Camp Lake Pleasant For Neurodivergent Teens (MsBloom x DarkDreamer9110)

[DarkDreamer9110]

Lexa (or sometimes Axel) Dawson gazed out the window of the car as her mother drove under the big sign welcoming them to Camp Lake Pleasant For Neurodivergent Teens. It wasn't Lexa's first summer camp for neurodivergent kids, although this specific one was new to her. Her last one, the one she had been going to since she was around 8, was no longer an option since her family had moved almost across the country from it. Fortunately, one of the administrators of the camp had suggested Camp Lake Pleasant as a possible replacement, even arranging a meeting with the administrators to make sure that Lexa could still be a senior student counselor, as she would have been if she'd still been going to her old one. She had the experience, the qualifications, and her old camp's endorsement. She'd been a junior counselor for a couple years already.

The counselors and administrative staff were expected to arrive a full week before the main campers arrived, to give them time to adjust and get settled before the rest of the campers arrived.

Lexa had been known in her old camp as the LGBTQIA+ counselor, or as she had been dubbed by one of her friends, the transelor. Camp Lake Pleasant's staff had suggested she take a position to lead a support and education group for the queer neurodivergent kids (of which there was no shortage, given overlap between queerness and neurodivergence).

When she got out of the car, she smiled at her mom, who got out to hug her. "I'm so proud of you, Lexa. This is a big deal. My little girl, a senior counselor. I know you'll do amazing. I hope you'll make friends."

Lexa nodded. "I'll see if that happens." She said, pulling back from the hug and checking the pin on her shirt. It was divided into two sections, an inner and outer ring, and the inner section could spin. The top of the outer ring read "My Name Is" with an arrow pointing to the top of the inner circle and the bottom read "Please Do Not Use" with an arrow pointing to the bottom of the inner section. The inner section was divided into two hemispheres, the one currently at the top and oriented upright reading "Lexa," and "She/Her" under it, the upside down section read "Axel," with "They/Them" as the pronouns.

Satisfied the pin was in the appropriate position, she smiled at her mom, giving her a brief hug again. "Alright, Mom. I'll see you at the end of summer. Love you. Bye."

As her mom got in the car and drove off, Lexa made her way to the administrative cabin to check in, where she was greeted by the camp's head administrative counselor, Georgette Mayhew.

After a quick introduction and signing in, she was asked to wait for everyone else to arrive, with the freedom to make herself comfortable in the large lobby. An array of stim toys were available, as were a variety of comfortable seats, noise-cancelling headphones, and various other accomodations.

 

[MsBloom]

Cole/Colleen

Cole put down their duffel bag on the ground and took the backpack from the boot of their aunt's car. They strapped it to their back and looked up at the more than familiar surroundings. It was their tenth year at Camp Lake Pleasant, although it was only their third year at the camp for neurodivergent teens. Before their thirteenth birthday they had been at the camp for neurodivergent children, which was closer to the small road that led up to the lake. And now they were here two weeks early because they were going to be a junior counsellor and help lead a group focusing on LBTQIA+. It was something they had already helped with to some extent the two previous years.

It had been almost five years since they themselves had come out as non-binary, although they were mostly presenting masc, sometimes (if not quite often) to the point of stuffing a pair of rolled up socks into their boxer briefs. They had also recently begun to wear a binder after noticing that their breasts had begun to grow. They still wore make up though, not much, mostly just a bit of eyeliner.

That day as they picked up their duffelbag from the ground, closed the boot of the car and with something that was supposed to be a smile waved goodbye to their aunt, the wore loos fitting jeans, a black long sleeved t-shirt with a green short sleeve with the text Wildwood across the chest over it. It was not a t-shirt that had any real significance except that it was green and green was their favourite colour and they always tried to wear something green every day.

