Let’s talk more about tradition and gatekeeping because the two go hand-in-hand much of the time. In yesterday’s post, I mentioned how much I hate gatekeeping. In music, video games, and just about anything else. That morphed into me musing about traditions and how I was mostly against them, too. Or rather, I did not mindlessly support traditions that continued just because.
Here’s something I’ve been musing about for several months. There is evidence that autistic people are significantly more likely to be trans, nonbinary, gender nonconforming. I’ve talked about it with a friend of mine who’s trans, and we both have our hypotheses as to why there is a correlation (which, need I remind you, is not causation). I think it’s because when you’re autistic, you’re already a weirdo in the eyes of others. You’re on the outside/the fringe, and already look at things differently.
I’ll speak for myself. I was a weirdo from the time I was young. I was talking to K tonight, and we agreed that one of the good things about people being more aware of mental health issues these days is that labels can help you deal with things. I’ve said that if I had known thirty years ago that I was neurodivergent, I think things would have been much different for me.
I also think that having that different point of view is what led me to question so many traditions that others took for granted. Like gender. We accepted at some point that race was as social construct, so why not gender?
One issue I have because of my neurodivergence is that I don’t see things the way normies do. And I don’t accept things that others considerable unremarkable. Like I mentioned in yesterday’s post, it started with me realizing I was bi when I was in my early twenties, followed by the revelation that I did not have to have children. Actually, it might have been the former after the latter, but they were very close together.
These were followed by me always questioning my gender in that I felt I wasn’t a woman because I didn’t do woman-centered things, and I was roundly (and soundly) chastized for it. At that time, there wasn’t any talk of gender nonconforming or nonbinary. I was just a bad woman in most people’s eyes. I felt like I was failing over and over again at something so basic.
Once I started questioning, I could not stop. I like to tell the story I walked away from Christianity when I had sex for the first time. I had been told all my life that i would go to hell if I had sex before marriage. It was an awful, terrible, sinful thing, and only bad girls did such a thing (and, yes, it was more directed at girls/women than boys/men).
Here’s the thing about making up bogeymen. Once you pull back the curtain and realize the Wizard of Oz is a fraud, well, then everything else you’ve said is also suspect. It’s like when D.A.R.E used to say that marijuana was the gateway to other harder drugs. Uh, nope!
In the broader scheme of things, that’s what happened to me and society in general. Once I started picking at the threads that held together the fabric of society (stay with me),everything fell apart.
When I was browbeaten into thinking I HAD to get married and have children, I simply accepted it as my tragic fate. I never wanted it. I never dreamed of getting married or having children. I did not play with dolls except to make them have sex. I preferred stuffed animals any day of the week. I know many little girls dreamed of their wedding, but not me. It never even occurred to me that it was a thing–imagining your wedding, I mean. Let’s not even talk about having children. Still the best decision I’ve made in my life, by the way.
I cannot adequately describe the euphoria I felt when I realized that I did not have to have children. It was such a weight off my shoulders, and I felt high as the proverbial kite. I wanted to run around, shouting my glee at the top of my lungs.
That really was the realization that unleashed the beast inside of me. Once that falsehood was stripped away, I slowly saw the other trapping s of society for what they were. Again, if one tihng that is made out to be sacred turns out to be false, then how can you trust anything else that society tells you?
The first realization is always the hardest because you go from thinking that something is just the way things are to realizing it’s a complete fucking lie. I was talking to K about an article I read. Scientists have discovered that we don’t have one brain–we have two. Not literally two, but two different systems that act as one. So basically two brains. It blew my mind, unironically. something that we took for granted (our brain) turned out to be way more complex than we previously thought. It made sense once I read about it, but, man. It’s so out there. Like Pluto not being a planet.
Applying the same logic to societal norms, once the curtain was yanked back on one persistent lie (that as a woman, I had to get married and children), I started questioning everything. If that wasn’t true (and I had been told it all my life), then what else was a lie from society? For me, personally, I mean. Religion was a big one. That lie about sex being the thing that would send me to hell was beyond the pale. I could not get past it and walked away from Christianity that night.
It was such a deep betrayal. Even though I never really believed in the Christian God, I tried so hard to feel Him. I never did, and I had several years of rage, bitterness, and hatred after I left Christianity. Now, I’m of the mindset that whatever gets you through this life is fine–as long as you’re not actively harming someone else.
That’s all for now. More tomorrow.