Late to the Party: Finding My Place as a Queer, AuDHD Woman

I didn't realise I was queer until my late 30s. I wasn't diagnosed as AuDHD until my early 50s.

Looking back, both discoveries explain so much about my life.

Born in 1973, I grew up in a world where being straight wasn't simply expected; it was assumed. The possibility that I might be anything else never really entered my mind. At the same time, the signs of autism and ADHD were there all along.

I always felt different.

Friendships seemed to come naturally to other children while I struggled to understand the unspoken rules. I watched people closely, trying to work out how they connected with one another. It felt as though everyone else had been handed a manual for life and I'd somehow missed out.

So I learned to observe. I learned to mimic. I learned to fit in.

And fitting in meant assuming I was straight.

Yet there were clues.

I was always drawn to strong women. As a child, I admired tennis legend Martina Navratilova. At the time, I convinced myself it was because she was left-handed like me. But there was more to it than that. I was fascinated by her strength and confidence, qualities I saw in other women I admired, from Lindsay Wagner's Bionic Woman to Jo from The Facts of Life, Elyse from Family Ties and, later, Xena.

It's fair to say that understanding who I am has been a long and winding journey.

I didn't necessarily want to be them. I wanted to be near them.

Like many women of my generation, I followed what I believed was the expected path. I married a man. There were good times, but over the years something never felt quite right. Physical intimacy often felt uncomfortable and confusing. I assumed the problem was me. Maybe I wasn't trying hard enough. Maybe I was simply built differently.

By my late 30s, things began to change.

Watching Xena: Warrior Princess unexpectedly opened a door I hadn't known existed. For the first time, I saw characters whose relationships hinted at something deeper than friendship. It stirred feelings I had spent years ignoring.

Gradually, I began to understand myself differently.

In 2012, I left my marriage and entered a relationship with a woman.

The emotional connection felt profound. For the first time, I felt truly understood. And something else surprised me: sex ceased being an obligation and became something exciting.

Although that relationship eventually ended, it changed my life forever.

I could no longer ignore that I was attracted to women.

At the same time, I still found men attractive. Over time, the label that felt most accurate for me was bisexual, though today I often use the broader term queer.

The challenge was that I had no queer community.

Most of my friends were straight, and I felt as though I was starting from scratch. I immersed myself in podcasts, books, films and television. Dan Savage became a regular companion in my headphones. I devoured The L Word and cried along with millions of other viewers when Dana died.

Still, learning about community isn't the same as belonging to one.

Eventually, I gathered the courage to join a queer women's book club.

I was terrified.

The familiar feeling returned. Everyone else seemed to know the rules. Everyone seemed more certain of who they were than I was.

As a bisexual woman entering a predominantly lesbian space, I worried I wouldn't belong. I'd heard stories of bisexual women being viewed with suspicion in some parts of the community. The result was a lingering sense of imposter syndrome. Was I queer enough? Did I deserve to be there?

Thankfully, those fears eased over time.

Friendships formed. Conversations deepened. Community grew.

But even now, there's still a part of me that sometimes feels like I arrived late.

I spent decades identifying as straight and benefiting from the privileges that came with being straight-passing. I wasn't part of Sydney's lesbian scene in earlier decades. I wasn't among the women who fought battles for visibility, acceptance and equality. I didn't experience much of the discrimination that previous generations endured.

Because of that, I often feel immense gratitude.

The ability to walk hand-in-hand with my partner in public is not something I take for granted. It exists because of the courage and resilience of those who came before me.

Sometimes I think of my queer journey as arriving late to a party.

Everyone else seems comfortable. People are chatting in groups, sharing stories and memories built over years. Meanwhile, I'm standing near the doorway trying to work out where I fit.

The difference today is that I no longer see that as a failure.

It's simply part of my story.

Receiving my AuDHD diagnosis has helped enormously. It gave me a framework for understanding the confusion, social anxiety and sense of otherness I've carried throughout my life.

And it reinforced something else I've come to believe strongly: labels matter.

People often say labels aren't important. They tell me that a label doesn't change who I am.

I understand the sentiment, but I think it misses the point.

“Labels didn’t limit me. They gave me somewhere to begin. A way to understand myself and finally find where I belonged.”

Labels aren't prisons. They're starting points.

They're umbrellas that shelter enormous diversity beneath them. They provide language for experiences that once felt confusing and isolating. They help us find community and discover people with similar stories.

Being bisexual doesn't define every part of who I am, but it helps me explain how I experience attraction.

Being AuDHD doesn't tell you everything about me, but it helps make sense of how I move through the world.

These labels haven't restricted me. They've helped me understand myself.

And perhaps that's what finding identity is really about.

Not reaching a final destination.

Not having every answer.

Just arriving at a place where you can finally say: this is who I am.

These days I'm still at the party. I'm still awkward sometimes. Still figuring things out.

But now, for the first time, I feel like I belong.