Naoko’s Trans Log

Well. It was challenging to find someone that diagnosed autism in adults. After telling my mom about my autism, she didn't believe me. She said things like "You're stupid," and "You're crazy." Eventually, she agreed to help me find a diagnostician. She was calling around but no one was answering the phone, and those who did said they don't treat adults. She said that someone recommended her to check out AANE. She called me and told me what she had been doing. I was very happy, I thought she finally understood and abandoned her wrong perception of autism. Later that day she joined a meeting from a mother's support group. After it ended she called me back and she was talking in a different tone. She said, "I told you you are not autistic, you have no idea what those mothers go through every day, you are nothing like their children." I was pretty sad after that, I thought she had come to understand me, but she didn't. Autism is a spect...

My mom has been into pronunciation Shorts lately. I was studying Korean and she suddenly said, ”I have a challenge for you.” The challenge was to guess the country of the flag on the screen and pronounce it properly. I got them all. Panama. Qatar. Hungary. Cameroon. Then she found another one but for guessing the capital with the flag. Ottawa. Nairobi. Stockholm. When the creator said Stockholm exactly like I did my mom just said, “Oh my god, you’re—you’re amazing.” Even though I’ve told her about my autistic traits, she still maintains that there’s no way I’m autistic. My guess is that it is hard for a neurotypical person to understand the traits that are considered autistic, and that changing the weaknesses is not as easy as “learning to be social,” or just “stop moving my hands, head, and whole body.” I’ve been listening to the melody ”Overture” from the show Extraordinary Attorney Woo. With it as background, the show begins by showing many yellow rubber ducks and a blue duck betwee...

I have been planning on opening a public blog with this content. I think it would be nice to share my experience with others. I feel very lonely sometimes, and perhaps someone else is feeling the same way. And we’ve been fostering a dog! It’s cool to go outside to walk. I had never walked outside of my house just to walk and chill. I go from home to school to home. It’s terrifying, but it feels good. But I hate that she jumps on me. I don’t like being touched. I scream quite loud when she does it, it feels weird.

Well, it didn’t go well. I made a letter with what I wrote in the last post. I sent it to her, but she didn’t see it. So I erased the messages and waited. Yesterday I went down to walk the dog, and I sent her the letter from there. It definitely wasn’t the best moment, but I needed to tell her. When I went back, my mum was upset, she told me to go to her room. And so I did. She told me what I thought would happen. She said that I was just looking for whatever as an excuse, that I thought about it because someone had pushed the idea into me. She said something about winning the lottery with me, I think she referred to my gender dysphoria and now autism. I started crying and told her I didn’t want to talk anymore. I went to my room and kept crying. Today in the morning she seemed to have calmed down, but she was still mad. Later in the car, she started talking to me by saying that she didn’t want me serious all the time because of what happened last night. She then started saying that sh...

“Okay, so, I played yesterday’s movie because I feel that I’m different, and I wanted to see your reaction. I feel I might be autistic. Autism is a spectrum of traits that vary per person, not just varying degrees of ability. I have answered many screening tests, and the results suggest to seek help from a doctor. I am very thankful that what I may have is something called high-functioning autism, not as intense like the movie. This might be the reason why I don’t have any friends. Why I don’t want to talk to anyone. Why whenever I go to school or outside I get nervous. And why I’m shy, even around you.  But it is also why I get interested, and like learning so many things, like science, languages, robotics, art, and music. Why I am good with orientation and attention to detail. Why I hear and smell things others can’t, like the gas smell, and distant noises. Why I can come up with weird, but good solutions for problems.  I didn’t want to believe the results at first, because ...

  I think this is going to be a long one.   Okay, so, a few weeks ago I watched a video by one of my favorite science creators, Kyle Hill. In it, he said he's autistic, he explained his pre-diagnosis situation. I started counting with my fingers the similar traits I spotted in me. I eventually ran out of fingers. I counted a total of twelve things, like social isolation, anxiety, noise sensitivity, obsession with a certain topic (hence, why I watch him,) and fascination with dates and facts.   Up until watching that video, I had a wrong perception of autism. I thought it was a very limiting disability. But I had known Kyle for some time, and I could see that this clearly wasn’t the case. I let the video finish, and that was it. But now those 12 traits were clearly in my mind, and with a possible explanation as to why I have them. I went online looking for screening tests. I answered one, after another, and another. When seeing the results, many returned a high possibility...

Okay, well, now it’s been a very long time. I really haven’t felt any inspiration to write here, but it’s coming back. So, I started my senior year of high school in the US. The building was overwhelming at first, I couldn’t find my classrooms. I decided to walk around the school, I even used a compass, to orient myself. I made a nice map of where I had to take each class. The first day passed, then the first week, and I had no friends yet. I was placed in classes mostly filled with freshmen and juniors, I only share a single class with seniors. At first, I thought this was the reason I couldn’t make any friends—foreshadowing. One interesting thing I discovered is that I was not as dumb as I thought I would look like compared to people here. Many literally don’t even try to pay attention and get things done. In terms of what the school looks like, I started to make the next comparison: Mexican public high school - 1 Mexican private high school - 2 US public high school - 2 US private h...

Yooo, it’s been so long! I've not written anything in months. I really should have, because these past months were pretty remarkable. So, I've been living in the US for about 8 months. My mom and I landed in JFK with my cousin, who helped us with the moving. We stayed in a long-stay hotel while we found a new home. I was so excited to visit New York for the first time! We stayed at the hotel for a little under a month, then we moved to our new apartment. We didn't have any furniture at first, I had the idea to use a long box and other two small boxes as a table, lol. I didn't expect it to be so hot, I figured it would be colder than in Mexico, because we're farther north.

So, I have been highly unmotivated to write here, mostly because of laziness. But well, I'm back and I will continue writing so I don't forget stuff. This is gonna be a long one... On January 24th I got my birth certificate, and at first, it felt awesome, I finally had the identity that was always meant to be, but that also means that my past identity is no longer valid. So overnight I lost all my school records, medical records, passport, and more. To change all those to the new name and gender, I need an updated passport. To update my passport I need a letter from school with the new identity and photo of me; school denied to give it to us with the new identity if I don't update high school records first, which I can't update without junior high school records, that I cannot update without a passport. So this was such a mess. I ended up worse than before, I could have kept my identity as it was and just had to cope with it, but that is such a horrible thing for a tran...