As they walked towards the administration building to check in with Dvorak's Cello concerto in D Minor playing in their Bose noise cancelling headphones they saw many familiar faces, some of which they had known since their first year at Lake Pleasant, others more recent, most of them friendly but none they would call a friend, not really. Friends was still a difficult concept for them to grasp, girlfriend and/or boyfriends (such as their two years older sister had) was even more difficult for them to grasp. Not on a strictly intellectual level perhaps but on an emotional level. They had tried to make actual friends, (which as far as they understood it were people to whom you could talk all night about just about whatever nonsense came into your head, who wouldn't judge you for being who you were, with whom you shared a connection that didn't always require words to be spoken, people you wanted to hang with (their sister's words) go shopping with, have coffee with, not that Cole had ever gone shopping without their aunt, uncle or on rare occasions their grandmother, they didn't like coffee and didn't see the point of drinking it with or without company ("well a Dr Pepper or Cherry Coke then," their sister had said slightly annoyed at their weird sibling, adorable and highly loved but weird as six toes on a Sunday), people with who you shared an interest, a hobby, music, movies or books you liked), and there had been candidates but none so far that had ticked all the boxes. ("But it's not about ticking boxes," their sister had explained. "It's about whether you like spending time with them or talk to them, if they make you feel comfortable talking to them and them talking to you.") Cole almost never felt comfortable talking to anyone or being talked to.

Well ... There was Erin, a girl they had met their first year at Lake Pleasant as a teenager. They had bonded without a single word being spoken between then over the four hand piano version of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Cole, at the time actually in the shape of Colleen, had been sitting at the grand piano in the music room toying with the opening melody, making up variations of it when Erin, a very girly girl with long flowing black hair, deep brown eyes, wearing a pale green dress that just happened to match Colleen's top, had sat down next to them and started playing along. Thirty minutes later they looked at one another for the first time and started over. Another thirty minutes later they repeated the process this time Colleen attempted to smile. Yet another thirty minutes later they were interrupted, by the music counsellor Indra Blake before repeating the process. She told them it was time for supper and then the evening assembly. They had both nodded and then looking at one another again had both spoken their names almost simultaneously.

Erin was one person Cole actually felt comfortable talking to and being talked to by, mostly about music they both liked or that one of them liked and wanted the other to like too. They exchanged playlists of their favourite composers, musicians and conductors. There were perhaps not many words exchanged between them in their conversations but that was after all one of the criteria for friendship (was it not?) And they liked hanging out with her, mostly at the grand piano though, either playing Rite of Spring or improvising (as they began to do after three days and another nineteen renditions of said favourite piece of music. They conversed through their music but away from the piano they barely spent time in the same room, except for meals and mandatory group activities. The playlists and commentaries on them (some of which were quite wordy) all happened online via text messages and Spotify links.

Erin was as close to an actual friend as Cole had ever come. And yet ... beyond their deep interest in music they shared no other interests. Beyond their favourite composers, conductors and musicians, favourite pieces of music, they knew very little about each other. In face all Cole really knew for certain about Erin was her name, that they were both the same age, and that Erin was a girl both by birth and her own perception. This was also basically all Erin knew about Cole/Colleen (or just Coll as Erin called them and was the only one who did) as well. Name, age and ... Erin was less sure about Coll's gender identity. She knew they identified as non-binary but was not entirely sure the final (proverbial) word had been said on the matter.

They were never seen hanging out just to share a drink of their own liking, whether coffee or Dr Pepper. They were never seen talking or whispering in hushed voices. In fact away from the grand piano, deprived of their means of communication they could just as easily have been complete strangers. This was part of what Cole did not understand about friends, socialising. And yet, as Cole walked past Erin they gave a nod in greeting and recognition. They both even practised smiling at each other. It was obvious to an attentive observer that they two appreciated the other's presence.

It was not until they entered the lobby of the administrative building that Cole saw the first unfamiliar face of the the day. Sitting in one of the many and various armchairs was a person who by the looks of it was a girl, though Cole knew not to draw conclusions. They did not nod in her direction but as they walked past her to the head counsellor's office they noticed the pin, made a note of it in their head and knocked on Ms Mayhew's open door almost the very second the music ended.
"Ah come on in Cole," said Ms Mayhew.
There was little to no conversation between Ms Mayhew and Cole. She checked of their name on the list of junior counsellors and with a smile explained that it was customary for all junior counsellors to be paired with a senior counsellor to which Cole nodded. They knew this and waited for Ms Mayhew to continue.
"This year however we have a senior counsellor with many years of experience but at another camp for neurodivergent children. She have almost no knowledge or experience of Lake Pleasant though and I thought that since this is your tenth summer here you know the area quite well. You know many of the others who are here as both junior and senior counsellors, you know all the staff from Mr Jimmies our cook all the way up to our adult counsellors, it might perhaps be a good idea to pair you with her. She is waiting right outside."
Again Cole nodded and when Ms Mayhew accompanied them back out into the lobby they nodded at Lexa, (as the pin on her shirt stated her name to be)
"My name is Cole," they said and nodded as if to confirm their statement.

