By Amilie Courtney
As a transgender, neurodivergent teenager from regional Australia, building a sense of identity hasn’t been simple. Autistic or LGBTQ+ youth in places like mine are rare, often invisible, and even more often misunderstood. Growing up in Launceston meant community wasn’t something found at a youth centre or in the school corridor. The people who might have understood me were scattered far beyond my postcode.
So I turned to social media. It didn’t sit on my phone like a distraction. It acted as a lifeline. With my parents’ consent, I joined several platforms between the ages of twelve and thirteen. Some adults might be surprised by that, but these online spaces created the only environment where I could explore who I was slowly and safely.
Social media gave me language I didn’t have. It gave me peers who shared similar paths. It also gave me a place to say, “This is who I am and what I need,” at a time when saying that offline felt loaded with risk. I even came out online long before I came out to my family or classmates. The acceptance I felt through those early digital conversations softened what could have been a far rougher transition in my everyday life.
Instagram, Discord, and Facebook widened my world. They introduced me to advocacy and helped me understand LGBTQ+ rights and child safety. They gave me friendships, guidance, and one day, my partner Ivy, who lives in another city. These platforms weren’t mindless entertainment. They stitched together support that I couldn’t find locally.
Small towns can be gentle places, but they’re not always built for queer or autistic teens searching for belonging. When I wanted community, it often didn’t exist in any physical form. Social media stepped into that vacuum. It bridged the distance between me and the people who understood me. It opened conversations about mental health that would have been impossible offline.
At seventeen, I now see how many young people rely on the same digital lifelines. Many of my closest friends are queer or neurodivergent teens under sixteen. Some are fourteen and dealing with families who don’t support them, or schools where coming out would be unsafe. For them, online spaces aren’t a novelty. They’re the only places where they can speak openly without fear of consequences. This new social media ban threatens to cut them off from the only refuge they have.
