Thank you for sharing this! Much of what you write here resonates with the experience I had growing up as an (unknowingly) neurodivergent trans girl in the 1980s, where the entire world was gaslighting me into thinking that I was a boy. I experienced a similar pain when I'd express my feelings of discomfort with being seen as a boy, and everyone around me would just be shocked and confused by the notion that I could be anything else. And I couldn't point to any evidence that I wasn't a boy, and so eventually I just got really good at pretending to be one. It fit well with my other act: pretending to be neurotypical to fit in.

Theresa Jean Tanenbaum
Theresa Jean Tanenbaum

Written by Theresa Jean Tanenbaum

Just your regular transgender, polyamorous, Sapphic, AuDHD, disabled, Jewish, witch. Making music, poems, stories, games, and trouble.

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