 

[DarkDreamer9110]

Lexa had largely kept to herself, earbuds in and music playing as she watched the other counselors as they arrived, giving polite nods of acknowledgement when accidental eye contact was made. She'd been told she would be paired up with another counsellor who was already familiar with the camp and stuff.

When the boyish-looking person approached her, she dutifully paused her music and pulled out an earbud to show she was listening. She looked up at the person as they introduced themselves. "Hello, Cole." She said, standing up and holding out her hand with a brief moment of eye contact, a quick perfunctory glance to fulfill social obligation. "I'm Lexa, my pronouns are currently she/her. Sometimes my name is Axel and I use they/them pronouns, but if that's the case, I'll spin the pin to show it." She said, tapping the pin with her other hand. "Ms. Mayhew said I'd be paired with someone who's familiar with this place. I assume that's you?"

 

[MsBloom]

Cole/Colleen

Cole nodded almost mechanically and removed their headphones, placing them around their neck instead of over their ears to signal that they were listening, as Lexa introduced herself and tried to not avoid meeting the girl's eyes when she made eye contact. They nodded again when she added her pronouns.
"I use they/them," they said
"It is easier because sometimes I am also Colleen, which is the name I was given at birth and assigned female."
They nodded again to confirm the veracity of their statement and glanced at Lexa's pin hoping she didn't think they were staring at her breasts and wondering whether they were real of if she was AMAB and used prosthetics to fill out her chest which they didn't but was aware that sometimes looking at a pin or reading the text on a t-shirt gave that impression. She was also taller than they were and they had to tilt their head up to meet her eyes, to at least seem like they made eye contact, but then as they lowered their eyes again they were a lot more on level with her chest.

Every time that happened they also became painfully aware of their own breasts. Even if they were flattened by a binder, like they were at that moment, they still felt that there was a hint of them disfiguring their t-shirt.

When she extended her hand though they just shook their head and kept their hand at their side. Shaking hands was a greeting ritual they still had trouble understanding but it was of course not nearly as bad as those people who invaded their personal space even more by trying to hug them. Instead they nodded after having signalled that they had no intention of shaking hands by shaking their head.
"I'm sorry," they said and attempted an apologetic smile.
"I don't like being touched or touching other people," they explained and then nodded again to confirm Lexa's assumption that they was the one she would be paired with because of the difference in experience with the camp, how it worked, the adult staff, the kids and the surroundings.

"Did you make that pin yourself?" they then asked as it was something they had wondered about since they first noticed it and shifted their weight from one foot to the other and back again, something they often did when they were unsure about whether they had done or said something inappropriate.

 

[DarkDreamer9110]

Lexa noticed Cole's reticence to shake hands and dropped hers back to her side with a shrug. "No need to apologize, Cole. I don't really like the handshaking thing either. It's just ... Expectation." She said.

When Cole asked about the pin, she smiled. "More or less. I could make you one, if you wanted. I was already planning on doing an arts and crafts for the trans and gender-nonconforming kids to make name and pronoun pins or bracelets or such."

She nodded at Cole's mention of being AFAB. "I was AMAB. My birth name was Alex. Lexa was supposed to be the name of my twin. She died in utero. When I realized I was genderfluid, I decided to use it as my girl name to honour her. And I picked Axel for my non-girl name because it was an anagram of Lexa and Alex. And then things got ... Weird when puberty hit. It turns out I'd sort of absorbed Lexa in the womb. It's called fetal twin resorption or vanishing twin syndrome, and it results in what's called chimerism. While most of her didn't really stay intact, I apparently kept most of her ... Female sex parts. They were slightly underdeveloped but functional, and well, when my parents let me start female hormones, it kind of ... Got that whole system up and running. Like jump starting a car. So I wound up in the ER with a fever and massive cramps, being told I was intersex with ovaries, a womb, and a vaginal canal full of menstrual blood with no way out on the verge of going septic. They had two options. They could remove the female bits or they could remove my testicles and use my scrotum to form a vaginal opening. I was genderfluid between girl and "not girl but also not boy," and finding out I actually had feminine parts was affirming. So I basically got medically necessary GCS. It was PPV, or penile preservation vaginoplasty. Well, more vulvaplasty since the vagina was already there. But the point is, I have a penis and a vagina ..." She trailed off as her face grew downcast. "Shit. I just infodumped a lot of squicky TMI on you, didn't I? Sorry. I ramble when I'm nervous. Infodumping helps me feel less nervous."

