GENDERLESS CONFESSIONS
Neurodivergent Gender Trouble
Gender is performance and I don’t like performing
I am 12 years old and one day it suddenly hits me: Girls dress differently from boys. I look in the mirror and I see my boring flat ponytail serving its purpose of taking the hair away from my face. I look at my clothes. They are also “boring”. It’s some random sweater my mom picked up for me. Pants… Are these pants in fashion? All the other girls are wearing bell-bottom pants (yes, this was in the early 2000s!).
“I… I don’t dress like other girls,” I suddenly realized. I was shocked.
But how is this possible, you might ask? How come I had never ever thought about the fact that girls dress differently? Well, I am neurodivergent. Something I know now, ever since I was diagnosed with ADHD and learned about neurodivergence, which has led me to recognize my many autistic traits (no official diagnosis of autism yet).
Neurodivergence is used as a wide term to describe many different neurodevelopmental conditions, such as ADHD, autism, and OCD, among others. It generally refers to any atypical brain functioning. In this post, I focus on my experience with ADHD and possibly autism under the term “neurodivergence”. Having these conditions makes it hard for me to understand and follow social rules and I can only…
