Sparking the Conversation: An honest discussion with Fawn about being queer and neurodivergent

NeuroSpark is celebrating Pride by amplifying the voices of neurodivergent members of the LGBTQ+ and gender-diverse communities. 

Fawn Spark is a queer neurodivergent and late diagnosed autistic enby (non-binary person). They work as a Technical Support Specialist and have been a Queer Activist in Pennsylvania for 10+ years serving on executive boards for multiple LBGTQ+ organizations. They are passionate about inclusivity and acceptance for the queer and trans community. They enjoy hiking with their girlfriend and chocolate lab as well as spending quality time with their 4 cats.

Who are you?

I’m Fawn. I identify as a queer enby which is just an abbreviation for non-binary person and I use the pronouns they and she. I'm 29. 

So what was it like discovering your neurodivergence?

It was  really difficult but super enlightening as far as self-discovery and self-acceptance.  It was a really long process because I definitely feel that because I'm assigned female at birth, it just wasn't picked up right away (all of the things that I had going on).

I started going to therapy for generalized anxiety, and I ended up going to another therapist when I moved, which was nice because she was trauma-informed. Because I knew I had c-PTSD but didn't know the terms for it and that was just another stage of my neurodivergent self-discovery. Then I ended up going to another therapist that wasn't very queer-informed, and that didn't work out for me. At that point, I had a little more confidence to be like, “I think you're a great person,  but I don't think you're the right fit for me.” 

Then I found a queer informed therapist, and she helped me get my autism diagnosis. Actually, it came in front of me because of TikTok. That's been such a useful tool because after I noticed, “Oh wow. These are a lot of similar experiences I have!”  I asked her if we could do an autism diagnosis and she lit up, I think because she just knew… and wanted me to bring it up, which was nice. So she did my assessment. She knew.  She's also autistic, which I think helped. She was just a good fit to find someone who's autistic who is also queer. After she did that assessment, it opened up a lot of discussion about: less managing my anxiety and more reducing meltdowns; which was just a shift in my therapy experience. Now we're also doing… I don't know what you call it, but like autism “management” because there is no medication and there is no treatment.

What does that look like for you?

It looks like identifying things that overload my nervous system so instead of “meltdown”-- we've kind of gone away from that term a little bit. So now we kind of use the term “activated,” which is like my senses are overloaded, and part of my therapy journey was just learning to identify things that are sensory overloads for me. You know, realizing my capacity for social interaction on a given day, or even at work. Yeah, it's hard but enlightening. I've loved myself more through it, even though things around me have been difficult to navigate. It makes it just a little bit easier because I feel like I'm not fighting against myself anymore, and also not blaming.  I got to learn about other things like heightened rejection sensitivity which I didn't really think was a thing. Growing up I was always told I was really sensitive, and it just clicks a lot more that I'm like no, it was just I was overstimulated and nobody really knew.  I had trouble making friends when I was in school. 

That has also been a big thing of my neurodivergence. Once I learned about myself, I also got to seek out other people to build my resources–not even realizing that it was also a bunch of other autistic people. I just tend to gravitate toward those people that understand my experiences who also have c-PTSD or autism or anxiety. The autistic community is something else and it's great to have a community of people that really understand you and that your brain's a little different but that's okay.

Any advice for people wanting to show up as an ally?

My biggest thing for people who want to show up as an ally is to actively listen and accept our difficulties and that we might have to do things a little bit differently. That includes things like, changes of plans are really difficult; so I think people who want to show up should understand that clear, direct communication is really important to us. And reliability. Those things make us feel comfortable and safe. If we're put in a position where there's a lot of changes, reassurance is important. The other thing is processing time. Sometimes, I just need a minute to make a decision. I think anyone who wants to show up as an ally is to kind of give us your patience and your active listening and understanding. Because we want to be involved in social gatherings, school, clubs or

sports events  but you know, we just might navigate that a little bit differently.

So what do you like to do? What’s your spark? 

I like video games a lot... that's one big big thing I think allies should ask more is to ask us about our special interests because it makes us feel connected to you and we love to share. I like video games, I do art here and there, and I do tarot readings. I like watercolor, I sew, and I like crafting things. The video game community has been a big support too because I just find other neurodivergent people also really really enjoy video games.

What are you playing right now?

Zelda and Stardew Valley. 

Oh yeah and animals, my animals bring me joy. 

What do you have?

I have three cats and an 85-pound chocolate lab Cooper, he's probably sleeping. And we have a six

a month old kitten.

What else brings you joy?

I feel the most joy knowing that I have a support system around me that really knows me

and accepts me for exactly who I am. I think when you learn to not settle

for anything less you will have those resources around you. It will make you feel connected

and not pressured

What you just said was very powerful.  I'm glad you don’t settle.  I'm glad you got to that point. 

