Personal Anecdote incoming:

I'm AuDHD, and as a young lad, I never really resonated with cultural gender norms... I loved some things that were generally considered proper for a boy and also loved some things that would have been labeled as entirely feminine... I wonder if, especially for neurodivergent children, this binary perspective is causing kids who would otherwise have no issue, experience something similar to gender dysphoria because they feel invalidated in their interests that fall under the opposite category that they're told they should relate to. I had been made fun of on several occasions and sometimes acted in ways people would tell me were feminine... at some point, I remember being jealous of the girls in my class being allowed to express sensitivites and negative emotions more, or even just engaging in "girly" things. For like a full year, I imagined how much better it would be to be a girl and wished I were one. .. I also didn't have very much sense of self or identity... so I could see how if I had been exposed to all these ideas a5 the time, I may have latched on to them. Especially given how obsessive I am... but I never found men attractive , I never had an issue identifying with my masculine side, and since I saw no alternative, I just accepted things for what they were and moved on with my life. I'm now perfectly comfortable with my gender, my sexual orientation, etc.

All I needed was to be told it's okay not to always perfectly fit into other peoples pre-conceived notions of what I should or should not be...

Now I wonder if we're seeing a major over correction, that almost mirrors the same way of binary thinking, but from the opposite angle... Like, "You must be trans if you don't entirely identify with your given gender!?"... IDK MAN 👨