I keep wanting to tweet my thanks to you, Graham, but I’m still too scared.
As an autistic woman, who had short hair and dressed as a boy throughout her childhood, was never going to have children, and rejected femininity, what is happening now terrifies me.
I was a completely standard autistic girl, but had I been told I was a boy, I would have leapt on it as the answer to my problems.
I would have believed that the reason I felt if didn’t belong was because I was trans and not autistic.
I would have believed the rules as they were laid out before me, because I autistically try to follow the rules
I would have believed that I hated puberty because I was trans, and not because autistic people hate change
I would have happily given up my ability to have children, because I had no interest in having them
I would have changed myself to try to fit into a world that I didn’t fit into, not because I am trans, but because I am autistic.
As an adult this body of mine has given me children, whom I adore, and I am utterly happy to be the woman that I am.
I would have missed out on so much joy. I would have missed out on being me, and after all those years of discomfort and difficulty, I really like being me.
Thank you for speaking out. Thank you for having the courage that I don’t. I was a DV survivor, and my PTSD has never respected people’s pronouns. I am too afraid of the threats to find my voice anywhere but here.
You give me hope. I fear for the young autistic girls being given the wrong rule-book. I fear their sterilisation. I fear the consequences of my silence.
And to all the amazing people speaking up, you are marvellous, each and every one 