Passing for white/masking as neurotypical is like being a cricket who looks a lot like a grasshopper to other grasshoppers in a grasshopper-dominated society.

They take you in as one of your own and tell you that you fit right in. They tell you that you’re so good at grasshoppering that you couldn’t possibly be even a little cricket.

But anytime you do something especially crickety, they don’t say, “Ah yes, I see the cricket in you now! What a lovely cricket you are!” No. They just say, “You are such an odd grasshopper. What is wrong with you?”