Being autistic is something I have only realised about myself in the past few years.

Having a diagnosis, as of July this year, has helped me validate my feelings and experiences, and has given me a sense of relief that I no longer have a question mark over a part of my identity. It has also made me reflect on all the ways my autism presented itself over the years, even if I didn’t realise it at the time, especially how it has intertwined with my journey of discovering my queer and non-binary identity.

I can remember asking my first boyfriend if he would ever date someone the same gender as him, to which he said “no”. This was something I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. I remember that I didn’t really understand what was so different for him about dating a boy compared to dating a girl.

I could understand not being attracted to an individual, but for me, ruling out dating people of one gender completely seemed odd. We’re all people, and dating is about connection, and learning about each other, sharing your lives. In my mind, I feel that I can connect with someone of any gender, people are people.

A part of being autistic is struggling to understand aspects of social interactions, but this can also give us the power to see beyond social structures and norms. Now, I realise that the way I felt was linked to not being able to understand the social structure of seeing heterosexuality as the norm, and so I view intimate connection with people differently than most.

Asking that question to my first boyfriend helped me realise I was queer, and that not everyone felt the way that I did. Without my neurodivergent brain reaching out to question that social structure, I would not have realised I was queer until later in life.

I had a similar experience when I started questioning my gender identity at the age of 18. Throughout lockdown, I spent more time online and had explored a lot more content from non-binary people on social media, and had also watched the TV show Feel Good, which explores topics around gender identity.

I realised that I stumbled across another social structure that didn’t make sense to me – the assumption that gender identity must be binary. Man, woman, boy, girl, it all seemed too strict. Something more fluid, less rigid, made sense to me. This helped set me on my way to coming out as non-binary, and exploring using different pronouns.