 

[MsBloom]

Cole/Colleen

Cole nodded and repeated the word: Expectations. There were so many of them on how to behave in social situations, what was appropriate to say and/or do in which situations. Handshakes was bad enough as an expected greeting ritual but there were worse. There were huggers, those people who seemed to think that invading a persons personal space with an embrace was an appropriate form of greeting them. They shuddered at the thought and remembered the last time someone had hugged them without first asking and receiving permission. It had been their birthday a few years back and the child of one of their aunt's semi serious acquaintances had just simply walked up to them and given them a big, Long, birthday hug to which they had reacted by freezing the way a deer in the headlights of an oncoming truck does. Luckily that acquaintance did not last long after that incident.

That was what they had always liked best about the camp for neurodivergent children and teenagers at Lake Pleasant. There were no social expectations, at least not many. There was no expectations to touch anyone to greet them, or to smile, or even to look anyone in the eyes when you talked to them. It was of course encouraged as part of training for life among the neurotypicals.

It was the same in their class at school back in Boston. It was them and five other neurodivergent students about which Cole knew almost nothing but their names, what subjects they were good at and which they weren't, which subjects they liked and which they didn't. Among them there was one other who was also gender non-conforming, another AFAB who identified as agender and preferred the pronoun It, which at first Cole had had a hard time understanding. It was used about objects and sometimes about animals, animals that were not pets, at least not your own pets, not that they had ever actually had a pet of their own but their aunt had a Labrador Retriever called Charlie which seemed to be able to read Cole quite well, sometimes better than their aunt and/or their teachers, who almost always seemed to know when something was wrong or when they were struggling with something that neurotypicals barely even thought about, but then Reece as Its name was had explained that while it was of course sensitive to use the It pronoun about a person without them having specifically said that it was what they preferred it was not an objectification. This was of course because most people could not imagine being without gender and thus felt that using a genderless pronoun was to objectify someone (even if that someone had actually specified that they preferred the genderless It pronoun).

It had gone on to explain that while Cole identified as non-binary, as both boy and girl, or at least as neither fully boy nor fully girl they still identified with a gender. Reece on the other hand was as It said genderless which as a word made more sense to Cole than agender, (which of course they knew what it meant but it was harder to relate to than genderless). It had then gone on to explain that for someone not fully identifying with either of the two binary genders but as a neutral gender identity between the two, the way grey is between black and white, or orange between red and yellow, green between blue and yellow, it made sense to use the genderneutral singular they, which had been used in the English language since at least the 14th century but if you did not identify as genderneutral but as genderless It made more sense because it was a genderless pronoun rather than gender neutral.

Cole had listened and nodded after It had explained that they had understood. It was the longest conversation the Reece ad Cole had ever had and it had lasted all of seven minutes. Before and after that conversation the two had barely spoken to one another. Though their headteacher Ms Watson had noted that after that conversation, while they again barely spoke to one another the two seemed to have bonded in some emotionally detached way that she could not quite explain, much in the same was as the case was with Erin at the camp. There was an almost telepathic communication where neither of them felt much need for words.

At the mention of an LBTQIA+ themed arts and crafts group in response to their question about the pin Cole nodded to signal that it was something they would be interested in and when she then mentioned making bracelets as well as pins they attempted a smile. A bracelet was more along the lines of what they would feel comfortable with. It was more discreet, which perhaps in a way forfeited the purpose of not having to tell people their preferred pronouns or their preferred name of the day, or hour, but it would also draw a lot less attention to their chest and the lumps there, which they wanted to draw as little attention to as possible as Cole. Maybe they could make both a pin and two bracelets, one for Cole and one for Colleen. They nodded to themselves at this idea. They also thought that perhaps they could make pins that would signal both gender identity and sexual orientation (as much as they had one) through symbols and colours. It would make life a lot easier if they could communicate basic concepts like name, pronouns and such to people without words, and to also have the option, when the context required it or it was socially appropriate, to signal, gender identity and sexuality without words. They attempted a smile at the idea of more pins like that, for instance one that could be changed to signal mood since it was almost never obvious to anyone other than their aunt and some of their teachers whether they were happy, sad or angry, and of course to Charlie as well.

