Normal Is a Moving Target: Redefining Difference in a Fractured World
Introduction
At 13 years old, I got tired of being asked “Why do you always need to be different from everyone? Why can’t you be normal?”, so I threw the question back at my bully “Why are you all different? Why can’t you all be normal like me?”
It was a desperate plea from a child who felt alienated, bullied, and misunderstood. Growing up as a neurodivergent Jewish kid in Belgium, my sense of “normal” was always fragmented. In one context—my Jewish school—I belonged culturally but I was an outsider in my interests. In another—my secular judo class—I was an outsider culturally but I belonged because we shared a common interest.
Decades later, as a trans woman, entrepreneur, and coach, I’ve learned that difference and normalcy are not fixed truths but shifting mirrors, reflecting the communities we inhabit and the stories we tell ourselves.
This is a story about survival, masking, and the paradox of belonging. It’s also a call to redefine “normal” in a world where diversity is celebrated yet still weaponized—and a guide for parents, healers, and anyone caught between fitting in and standing out.
1. The Relativity of Normal: A Jewish Kid in Belgium
Growing Up in a Post-War Jewish Family
My Polish Jewish family carried the scars of the Holocaust. All of my great-grandparents were murdered; my grandparents who survived rebuilt shattered lives in Belgium. “Normal” meant fragmented families scattered across continents, grandparents who spoke of the horrors they lived during the war when they were children, and vacations spent visiting distant cousins all over the world. At my Jewish school, this was our shared reality. We didn’t celebrate Christmas, and our grandparents’ survival stories were our bedtime lullabies.
I was bullied for being different so I left that bubble for a secular school. When I landed in a school where I was one of the only jews, the things that used to give me a sense of normality became yet another reason to be pointed out as “different.” Suddenly, my lack of extended family, my taking Hebrew classes after school, and my Sabbath rituals marked me even more strange. It seemed that everyone everywhere reminded me that I was different, and all I wished was to be normal. I learned to hide parts of myself to fit in—a skill I’d later recognize as masking.
Mirroring Societal Shifts
My childhood mirrors today’s cultural reckoning with difference. Just as LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent communities challenge monolithic norms, my fragmented identity forced me to navigate conflicting definitions of belonging. Older generations, like my mother—a family therapist who rejected my autism and trans identity—cling to rigid norms out of fear. Younger generations, empowered by the internet, embrace difference as a superpower. Both are captive of their generations, believing they’ve got the final answer.
The irony? What was “abnormal” in one context was celebrated in another. Today, as society fractures into niche tribes online, normal is no longer the majority—it’s a majority of minorities.
2. The Cost of Passing as “Normal”
Masking: A Survival Tactic
By age 11, I had suicidal thoughts and I fantasized about losing my legs or going blind—anything to justify the suffocating pain of feeling “wrong.” Masking as a neurodivergent person meant mimicking social cues, suppressing my gender identity, and apologizing for my existence. When an IQ test labeled me “gifted,” I felt like a fraud: If I’m so smart, why do I feel so socially broken?
The toll was catastrophic: suicidal ideation, self-loathing, and a decade of dissociation. Only in my 30s, after fleeing to Costa Rica’s jungles to escape societal noise, did I begin to unmask. There, I built a fine dining experience that celebrated all of my “weirdness”. Within months, it was globally recognized. For the first time, my differences were not a liability but a gift.
The Paradox of “Normal” Acceptance
Today, people don’t see my neurodivergence and call me “normal.” As a trans woman who code-switches seamlessly in any setting, this praise is bittersweet. It validates my ability to navigate systems designed to exclude me, but it erases the scars of my journey. When clients or friends say, “You’re not like other trans people,” they unknowingly reinforce the myth of homogeneity within marginalized groups.
Difference isn’t a phase to outgrow—it’s a lens that reshapes how we see the world.
3. The Myth of Homogeneity
“Different” Even Among the Different
Within the trans community, I’m an outlier. Many trans women I know came out first as gay men, immersed in LGBTQ+ subcultures. I, however, transitioned after decades of passing as a heterosexual man. My femininity was shaped by cisgender women, not drag queens or trans mentors. To many in the LGTBQ+, this makes me “weird” because I don’t have the same cultural references, habits or beliefs. To me, it underscores a truth: No marginalized group is a monolith.
The danger lies in reducing identities to stereotypes. Media amplifies the loudest, most extreme voices—radical activists, obnoxious influencers—while erasing the quiet majority who lives their lives peacefully. When I was told, “What I love about you is that everything about you is so natural,” it crystallized the absurdity of how good someone can become at appearing natural through hard work.
4. Systems vs. Souls
Old Systems, New Realities
Education, healthcare, and corporate cultures still prioritize standardization. Schools teach conformity, hospitals dismiss neurodivergent needs, and workplaces reward assimilation. Yet the internet, as Seth Godin argues in Tribes, lets niche communities thrive. A trans teen in rural Poland can now find solidarity online—but can this offset systemic power imbalances?
The answer is both yes and no. While technology empowers marginalized voices, it also fuels techno-oligarchies. The fight for equity isn’t just about connection—it’s about dismantling systems built for standardization in a world where diversity flourishes more than ever before.
5. Parenting in the Gray Zone
The Double Bind of Difference
As parents, we’re handed an impossible script: Protect your child’s uniqueness, but make sure they fit in. We fear bullying if they’re “too different,” yet dread the cost of crushing their spirit under the weight of conformity. My mother, a therapist, embodied this tension. When I confided my autism and, later my trans identity, she snapped: “You’re normal. What are you talking about?” Her rejection wasn’t cruelty—it was fear. Fear that difference would isolate me, fear that her “failed” parenting would be judged.
