Hyia sorry for this being very ranty, this is something I have only talked about with a choosen few people but I thought I might aswell just be open here and see what people have to say.
Please have understanding for my previously held believes, I don’t agree with any of it anymore and wish I had never had them.
I am Xea, 19yo transwoman(1 year HRT) and a diagnosed autist. I am very proud and ever more confident about my identity but it took alot of work to get here.
When I was 15 I was being bullied by most people in my class, another class and several teachers, I did not function in school as I have severe sensory issues which make me shutdown when there is too much noise to process, this made me grow very resentful and when I was introduced to conservative ideologue content on youtube I ate it all up, first I became moderately conservative, laughing at the “insanity” of the modern left, than I became a stounch conservative, I became hateful towards the migrants who had made me feel uncomfortable in my school and environment and leftist ideas being taught at my school, like… tolerance, I believed transpeople are just a silly leftist invention and (what hurts me most in retrospect) atleast famous trans people I would missgender on purpose.
I started to believe that this system is broken and that violence was the only way to right it.
Later on I started getting more influenced by libertarian politics and notions of personal liberty which ultimately somewhat deradicalized me but I remained somewhat right wing.
Something had been growing while I was developing these believes though, I was hyper sexual and my sexuality was not straight, maybe slighly gay, but mainly I wanted to be the other sex, I hated myself for it, I would be dead ashamed every time I enjoyed it, I would throw away the toys I had bought, hurt myself and people who found out.
when I was 17 this odd desire became more though, it was no longer just about sexuality it was calling… screaming at me that everything was wrong and that I had to get out.
So I left school and spend alot of time alone introflecting, when I started to experience hair loss it was basically my tipping point, if I didn’t do anything now, I would never be able to be who I wanted to be, so I bought a vial of estradiol cypionate and some dutasteride tablets and I turned the hateful ugly boy into a pretty woman.
It was hard to explain to my family how this happened and I never dared to meet my old friends again.
Thank you for reading! <3
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Hey BI guy(?) here have a somewhat similar back story you aren’t alone DW some might hate you but most of us are a welcoming folk
That’s a heck of a journey for someone so young. Congratulations on finding your own way! Punk as fuck, homie, be proud 😊 Also, I understand how you feel being ashamed of the way you used to think and speak, but don’t forget that all those were necessary steps that helped you grow as a person. The darkness that allows you to appreciate the light.
Anyway, welcome - we’re happy to have you! 🎉
Oh I left so many twists of this journey out :')
Thank you!, that is a nice way to think of it <3
Hey sis, you’re amazing in my book 🥇
First off: Internet hugs if wanted.
Second: It is - unfortunately - not uncommon for many trans people to overcompensate, to double down on one’s assigned gender and resent the people who represent whatever it is that one avoids. It is a coping mechanism in order to deal with conflicting feelings.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. You were young and you struggled. But you learned and found the strength to come out on the other side. And that’s what’s important.
Thank you, hearing that helps <3
and I would love some internet hugs :3
* hugs
Thanks for sharing, and glad you’re where you are now <3
I fortunately never got anywhere near as far down the pipeline, but with a few more bad influences and unlucky decisions it could’ve definitely have happened. I was pretty lonely and depressed back in 2018 and began following some really icky (in retrospect) anti-feminist, anti-wokeness YouTubers. For me the turn away from that came first, luckily. I made some friends in an ecology class, and that set me on a quick path toward environmentalism -> socialism -> social justice, and shortly after I figured out I was queer (thought I was a bi guy at the time, ha). However, took me another three years to finally make the connection I was a girl, actually :'D
Wild ride. Glad you’re being better. You’re probably gonna want to do some therapy to unpack all of that because there’s probably some shit still kicking around that you don’t even know about.
Thanks! <3
as I have mentioned on another comment this is not half of it '^^, I have gone to two therapists but my experiences were mostly negative so instead Im just trying to surround myself with loving people and taking MDMA every now and than hihi~, it has certainly helped me unpack some traumatic experiences I had been supressing for years!
A few things I’d like to say to this. It’s wonderful that you were able to escape conservative ideology and discover that you were trans. You’re not a bad person because of those beliefs you held in the past, you recognize that they were wrong and have made efforts to change them. And that’s great and you should continue to assess beliefs you hold. Conservative ideology and ideologies of hatred have ways of worming ideas into us that are bigoted. Those ideas may not stand out as bigoted to you on first glance. What I mean to say is, continually assess your beliefs and actively work to become a less bigoted person. It might feel like you’ve already undone all the indoctrination but these ideas have ways of sticking around when we aren’t actively working against them.
