Gavin Newsom opens up about dyslexia ahead of new book ‘Young Man in a Hurry’

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA: California Gov Gavin Newsom is peeling back the curtain on a childhood struggle he says never really left him.

The revelation came in a recent social media post as Newsom ramps up promotion for his upcoming memoir, 'Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery,' due out on February 24.

Alongside a throwback photo of a pint-size Newsom in a red jacket and a white cap stamped with the letters “RT,” the governor reflected on growing up feeling “behind, left out, lonely.” Newsom has spoken about dyslexia before and even wrote a children’s book about it.

This is the same Newsom who grew up in the well-heeled Bay Area, attended private schools and a Jesuit university, and rubbed elbows with the likes of billionaire Gordon Getty. Critics have long said those connections cushioned any so-called hardship, but Newsom insists the learning disability was real.

Gavin Newsom opens up about childhood dyslexia struggles

Newsom’s dyslexia story goes all the way back to kindergarten. He was diagnosed at age five, but no one told him until fifth grade, when he accidentally discovered the truth in a note his teacher had sent to his mother.

He later said the silence was driven by fear. His mother worried he might use the diagnosis as a crutch. But for Newsom, it only made things lonelier.

“As an older brother, that was more difficult than you can imagine,” he once wrote, comparing his struggles with his younger sister’s smooth-sailing academic success.

At school, the future governor wasn’t the golden boy. He was the kid getting laughed at. Newsom recalled being branded the “slow kid” by classmates who mocked him as he wrestled with spelling, writing, and basic comprehension.

He put it bluntly in a 2021 interview. “It’s spelling, writing, and just deep struggles reading, and the reading is comprehension, because I can read two chapters and literally be daydreaming, and I’ll have read every word and not remember one damn thing unless I’m underlining it,” he said.

That habit stuck. Even now, Newsom says he has to underline and mark up everything he reads just to make it stick.

Gavin Newsom recounts discovering dyslexia as a child

The moment Newsom learned the truth is still burned into his memory. Digging through his mother’s desk one day, he reportedly found files about his dyslexia.

He wrote in a 2017 piece, “One in every five children in the US has a learning and attention issue. Dyslexia is the most common of those issues, impacting as many as 8.5 million American school kids. I was one of them.” The discovery didn’t magically fix things, but it did give him a reason for years of academic misery.

While promoting his children’s book 'Ben and Emma’s Big Hit' in 2021, Newsom made it clear the struggle never went away. “As a kid, I struggled with dyslexia. In fact, I still do,” he said.

The trauma from those early school years “still haunts him,” he says, and it is one reason he has become a vocal supporter of literacy and learning-disability programs. Last year, he rolled out a statewide literacy plan, pointing to his own experience as he declared, “Learning challenges aren't a weakness or something to be ashamed of."

Gavin Newsom says dyslexia still affects speaking, reading

In a 2019 video interview with a young person who also has dyslexia, Newsom admitted that public speaking and reading remain challenging. He also noted how far special education has come since he was a child left floundering in regular classrooms.

In his view, dyslexia is both a curse and a gift. “The dissonance was frustrating, and made all the more difficult because of undiagnosed dyslexia, but the vantage point was valuable,” reads a description of his new book. 

Newsom says the condition shaped his entire life, blending with the grit he got from his mother and the appreciation for California he inherited from his father, who was a state appellate judge. He often leans on a Winston Churchill line to explain it all, saying dyslexia taught him to “fail forward fast.”

He reflected in 2017, “Growing up with dyslexia, I constantly underestimated myself and struggled in school. Looking back, if I could tell myself one thing, it would be this: Relax! It's okay to make mistakes.” 

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