But masking nearly killed me. By 11, I fantasized about being kidnapped for years or paralyzed in a painful accident to justify my pain. When I fled to Costa Rica to unmask, I realized: The greatest gift we give children isn’t fitting in like a sheep nor to stand out like a madperson—it’s teaching them to navigate a world that demands both assimilation and authenticity.
The Legacy of Trauma
Parents inherit their own unresolved wounds. If you were bullied for being “weird,” you might push your child to conform. If you stifled your quirks to survive, you might overcorrect, romanticizing difference to the point of impracticality. In the Jewish world I grew up in, my parents’ generation had nothing because their parents were immigrants from the war. So most of them overcorrected, wanting to give their children everything. The result was a generation of children who were spoiled and entitled. As parents, we want the best for our children, so we’ll find a way to correct the mistakes we believe our parents made and repeat the aspects of parenting that made us a better person.
I’ve talked to parents who justified beating their children by saying “My parents beat me up and I turned into a good person.” To recognize that beating up children isn’t good, a parent must first accept that they’ve been hurt, traumatized, and damaged because they got beaten up as children. We must learn to feel the pain and hurt we carry from our parents’ mistakes so that we can correct them for the next generation. It’s not about blaming our parents, but about recognizing they made errors despite their love and desire to make our lives better than theirs.
Healing begins with us. Your child isn’t your trauma. They’re a mirror of the trauma from your inner child. You can’t heal your child’s traumas without first healing yours. Loving and healing your inner child is part of the responsibility of loving and healing your children.
6. Embracing Dualities: A Spiritual Framework
Oneness vs. Individuality
Eastern philosophies teach that we’re all drops in the same ocean. Western individualism insists we’re unique waves. The truth? We’re both. My coaching exercise—“How are you the same? How are you different?”—forces clients to confront this paradox.
Example: A corporate client redefined work as play. By reframing entrepreneurship as a game with flexible rules, she traded stress for curiosity. Another client reconciled his gender identity at the age of 60 by exploring how he was different and the same as people outside of his home community. He got to know new people with whom he felt normal and healed 60 years of rejecting who he is.
The Spiritual Paradox
“The thing that’s the same about everyone is that we’re all unique and different.” This duality is the heart of healing. When I work with clients, we don’t just list similarities and differences—we ask, “How do you live with both?” For a trans woman navigating corporate spaces, it might mean, “I wear a traditional female corporate outfit to corporate meetings (assimilation) while being open, upfront, and proud of being a trans woman with very unusual ideas (authenticity).” For a parent, it might be teaching their child: “At school, we raise hands and sit properly. At home, we dance while we talk.”
7. Actionable Takeaways
For Individuals
- Map Your Contexts
- Where do you feel “normal”? Where do you feel “different”? Why?
- Example: “I’m ‘normal’ in trans spaces discussing hormones, ‘different’ when debating political views.”
- Conduct a “Same vs. Different” Audit
- Choose an identity, career, or relationship. List:
- 5 ways you’re the same as others in this category.
- 5 ways you’re different.
- Example: “Parenting” vs. “Childlessness”—both involve nurturing, but one demands constant compromise.
- Choose an identity, career, or relationship. List:
For Parents
3. Teach Contextual Code-Switching
- Normalize shifting behaviors without shame: “At Grandma’s, we’re quiet. At the park, we scream!”
- Create “Identity Anchors”
- Help your child name their non-negotiables. For my young cousin, it’s wearing mismatched socks—a tiny rebellion that grounds her in a rigid classroom.
- Host a “Normal vs. Different” Dinner
- Discuss: “What’s one ‘rule’ our family might rethink?”
For Society
6. Redefine “Normal” as a Verb
- Ask: “Who benefits from this ‘normal’?” Challenge workplaces, schools, and media to expand their definitions.
Conclusion: Who’s the Crazy Driver?
My father once told me a joke that became a lifelong metaphor:A man is driving on the highway from Brussels to Paris, blasting music in his car. Suddenly, the radio interrupts with an urgent announcement: “Warning! A crazy driver is heading the wrong way on this highway. Proceed with caution!”The man shakes his head and mutters, “One crazy driver? There are hundreds of them!”
For years, I felt like that “crazy driver.” As a child, I wondered why I was the outlier—the one swerving away from societal lanes. But in Costa Rica, far from the noise of expectations, I realized: The “crazy” ones are often those clinging to outdated maps. The world is full of highways, each with its own rules. What’s “wrong” in one lane is liberation in another.
Difference is not a defect—it’s a compass. It guided me from Belgian classrooms to jungles where my “weirdness” became my worth. Today, whether people call me ‘weird’ or “normal,” a “man” or a “woman”, “Belgian” or “Costa Rican”, I smile. Normalcy and identity are not a destination—they’re a dance between belonging and reinvention.
As parents, educators, and humans, our job isn’t to steer kids onto the “right” path but to teach them to read the signs—and sometimes, to build new roads.
Normal is the majority on a small map. Redraw the map, and you redefine the world.
– with Mercy
Unconditional with Mercy
In a world where gender, identity, and self-expression are evolving rapidly, Unconditional with Mercy offers parents a compassionate roadmap for navigating these changes with wisdom, strength, and love. Written by coach and guide Mercedes Noam Kostucki (Mercy), this heartfelt book invites families into a deeper understanding of what it means to support their children—especially those exploring gender identity—without conditions, expectations, or fear.
Drawing on personal experience, stories from families she’s helped, and practical coaching insights, Mercy equips parents with the emotional tools they need to listen, connect, and grow alongside their child. Each chapter combines vulnerable storytelling with thoughtful guidance, empowering parents to lead with curiosity, remain anchored in love, and create homes where every person feels truly seen.
Whether you’re just beginning to ask questions or seeking to deepen an already supportive relationship, Unconditional with Mercy is a grace-filled companion on the journey to unconditional love.