What Makes Up Alex Parsons’ Identity

“Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” (Lolly Daskal 2021). I have been creating myself since I was a low-class little neurodivergent kid. I have not had the easiest life, I have been bullied for being queer, autistic, and poor; but I have made the best of it. I am your classic gay, trans, white, teenage Seattleite. I am 16, autistic, middle-class, and have lived here all my short life. My life is just beginning; much like how my identity is still forming. What makes me, me? To answer this, I need to go from the very beginning.

We were your classic poor white family, hopping from rental to rental with our two roommates Bubba and Arren. Unfortunately, being a midwife and a carpenter does not bring in as much money as you would hope. Eventually, when I was four, we moved to a bigger house all to ourselves, with no roommates! Me and my older sister got the room upstairs while my parents got the one downstairs. We were still poor for sure, but that did not stop us from having fun. Me and my sister would play at the rich neighbor’s yard because they got to have a trampoline. We had to have Dad walk us across the alley after we found needles, but hey! Trampoline! Until I was 5, I was the youngest. Me and my older sister did all the things kids in the 2000’s did, play with Mom’s makeup, record music videos, watch Phineas and Ferb, and of course beg Grandma to take us to Greenlake so we could get frozen yogurt on the hot days. In my five-year-old head, I thought this meant those things would not happen anymore because Jaya (my older sister) would want to play with our new younger sister instead of me.

Eventually, a few months into the pregnancy I would not have to worry about that anymore, little baby Pheonix miscarried. This was my first experience with death. I did not know what was going on, other than the fact that all our friends were crying, and Grandma got me all the hospital Jell-O me and Jaya could ever dream of. I was five, so I had the blessing of not understanding the situation. Poor ten-year-old Jaya knew exactly what was going on, she passed out after she saw how tiny and sick baby Phoenix was. I held her, she had my lips, nose, and even her little toes looked like mine. A year later Niko was born, a huge, healthy baby boy. I loved having a baby to hold. It would not be too long until there was another. Two years after Niko, baby Oscar was born. Our house that once perfectly fit our family of four, was soon too small for our family of six. We had me in one room, Jaya at the top of the stairs, Niko in what was the playroom, and Oscar with Mom and Dad. My mom became a real estate agent after Niko was born. In time, when Oscar was two, we moved and finally bought our own house!

Our move meant another school, the third in six years. Why so many if we only moved once, you ask? I got bullied a lot at the first one, the teachers could not handle some of my classmates and truly, they could not handle me either. Having undiagnosed autism made it hard for teachers to understand what was “wrong” with me. I had just gotten used to the new one when we moved. But I never had trouble making friends, so it was fine! The problem lay in that I made too many “friends.” Autism makes me look through rose-colored glasses. I could not tell when people were being mean to me or not, I still find myself looking back and noticing that some people were just around me to tease me without my knowledge. Middle school is when I had a challenging time. I was in Sixth grade when covid hit. I then became very mentally ill and needed to go to a partial hospitalization program to help with my suicidal ideation, self-harm, and eating disorder. This and my sister dying were parts that formed my personality when it came to grief. Focusing on a happier note, playing with my dad at the park and with my mom’s makeup I would say have had a significant impact on me. I love to be playful, even now as a sixteen-year-old. My mom’s makeup was monumental for me and helped me discover drag. I absolutely love drag, playing dress up as a character where I can take a break from being myself is something I do not think I will ever get bored of. My dad is a very artistic person, and I get it from him. I am always working on a project, whether it be jewelry, makeup, drawing, or painting.

Individually, those experiences create the inner parts of my identity, but my social identity is something different. In society, I am privileged due to my race and gender, which sets me high on the basic privilege scale. But like all things, it’s not just what it seems. If you take my race out of it and acknowledge that I am not a cisgender man, things start to change, and I go further down the scale of power. If you then consider my sexuality and physical and mental disabilities, I would move even further down. Then, I move back up again by adding my relationship status, economic status, and living situation. s is proof that no matter how many parts of our identity we have, it will never fully be shown on one scale, but more multiple scales that merge into who we are.

So, I am a white boy, I am disabled, I am autistic and have ADHD, I am in the middle class, I am gay and transgender, I live in a house that my family owns, I am unemployed because my parents pay for my needs. I am not married because I am 16 but I am in a loving healthy relationship, I am part of a big family but am not responsible for my younger siblings. My life is different in the way that I have more responsibilities now, but I am still me. I am still that little boy playing dress up, I am still that little boy who gets teased, I am still that little boy who is naive and a little too optimistic, I am still me. Just a bigger, more confident, messed-up version of me. I’m still so young, there is a lot more time for my life to change.