The Dual Powers of Language

I have a love-hate relationship with words.

My autism has granted me talents in mathematical reasoning and musical expression. These two capacities, one logical and one poetic, induce in me two competing impulses regarding language. On the one hand, I crave the precision of words that describe exactly what I mean. On the other hand, I yearn for the suggestiveness in words that reach beyond what mere letters can contain.

Early in my gender identity journey, I fell into a firestorm of linguistic existential struggle. Something drew me towards the language of nonbinary gender, I knew. But something about it also made me uneasy. The poetic part of me loved the opportunity to broaden my sense of self and refashion my wardrobe. The logical part of me worried that the label did not exactly fit. According to my terribly honest autistic brain, trying out a label that did not fit equated to lying about my identity. So eventually, tortured also by my first bipolar episodes, I broke down, believing that I was a liar.

Trans people often say that they always knew they were trans, that they were born trans and had no choice. I cannot say the same. Not that I wasn’t born with propensities that might lead me to embrace trans identity. But language, for me, is not merely a descriptive tool, but also something that shapes identity itself. It’s like how measurement of a photon in quantum mechanics influences the photon, creating a new reality. The more I spoke of myself as nonbinary, the more I became so.

It took me several months of intensive psychotherapy for me to reconcile the competing linguistic impulses within me. I eventually decided that language is inherently imperfect, but the possibilities it generates are delightfully infinite. I didn’t have to be trans or nonbinary in the same way that others were. I could make the words my own.

Even now, I find that the words I use to describe myself—nonbinary, queer, autistic, ADHD, bipolar—inherently alienate me from myself because none of these characteristics are separable from one another in my experience. When gender norms agitate my spirit, is it my nonbinary gender sparking a rebellion, or is it my autism rejecting social norms in general? When I undergo intense mood swings within several days, is it rapid-cycling bipolar or the dynamism of ADHD?

As a spiritual person of East Asian descent, I find myself identifying less with these discrete terminologies and more with the concept of yin and yang. Yin and yang are present within me as feminine and masculine, as intuition and reason, as autistic order and ADHD chaos, as bipolar highs and lows, as the biculturalism of East and West. Yin and yang feel less like labels and more like an orientation towards the cosmos.

I believe that although social identities and psychological diagnoses are excellent for facilitating communication and understanding about our diverse human experiences, we must not limit ourselves with language. There cannot be a standard way of being trans, autistic, or human. We must stay aware of the dual powers that words carry, noticing when they constrict our potential and when they inspire liberated ways of being. Crucially, we must realize that it is our attitude towards language that determines how it affects us.

Being autistic and highly verbal has given me a load of trouble with language. But by reconciling the logical and poetic aspects of my relationship with words, I have become more at peace with the limitations of language and am better able to connect with the nonverbal truths of self and universe.