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For those of you who are both queer and neurodivergent, disabled, chronically ill, and/or mentally ill, what challenges do you face as a result of being at this intersection?
This was inspired by a discussion over at /neuroqueer regarding ableism in queer spaces. I'd like to start a discussion about the unique difficulties those of us at the intersections of being queer and mentally ill/neurodivergent/chronically ill/disabled (MNCD?) face. Ableism from both within and beyond the community, difficulties transitioning the "normal" way, having to balance health needs with self-expression, accessibility issues, and so forth.
What are your stories?




I think my main problem is what's already been described in the post I linked. Namely, the invalidation of those who are both brain-weird and queer in queer dialogue with outsiders.
I'm multiple. Or perhaps I should say, we're multiple. We tend to keep quiet about this in most spaces, so we haven't run up against direct opposition ourselves. However, we have run into people who believe that alters are simply complex delusions, not people of their own, and insinuate or outright say that the queer identities of multiples aren't real, that they're just delusions as well. We know another system with DID who was denied a surgery letter for this reason, and have run into systems who have been accused of using their multiplicity as an excuse to "collect labels".
Speaking of which, isn't it funny how people assume that even if there were one "real" person underneath the multiplicity, that they'd be cis and het? /rolls eyes/ Though this seems to be a common theme for those of us with mental illnesses/neurodivergencies. We can't be queer and brain-weird: if we were just "cured," we'd realize we're actually cis and het, like a proper person should be! /s
Multiplicity interacts with us being queer in other ways. Some members of our system are asexual and uncomfortable around sexual contact, others... are not. We've already established that the entire system needs to be filled in in advance and on board before any one of us has sex.
A more long-reaching matter concerns transition. Some of us are female, the same as the body, and are happy with it as it is. But others are male or non-binary and very much unhappy with our body's current state. So there's disagreement on how much we should transition. Tentatively, everyone's okay with FtN bottom surgery, if we can access it. Top surgery is another matter. The guys and enby folks want top surgery, mainly because they're worried about the long-term effects of binding. The ladies also are worried about the long-term effects of binding and are okay with top surgery for that reason, but still wish we could keep our chest. Going on T to deepen our voice is the main disagreement, so we're first seeing how low we can train our voice without T.
Beyond multiplicity, disability's made it difficult to work. Which means little income to spare for hormones, extra binders, and so on. To say nothing of surgery. I also feel like there's this pressure on queer people to be high-performing in the capitalist sense in order to prove that we're good, productive citizens like everyone else, you know? So that's fun.
Gosh, that sounds exhausting! I need a lot of time alone. Are any of you introverts who need alone time from the others and find it a bit exhausting? Do those of you who need alone time have ways of getting it? (This is so not on-topic, and I don't even know if that's okay 'cause I'm new. Mods, tell me if it's not okay!)
Oh, definitely, on both accounts. We find each other to be easier to be around than external people, but there are times when people need quiet. We'll just ask for some alone time if we do.
We have an "inner world" that people can go to in order to be away from the "front". It's sort of like going into a lucid dream, only the body's still awake and there's someone else managing it while you're out. That, or people can simply sleep. There's some other details as well, but that's the gist of it.
You're always welcome to come by /plurality if you have further questions. If I remember rightly, they have anon on. You're also always welcome to come by /ninethlions... /cough/
Interesting! Thank you, that makes sense. :)
Well, for a start: I use a wheelchair, and my city's one gay nightclub is up a flight of stairs :/ Luckily there's another queer bar that is accessible, and more my cup of tea in general. Still, it makes me a little sad that it's nigh imposible for me to even enter the other place.
I have problems going out at night, and am wary of any mobile events that I'm not sure are wheelchair accessible at every point along the way, so I've never been to my city's Pride. (Although now that I say that it occurs to me that as long as I'm not in the parade I probably wouldn't have to move very much. Hmm!) I have been to Pride related events that were during the day and in one place, and that was nice, though they are usually held in this one park that has some inaccessible parts.
I tend to avoid rallies because of accessibility worries and also the fact they're so long and tiring.
My health problems also make it basically impossible for me to bind, which is frustrating!
Being in a wheelchair makes people see me as a non-sexual non-gendered blob, especially since I'm also fat and getting older, which is kind of wierd as an asexual non binary afab person. Sometimes it's actually kind of freeing, like I'm almost invisible and the usual male gaze etc passes right over me. Other times it feels gross and frustrating.
As for my mental health problems...hmm. Nothing quite as blatant, but my anxiety certainly didn't help with that self doubt of Am I Just Faking. And my physical and mental health problems combine in complex ways with my asexuality, it's basically impossible to say where one stops and the other begins.
Having to open with "Hello I am asexual, poly, non binary, crazy, largely housebound, and in a wheelchair" doesn't make it easy to date, lol.
