so the answer is, TT doesnt work on M1 because the TT employee specialist didnt answer the question by saying to use TT "ONLINE". And the TT support site for minimum requirements specifically says:
"Processor: Multi-core Intel processor with 64-bit support"
I think that Apple screwed up with M1 switching away from Intel. It will take years for many apps to migrate to a small population of M1 machines. In the case of TT, if you need to reference past year's TT files, you'll need to keep the old laptop or only use /reference pdf's.
