Liam Muir

It’s not a huge surprise to me that Liam, at his age, felt uncomfortable in his own body.

I remember when I was his age. I sure as hell didn’t feel comfortable in mine. I had a ten-speed acne cycle, I was skinny as hell, and I didn’t exactly have confidence.

It wasn’t until I was 21 that I finally got a girlfriend, and that changed my perspective. There was a lot of joy in that experience.

Liam is even more intelligent than I am. He taught himself to read from websites before he was four years old. But like many exceptionally intelligent people, he was difficult for others to understand. He struggled to communicate with his peers because he simply wasn't operating on the same wavelength.

He wasn't ready to go to school. The decision to send him was driven more by the needs of my ex-wife than by Liam's own developmental needs.

Putting a child as bright as Liam into a classroom of children his own age was, from my perspective, like putting a highly advanced human in with a group that couldn't understand him. Of course he wasn't happy, and he expressed that unhappiness by biting another child.

There was never any serious discussion about whether the school environment was the problem. Liam had bitten someone, therefore Liam was the problem. Five weeks later we tried another school, and a similar situation emerged.

Again, nobody really questioned whether the environment was the issue.

The assumption was always that Liam was.

And so began years of treating him as though he were fundamentally broken.

Liam was placed in schools where he literally screamed every morning because he didn't want to go.

At the time, I accepted the narrative that he had "emotional regulation problems" and needed extra help.

That's become a common phrase used to describe many neurodiverse children.

"I hope he gets the help he needs."

Too often, what that really seems to mean is:

"I hope someone finds a way to make him quieter, more compliant, and less inconvenient."

Liam received a constant stream of messages telling him that he was damaged, that something was wrong with him, and that he couldn't be trusted to manage his own life.

I think that's profoundly unhealthy.

The reality, as I experienced it, is that Liam is extraordinarily gifted. He simply operated on a different wavelength from the children around him.

He needed more time to mature, more understanding, and better support in learning how to navigate relationships with people who didn't naturally understand him.

That was it.

Instead, he was labelled a problem child.

There were mornings when he had to be wrapped in a blanket while screaming because he so desperately didn't want to go to school.

It really was that bad.

At the time, I accepted the prevailing narrative. I even thought I was being a great father because I could afford expensive schools that I believed would help him.

At least, I thought, he wasn't being medicated the way so many children had been in previous generations.

Then, much later, my ex-wife, Leanne, took him to another therapist. Eventually he received an ADHD diagnosis and was prescribed stimulant medication.

Stimulants have a long and complicated history. During World War II, German forces famously used Pervitin (methamphetamine) to keep soldiers awake and intensely focused during military campaigns. Modern ADHD medications are different drugs used in very different medical contexts, but they also act as central nervous system stimulants.

Looking back, I can't help wondering whether years of feeling different, years of being told he was the problem, and years of trying to fit into environments that never suited him contributed to his later discomfort with himself.

I still wonder how much of his journey was shaped not by who he was, but by years of being told that who he was wasn't acceptable.

He was set up to fail - I didn't realize what was happening until too late.

Little wonder he ended up thinking he was a woman.