I'm autistic and honestly the only thing I'm sure of is that I'm about 500 times slower to figure out when people are being queerphobic at me.
Like, when I was in my twenties my girlfriend and I stayed overnight with a het couple, and it didn't occur to me that the dude was being hostile because we were queer and not just because I was a socially incompetent weirdo.
Something I find difficult is, I'm kind of forced to come out as queer and poly to my support workers, and if my girlfriend is staying with me she has to come out as trans and queer to them. Because when someone else is in the house you can't hide it, and you never know when a support worker is going to ask, "so are you seeing anyone?", and my girlfriend doesn't pass and I'm not going to misgender her and use her deadname...
All of my support workers have been pretty awesome, to be fair. The last one I told was the most awkward - they spoke for about 5 minutes, no breaks for air, about how accepting and okay with queer stuff and trans stuff they were. For sure it could be a lot worse. :D I think the person in charge of allocating my support workers has been choosing people who're cool and who are able to use my pronouns correctly! But yeah, it can be unpredictable, and coming out is always exhausting.
Enh, we're multiple too, but you know that. :p We lied and cheated our way through transition, and I have no ethical quandary with this. I've also generally found to just have trouble in queer spaces in general--pronoun problems (even trans groups can get douchey about non-binary pronouns, and we go by 'they'), disability stuff, that kinda thing.
--Rogan
Okay so the hardest moment for me is having a hypomanic episode together with extreme gender dysphoria. I'm freaking out because I think I'm having another mixed episode (they're the worst, not talking about getting them in general though, the question was about queer+nd). Thinking of it I'd say having an actual mixed episode and gender dysphoria is even worse.
A more general problem are (queer) events. I'm having the poor + eating dissorder checkpot (not double checkpot, because I can use the stairs and I have seen the locations)
And of course there is this huge ableist language problem, but thats universal.
On a daily basis I noticed that to the most people I'm either out at queer or as nd. It's hard enough fighting one stigma and I'm having the "privilege" that I can mostly hide having bipolar (with psychosis),eating dissorder, ptsd and something my psych is not sure if its ocd or perfectionism or the ptsd :p
At the same time this costs a lot of energie. I'm genderqueer and bisexual and I'm afraid of telling people who know this (either because I told them or because, well the genderqueer part is sometimes pretty visible) that I'm nd. Odds are high that there will be a discussion about whether my gender is 'just' a protection of the nd. Allthough I think it's absolutely valid having a gender because of or shaped by your nd, and I'll fight everyone trying to make fun of it or similar, but it's simply not the case for me. At least not in the way they think of (that I'm mostly kind of grey ace and only during episodes bi_sexual is another point, and one that I don't want to discuss with people asking intimidating questions)
And I'm sick and exhausted from having to give a 101 lession on entitled non-nd and/or non-queer people who think they can ask me this kind of questions. (Of course there should be room for this kind of questions, but that's not the moments I'm talking about)
I'm nonbinary and have chronic fatigue due to my Guillain-Barré syndrome, and one noticeable thing is just how much more fatiguing interactions with other people become when I'm being misgendered. Gritting my teeth through the dysphoria and/or summoning the courage to correct people uses up extra spoons, which in turn makes it harder for me to process the conversation and advocate for myself in other ways (say, asking the questions I needed to ask about a new treatment during a medical appointment). I'm not very good at coming out to people in person, so when I see a new specialist I usually write them a letter to tell them about my title and pronouns - but this adds up to a lot of paperwork, and it's still touch-and-go whether they'll listen or not. The NHS system also seems to have some technical issues when it comes to dealing with people with no specified sex marker - every time I call the 111 helpline they have a lot of trouble finding my medical records, and they've told me before that it's because my sex marker isn't specified.
The other big thing, which was a problem for me even pre-Guillain-Barré, is fear of dating new people. Along with being trans, I'm a survivor of sexual assault and have various sexual dysfunction conditions, and each one of those comes with a bunch of disclosure and... rearranging of the other person's expectations. Until I've had those conversations, I feel afraid that they're only attracted to me because they think I'm a woman, and that they're expecting kinds of sex I can't deliver and/or to have sex much sooner than I would be comfortable with. I don't want to just dump all of that on them all at once and end up scaring them off - but leave it too late and, well, we all know just how badly some people will react if they find out you've been "lying about your gender" or "denying sex after leading them on" ...so that's another cause for fear. I'm just glad things have worked out okay for me and that I'm settled enough in my relationships not to have to worry about that shit right now >.<.
no spoons for a long text, others have already said the most things, but i wanted to add that neurodivergency can affect gender and sexuality. so for example my nonbinary gender is very much shaped by the fact that i am autistic and have adhd. my asexuality is shaped by the fact that i have ptsd and that i'm autistic.
these things are real and often the queer community doesn't accept that