It was extremely hard because it has to do with boundary setting. But if you find the right people that

respect those boundaries, it's just magical. It makes you feel so light and warm. And even if you have those bad days,  just knowing that those people are there to love and accept you for who you are makes all the difference. I want so many other autistic people to know that there are so many people out there. That you don't have to settle with your support group.

Let me ask you this… is your support group mostly queer people? Because I feel like that's one of the safest spaces to find new people.

Definitely a lot of them, but I also have others that aren't (or I think they aren't) but I've just gravitated towards other queer people because it's a safe space and I do know

that a lot of autistic people tend to just kind of look at gender and be like, “I don't want

to fit in one of these boxes,” so that's helped too. I’ve naturally found other people who are

neurodivergent and genderqueer and they are different sexual orientations and different relationship orientations even. 

Also, being in a queer relationship has affected me and my social interactions, how I'm viewed, and how my relationship is viewed.

Tell me more. 

Okay. So coming out was a whole experience too. Actually, I came out before I knew I was autistic because that just tends to happen, and I didn't have the best experience in high school. I was out as bisexual at that point and got kind of adverse reactions from my parents. They didn't really believe me. 

When I went to college (and I think a lot of other kids can get this) whether you know what you're going for or not, the change in environment helps you kind of redefine yourself. When I went to college, I sought out an LGBT group. I wanted to talk to other people about this, I didn’t feel like there was anybody I could talk to and it was isolating going through that in high school. That's when I kind of got into being an advocate. I really connected with that group of people and that helped me flourish because if you have people around you, I feel like it makes you a little more confident to be a little more social. I got to go to these LGBTQ conferences for the four years that I was there. They saw that I really wanted to learn, I wanted to share, and  I wanted to be with other people that were like me. That taught me so much. I got to meet so many amazing people.

After that, I still found myself finding local organizations.  I implore any queer person to find their LGBT Alliance in their area. I implore anybody to just reach out to any local organizations for that because they are a great resource. 

It’s great that you prioritize “plugging in” wherever you are.

Yeah, and that's me giving back because I am now more settled in my identity as a queer person so now for me it's important to share the experience and the acceptance because I know there's so many people still struggling so much with their gender identity and sexual orientation. And it blows my mind that some of the parents are just so turned off to it and so in their own mentality. That was definitely something that I struggled with growing up; being neurodivergent and queer is having to always explain that my brain works differently and that I'm queer to my parents who are Gen X. It was really difficult,  because I got a lot of judgment from my mother. I was married to a woman at one point and that ended up not working out so I left. It's okay. It happens. But my relationship was definitely viewed differently I think within my family because everyone else has kind of

heteronormative relationships, so they supported me at first,  but when we ended up splitting up it definitely wasn't treated like a normal relationship. My father at one point was like why don't you just be single for a year and I really kind of read into that message as “why don't you just…. “

Be straight?

Yeah, be straight. “Why don't you just be straight, it would be easier.” And it's like, of course it would be easier! It'd be so much easier. So the fact that people think that it's a choice just blows my mind, because if I had a choice I wouldn't choose to live this life where I'm worried about walking down the street in certain areas holding my girlfriend's hand or you know, any of that. I don't only have to worry about judgment from other people for being neurodivergent and wanting to leave a social situation early, but I also have to worry about judgment and discrimination from being gender non-conforming and in a queer relationship. It impacts everything– my educational experience, my social development and connection, my work, and of course my mental health.  Being queer affects my mental health in a different way than autism… well autism is my mental health but it affects it differently. 

How has your experience been at work?

At work, navigating being queer at work hasn't been as much of an issue honestly as much as I  think my autism has because it's considered a disability. I think I'll talk about being queer in the workplace; that's been okay surprisingly for me;  I haven't experienced too much discrimination from it. 

So you’re out at work?

I am out and proud. I still worry about coming out at work because you never know how someone's

gonna react.  There's silent judgment in some workplaces that I feel.  I did feel comfortable bringing stuff up to HR, but it always still made me more nervous than the average person, I think, because I'm always worried that the reason I am being discriminated against is because I'm gay, and I have that on top of worrying about my general performance. Are they judging me because I made a couple of mistakes this week? Or because I came in late that one day?  You know, what normal people kind of worry about with their work performance, but I'm also worried about that extra subconscious judgment that I think a lot of people have and you don't know where they stand.

How do you manage those challenges?

I've just really started asserting myself and saying that I’m queer, just so they know that if there

is anything that comes up where I think I’m being discriminated against, I'm going to take it to someone higher up. It's really uncomfortable but I've learned to be just an advocate for myself and just be upfront about who I am. Either you're going to accept me or know that I'm going to be a hard-working employee, or you're not. 

What do you do? 

I work in tech support.

So you work from home? 

Yeah I work from home. I did work at an office for a while then the pandemic happened and everybody was working from home, so that was really good.  I also really enjoyed that as an autistic person even though I wasn't diagnosed at that time. So when I went into my new job that I have now, I did mention to my group when I was introducing myself that I was gay again just to assert myself.

