I am queer and disabled. Guess which one I knew about first?
My answer is: I was aware of both by the time I entered Kindergarten, but I didn't have the words to describe my lived experience until I was a teenager. More words and nuance have been evolving conversation with myself and others into the present.
I am old enough to have lived through the reclamation of the word "queer" and the devastation of GRID--and then AIDS. Exploring my budding sexuality was terrifying because there was so much we didn't know about transmission at first, coupled with politicized--and weaponized--mis/disinformation about who was susceptible and why. Concerned parents had something extra to worry about when their kids started dating. Church-going folks wrestled with morality and who was deserving of grace, based on how the disease was acquired. Health clinics faced lethal threats and near-constant protests, and were staffed by lovers and friends and a few allies willing to touch and treat and try and traffic. Health Officials were caught between a rock and a hard place; abstinence isn't practical, barrier protection and "pulling out" isn't fool-proof, out of pocket costs for testing wasn't always affordable--and doing so could mean losing your health insurance--and everything else, people aren't always up-to-date or honest about their current disease status, circulating the most then-current information collided with laws governing free speech versus those limiting pornography. The way we used to handle blood donations made accepting transfusions a matter of uncertainty. Politicians were quick to redirect public outcry about the growing epidemic to already marginalized communities until a good friend of The Man in Office made his diagnosis public when he couldn't hide the wasting and the spotting anymore.
I thought it was weird that the adults around me romanticized and sexualized my friends of all genders. The little boy up the street was someone my mother had introduced me to, so we could walk or bike to school together or wait for each other at the bus stop. Holding another friend's hand or hugging them was my way of expressing my appreciation for their place in my life. Wanting to have same-sex slumber parties was us wanting to stay up late, tell scary stories, play silly games, and gossip about our classmates. Playing sports was — and is — fun, and winning or losing with grace is a skill anyone can learn. Changing how I dressed was more a function of what was clean, the weather that day, how I was feeling, and whether I was running late. My consumption of popular media was restricted to the pieces I was learning to play on the piano, the news, documentaries, oldies and classics, and cartoons unaffiliated with toys, as well as All Things Space, which kept me out of touch with my peers. It never really occurred to me that I should want to do things for or to impress the boys who were teasing or bullying me--let alone kiss them. As for the girls, I didn't understand why they went along to get along or why they would be my friend one minute and bad-mouthing me the next, despite my questions or corrections. The adult versions weren't much different, but they had power and influence, and could pull me out of class for Yet Another Series of Tests, which only made my peers gossip, tease, or bully me more.
I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. I was perfectly fine by myself, engaging with my imagination and expressing what I was experiencing through art. Was I lonely? Sure, but I didn't like the way my peers treated me or each other based on arbitrary attributes, and few were interested in joining me in my imaginative play. Sometimes, when I would engage my teachers or other adults in conversation, there were those moments where they realized they were speaking with a child. Education was highly valued in the home; reading was one of the few activities permitted outside of chores or child-rearing, aside from schoolwork. The words I used and what I could discuss authoritatively were beyond my physical age. Then there was my rapport with animals; I seemed to know when it was safe to approach or what was needed to ease distress within moments of an encounter to the point it became a point of family pride. I kept testing visually. I continued testing, and I found that spiky, precocious reading does not always have a corresponding level of comprehension. Additionally, dyslexia can make solving higher math equations a nightmare. I acquired new labels about being underachieving because of what seemed to be an uneven ability to apply myself across all school subjects. Cue more interventions and more restrictions, which only scored me more teasing and more bullying by my peers. These actions did nothing but turn me further inward, to the point where I chose to regress so that I could meet a minimum set of needs. I was too busy trying to survive in a home, school, and community that seemed to have nothing but contempt for me when I was trying to exist.
I started to identify as bisexual in my late teens because I didn't know how to describe my internal attraction experience and how that mapped to gender and social hierarchies. I rejected the latter outright; punk rock, existential, and anarchist literature, and their discussions of class struggle, helped that along. An accident of birth and access to resources does not make one better than another. Where I was raised was also Ground Zero for medical privacy, safer sex practices, drug trials, whistle patrols, equal treatment under the law and between consenting adults, and protections for those who were or who would become disabled, no matter the cause. It didn't seem to matter to me what was underneath anyone else's clothes--I seldom experienced attraction straight away--and I bristled at the pressure to find a mate and start a family sooner rather than later because of my sex and gender.
That the way I experience the world might be atypical... I didn't start to untangle that until and after failed friendships and intimate partner violence, stalled career growth, meeting other adults who experience the world in similar ways, consuming studies and literature exploring neurodevelopmental differences, and in discussion with trusted medical professionals.
I was born this way. Navigating a hostile world not built for me has only disabled me further. Other than the words I have written here, you might never know.
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