LGBTQ+ and Neurodivergent

By Clarissa Enos Plagmann

In the last year, I’ve been doing a lot of research into ADHD and Autism. More specifically I’ve been following influencers and bloggers who are ADHD and/or Autistic, especially women (and men) who were diagnosed as adults.

A few of them have talked about how common it is to be on the LGBTQ+ spectrum and Neurodivergent. On top of that, quite a few (if not most) of the Neurodivergent influencers/bloggers I’ve found are also LGBTQ+. And if you google Neurodivergence and LGBTQ+ you can find quite a few pages of information about studies people have done connecting the two.

As far back as high school, I can remember having dreams about love and family, but they rarely featured men. Instead they would feature a woman (usually vaguely resembling a close friend) and I raising kids together. I remember having a few simple crushes, but nothing major, and I never crushed on people I didn’t know. If you asked me who my celebrity crush is, even now, I’d be hard pressed to think of one because I just don’t think about it or have those kinds of thoughts or feelings about people I don’t personally know. The crushes I had growing up were all on people I had had personal contact with and knew well. I had to know them on an emotional and intellectual level to even have feelings for them of any sort.

I remember at one point wondering if I might be bisexual, because I did still like men, but I also liked women. Eventually I discovered the word “pansexual” which means, according to webmd.com: “the romantic, emotional, and/or sexual attraction to people regardless of their gender.”

Many of you know I’m married to my best friend, a man, and therefore I am in a straight relationship. That’s why I’ve struggled for so long to share this part of my identity, because I felt like I didn’t belong since I’m married to a man. But LGBTQ+ people can still happily be married to people of the opposite sex. Nothing says they can’t be, and that doesn’t make them any less LGBTQ+. I am a pansexual woman married to a straight man and I love my husband and my daughters and my life.

I am still researching and learning and growing. I will be for the rest of my life. It’s just a part of who I am. So is this. I am pansexual. I don’t care about a person’s gender. I care about who they are as a person.