I haven't had any recent problems with work. 

What’s your experience of being autistic at work?

The impact of being autistic at work. That one has been a little more challenging because I know that it’s reported as a disability when you do that. So when I originally got hired, I didn't have my diagnosis. I just noticed I struggled with over-stimulation of  being on the phones, and task switching was a big thing. My therapist helped me identify that those are my struggles at work because I get a lot of phone calls, so part of it was adapting to my expectations for work. We have these tools to log out of the phone queue for five minutes, we're allowed to do that. Basically I learned to just take advantage of those tools that my job has,  like logging off to take a break, I do that. But I also had to open up that conversation to my manager, which I'm grateful that he is so nice and soft-spoken and that works for me. Once I got my diagnosis, I was very upfront with him and I said I am autistic and  I told him what works best for me. 

Like what?

I told him I prefer direct communication and I might need to take breaks a little more frequently because it's over stimulating. And when I'm over stimulated, I am not going to perform as well. That was really nerve-wracking for me to admit to someone. I was really afraid of how it was going to be received. Luckily for me, it was received well, but I also do still get some comments even though he's very kind, he tells me “your call acceptance is a little low.” So I'm still kind of navigating that expectation, and how I might perform differently. Not that I'm not working just as hard, but my performance might be a little different because I have trouble task-switching. So now that I've laid that out that these are difficult for me,  it's been a lot better because he sees that I'm doing my work consistently, it just might be a little bit different than the other employees. 

So you didn't ask for any formal accommodations?

I did not, but that would be my next step. Again, this is all very recent for me to express this to my manager. If I felt that I was getting bad remarks about my work performance, I would probably (definitely) have to bring this up to HR and tell them that this is my disability and these are the accommodations I'm asking for because that has to go up the chain, of course. Where I worry too, is that I’m communicating with my direct manager, so he knows the expectations, but also I

don't know what that looks like to them when they take their stats and present them to their managers. How does that  look? How is he explaining that?  Am I okay with him mentioning to his higher-ups that I'm autistic?  I don't know how that's going to be received because I'm not in those meetings. All they see is an employee that has these numbers and they're a little bit lower maybe than the others. 

I feel lucky that I work from home so I can log off the phone and have a minute of silence to myself or whatever kind of sensory things I need. I have a sound bowl, I have little fidget things at my desk, I have a standing desk, I can walk around, so I've also made accommodations for me that my work can't provide. And that's from the self-discovery– the more I accept about myself, the more I'm able

make the environment work for me.

What does pride mean to you, and what are you proud of?

I'm proud of my journey. Of putting in the work for me,  because I'm no use to anybody else

if I don't put in work for myself. And that includes accepting all parts of my identity. That's pride for me– accepting all parts of you and being able to accept all parts of other people,  because it's not just you. If I want to be accepted for who I am, I need to be open and accepting of other people (so long as it’s not harmful.) 

Beyond acceptance, what about appreciation?

Exactly, yeah. I like that a lot because we're not we're not a group of people to be tolerated, we want to be included. We want all the inclusivity and we just want all the same things. We want to be able to work, we want to be able to have a family, we want to be able to have friends, and take care of our mental and physical health. I think anything that inhibits someone from doing,  that is just wrong.

I think during Pride Month, people need to focus on what dangers are going on for the community versus only just celebrating it. It originally started as a riot, so it was meant to address serious issues. So Pride, I guess, really for me is continuing to work on the things that aren't accepted but should be because we still have a lot more work to do. The trans Community is in danger. Seriously in danger. That needs to be the focus of Pride–  not just accepting, but improving and including.  I can pull up some other statistics like how many trans kids committed suicide, or how many that have experienced any kind of discrimination, or hate crime. 

What message would you like to share? 

Something that I read that I really liked that has helped me, is if I wouldn't take their advice I shouldn't take their criticism. 

Mic drop. I love that. Anything else you’d like to share?

You should love yourself exactly how you are and not settle for any less. Resources are out there waiting for you, and we're waiting for you. 

How can people reach out to you? 

If they have questions or they need help connecting with resources, I have lots. I can probably find if they have a local LGBT Alliance or a network online. Anything. If you have

questions about advocacy, community, or accommodations, reach out to me via email at the freewallflower@gmail.com or on Instagram @thefreewallflower. Also, @QueerFawn on TikTok.

What are your dreams?

I feel like they're what anybody else wants. I'd love to continue to work in a field that I like where I feel accepted. I want to grow a family and know that they're going to be safe, and I want to be able to pursue my hobbies freely. I would just love to live a happy healthy long life without fear of judgment. 

Wow. I wish that for you too. 

I wish that for all of us honestly. 

NeuroSpark is dedicated to celebrating this community all year long. We’re also working to create change and education. If you would like to share your story with us, please reach out to info@neurosparkhealth.com. Thank you.