Early childhood
I first knew something was different about me around age 4. My mother had taken me and my sisters to a department store to buy us new clothes. My sisters outgrew theirs, and I fell down so much that I quickly wore holes through the knees of my pants. We were wrapping up and my little sister was fussy. I told my mother I needed to use the restroom, which is usually something I would accompany her to do in that context. But with a fussy babe in arms, she decided in that moment that I was old enough to visit the restroom on my own.
I remember knowing what restroom my mother expected me to use. But I also remembering that this was not an obvious decision for me. I looked up at those two restrooms signs and pondered which one was right for me, not just which one was I expected to use. I had no understanding of why that situation presented me a dilemma at the time. I didn't think as a 4 year old "wow, I guess I'm non-binary!" I didn't know the word non-binary, or transgender. I had no one in my life that was like that, nor was it modeled for me in any of the popular media that I had access to growing up. At four years old, I figured that's just something people wonder about.
That didn't last long. By age 6 I was well aware of the societal expectations that pressured me to conform to the roles and stereotypes associated with my assigned birth gender. I figured that people are told which bathrooms they use, and use those bathrooms, and that my feelings about who I was weren't important or relevant. The expectations were clear, and due to being Autistic, I was already doing everything I could to conform to the expectations I could divine. Conforming meant that people wouldn't yell at me.
Puberty
TODO
College
Mid-30s
Now
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