The current discourse over the word weird, and how it's been weaponized against the Fascists running for office here in the US, is a hard one for me.

Up front, I agree that if we have a way to deflate and defeat these assholes without spilling blood, by all means we should do that. It just would be really fucking nice if instead of dismissing me and my feelings by saying things like "if you're offended by being called weird, you're the bad type, if you welcome it, you're the good type"; please just fucking acknowledge you're asking some of us to be collateral damage for the greater good. For fuck's sake, nothing is ever so binary in the world, but this especially is not.

I'm neurodivergent, ADHD for sure with a Dx. My whole life I've been called weird. I was the excessively chatty child, I was the child who couldn't sit still. I was the child who refused to clean her room, refused to eat her veggies, and was punished for it. A lot. The other kids didn't know what to make of me, and while I initially had been lucky the first couple years of elementary school by being adopted by a girl who was better at socializing and would bring me along and introduce me into the friend group, she moved away after first grade, then I changed schools a year later because of drama surrounding what house my parents bought (tl;dr: my grandparents on my dad's side were co-signing the loan, and my grandmother apparently abused this fact to influence where was acceptable to buy). I never really recovered as far as friends go after that. I skipped from one friend to another, never really establishing a friend circle, and often losing these singular friends over frustratingly arbitrary things — one friend was scared away because the other kids teased him that we were dating (in elementary school!), another so called friend would lead me into doing things I shouldn't, then moved on to be friends with the neighbors my mom wouldn't let me and my brother play with because they also caused trouble, another couple friends seemed like they were going to be long term friends, but both moved away and lost touch. There were more, but they largely follow similar patterns.

So weird was hung on me without my say so from a very young age, but as often happens when something is pushed on you as a negative, many people will try and embrace it and reshape it into something that doesn't hurt anymore. So I leaned into the weird, I loudly proclaimed that I was weird, and I wore it as a shield. People couldn't hurt me by calling me weird if I called myself weird first, right? Except even as I've loudly proclaimed my weirdness, it still sits there silently, keeping people at a distance. I still have a hard time making friends, but at least now I am myself instead of trying to reshape myself to fit whatever mold they're looking for in a friend.

Do I mind being called weird? That answer's complicated. Does it hurt seeing this word that I've worked so hard to come to terms with, to work on self acceptance with, be turned into a weapon against the people who literally want to crush me, crush my friends, and crush so many other people? Yes. Can I live with it being weaponized like that? It's not like I really have a choice, because those who haven't actually struggled with being called weird—when all you wanted was to find friends and family—have decided it's the most effective weapon against these fascist assholes. But if you all could fucking acknowledge that there is collateral damage here, that the people you are attacking are part of the reason I have such a fucking complicated history with the word weird, it would go a long fucking way toward making this less painful.

Show some fucking empathy.