy Experience. I know many T&ND folk who had similar experiences with traumatic schooling and timeline delays to me, and these are the folks I’m seeking solidarity with in this article. Maybe you’ll find yourself in here, or maybe not, I’m not trying to speak for you, just for me.
Older cishet neurotypicals love to romanticise high school. “Enjoy it while it lasts, because these will be the best years of your life!” they told me. I was in high school at the time and hoped to God they were wrong, because I was Different To All The Other Kids, so every single day was torture. I was like Sisyphus, if he were an undiagnosed-autistic, non-hetero trans-egg of colour, and the rock was my mental health. It was all downhill from there, apparently, but I was already at the bottom of the hill — would they hand me a shovel along with my ATAR?
There was always a partly-hopeful, partly-desperate feeling that my life would begin after high school, and thankfully, that was the case. A graduation, time, a hatched egg and some awakenings later, my life began. Again, sort of.
When you’re a person who realised your T&ND identity as an adult, your life timeline doesn’t look the same as everybody else’s. There’s a developmental delay because once you figure out who you are, you need (and deserve) time to play around in…