They then listened as Lexa began to explain how she/they had absorbed their twin in utero, presumably quite late in her/their mother's pregnancy since the result had been that she/they were born with both her/their twin sister's reproductive organs as well as her/their own male organs. They nodded at what felt like appropriate intervals to signal that they were in fact listening while their eyes seemed focused far behind Lexa, or wandering around the room as if they were barely aware of anyone else's presence. They had found puberty confusing, when their breasts had started to grow but compared to the confusion Lexa must have felt when the doctors found her/their sister's reproductive organs inside her and the surgery she/they had then gone through. This brought three questions to mind for Cole.

The first went back to whether or not her/their breasts were natural. If she had been born with her/their twin sister's vagina hidden inside without a vulva, then it was entirely possible that she/they also produced both testosterone and oestrogen, which certainly made it entirely plausible that her breasts were all natural. This question was not in any way sexual in nature, not that her/their breasts were not beautiful (as much as could be determined through her/their clothes.

The other question it brought to mind was why she had not chosen he/him as the preferred pronoun for Axel when she used she/her for Lexa. This was something they themself had spent some time thinking about when they had begun to realise that they were not entirely a girl but also not entirely a boy, that they were both Cole and Colleen. They had at first felt that they could switch between the male and female pronouns depending on how they felt, whether they were Cole or Colleen, but even though they were careful to present undoubtedly feminine when they felt comfortable being Colleen, skirts, leggings, tunics, blouses and the occasional dress but also a bra to make their breasts more visible instead of flattening them with a binder, it got rather confusing in the end so they settled for singular they which mean they didn't constantly have to tell people what pronouns they currently preferred. Also; not long after they had entered puberty they began to feel the lines between Cole and Colleen blurring and their identity was no longer as simple as either or but a shifting scale between the two which led to them starting to identify more naturally with they/them.

It was this line of thought that led them to the third question which was about the difference between non-binary and genderfluid. Since both gender identities appeared to be an inbetween state that was neither fully male nor fully female it seemed to them that they were just different words for the same thing, much like how Reece had clarified agender by calling it genderless instead.

They only asked the latter two of those question in one breath, they were too embarrassed to ask the first one and almost quite certain that it was not an appropriate question to ask a person you had only just met and exchanged less than fifty words with, as if they were one and the same question without much change in their voice to even indicate they were questions.

 

[DarkDreamer9110]

Lexa nodded at the questions. "Okay, let's start with the pronouns. So, the short answer is, even when my gender, or my feeling of what my gender is, changes from 'girl,' it never goes to 'boy.' It goes to 'not girl but also not boy.' You know how gender is a spectrum? Imagine a simple greyscale spectrum. Black on one extreme, white on the other, with this whole gradient of greys between. For this example, let's imagine 'woman' is the far black extreme and 'man' is the far white extreme, with all the greys being all the different non-binary genders. I know that's not entirely accurate and a massive oversimplification since not all non-binary identities are just different mixes of 'boy' and 'girl,' and that would be more like that colour selection thing on computers, you know, the rainbow gradient across and then how you adjust light and dark by moving it up and down between black and white?"

"But right now, I'm simplifying things for the sake of explanation since the different amounts of boy/girl feelings are the relevant thing. So, when I'm Lexa, I'm solidly in the far black. Very definitely 'woman.' And when I'm Axel, I don't go all the way into the white to 'boy.' I only move about halfway, to the middle of that spectrum. 50/50 mix of boy and girl. Neutral. So neither 'she' nor 'he' feels like it fits. But 'they' is a gender-neutral pronoun. It fits. So I use 'they' in that mode because 'he' doesn't fit. I have honestly never felt like a 'boy.'"

"So, what is 'genderfluid' and how is it different than being non-binary? The short answer is, non-binary is any identity that doesn't align solely with the binary of woman-man. It's a big umbrella term. Genderfluid is a micro label under it. Basically, you know how all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares? Genderfluid is a type of non-binary, but not all non-binary people are genderfluid. Continuing the colour gradient thing, with genderfluidity, it means one's gender shifts between two or more points on the colour gradient. As I mentioned, in my case, it goes between "woman" and "neutral." Some people switch between man and woman. Others switch between various non-binary genders. Others still can switch between three or five or even ten spots on the spectrum."

She paused, watching for Cole's reaction "I hope that explains things. I could go on for hours about gender stuff. It's one of my hyperfixations."