This is not an uncommon experience in trans communities. A lot of us struggle with finding community throughout our lives, but especially our teenage years and conservatism preys on the vulnerability of young people. That’s not to say that we bear no responsibility for our past words or actions, just that we can recognize when conservative has manipulated a vulnerable person into holding beliefs they would not have otherwise. Take ownership of the things you said and believed, but forgive yourself for it. You do not need to carry guilt and regret for the rest of your life. Invest your energy into undoing bigotry within yourself and being the best person you can be.
thank you!
you should continue to assess the beliefs you hold
hm, I mean, after my libertarian phase, I shifted into individualist anarchism before I ultimately stopped giving a fuck about politics since there is nothing I can change.
A while afterwards I was still experiencing thoughts of self tought about my identity due to the things people I had looked up to were spouting but thankfully these thoughts left.
I fell in with gamergate when I was a young newly out as bi teenager. I have adhd and felt left behind by society a lot. I was abused at home by my narcissistic single parent and was isolated from the outside world a lot by tm. The misogynistic anti-feminist movement taking place on YouTube at the time very much preyed upon those feelings and made me believe a lot of things that completely went against who I am and what I believe about the world.
Just question yourself whenever you have a thought about a group of people being a certain way. Like I said bigotry has a way of taking hold and infiltrating real thoughts and emotions we have. Which means it can stick around even once we believe we have purged ourselves of it. Pay attention to your own biases and try to undo them. Educate yourself on the experiences of minorities, not just queer people but other minorities too.
It’s been about a decade now since I walked away from the conservative sphere of influence, but still, over the years, I’ve continued to challenge my preconceived beliefs about people and their experiences. I try my best to continually work against a society that is bigoted and would have me believe bigoted things.
Just a heads up that certain trans people, and not a small number, will never trust or like you for admitting this.
I, however, am not one of those people. I would much rather someone be honest and talk about how they’ve changed, than to hide it all or even worse, being a secret LGBTQ nazi.
I know first-hand how they go after disaffected youth. The loners, the outcasts, the frustrated and angry.
Everyone talks about “groomers” these days. What could be worse than convincing kids and young adults to hate others simply for being different: minorities, inmigrants, Jews. That’s like the epitome of evil. That is true grooming, and the far-right are experts at using a variety of tactics. In-person grooming, using peer pressure, gangs, to online via social media, cartoons, memes, jokes.
They deflect responsibility for your own life, it’s all somebody else’s fault, who if eliminated will make everything better and set it back to rights. They take your interests (art, music, books, whatever) and turn it into propaganda, telling you what to think and how to think it.
Anyway thanks for your story, and I’m glad you were able to break free and find your true self :)
I was once tumbling down that same rabbithole, thankfully escaped before I hurt anyone. Now I have a score to settle with those bastards.
The deciding factor for me is based on actions and involvement. Like “I was a member of or gave material support to hate groups and openly harrassed minorities.” is a totally different conversation than “I got suckered into having some shitty private opinions for awhile.”
But I’m also disturbed by how many people play this down as some common trans backstory.
It’s not uncommon for a lot of people to be led to believe things by conservative media. That’s how conservatism propagates its narrative. They don’t win people over by convincing them to reason they prey on people’s insecurities and fears. Our generation went through a period of unfettered access to the internet in an age when conservatism began promoting hatred online directly to children. No intervening body of maintaining a sanitary public image, random conservative youtubers online promote bigotry directly to kids. That happened to a lot of people in my generation, particularly people who were already suffering.
No one I know ever harassed minorities or provided material support to hate groups. I don’t doubt that some do, and that’s not really what’s being talked about here or what most people are talking about. We’re talking about young people being misled by conservative ideology and growing to see that the beliefs they accepted were hate. That isn’t all that uncommon an experience. And no one should be shamed for that, for having bought into bigoted opinions and then changing them and recognizing that they were wrong. They need to take ownership of anything they ever did or said, this applies beyond the bounds of this conversation as well, but they are able to be good people and do good things in the present.
and that’s not really what’s being talked about here
Well, they did intentionally misgender trans people. Is that not harrassing a minority?
I did not misgender other transpeople directly(there were none) so no, it does not count as harrassing a minority, it does count as hatespeach imo.
Oh, ok. Must’ve misread your post, sorry.
No worries!, considering the way I wrote it, I was already afraid that people would interpret it that way.
Although it still hurts and makes me sick to my stomach to think about.
It’s impossible to change the past. All you can do is be good now and in the future, using your experiences to guide you. You know what’s right, and in time your actions will show that.
Same. I got suckered into it too when I was around 11 or 12. I was very lonely and spent a lot of time on youtube then. Youtube kept recommending me far-right content despite me never showing interest in it previously and eventually I decided to watch it. I got sucked in deep for a few years. It didn’t help that I live in a rural area, and many of the people I see irl are bigots.
I’m not proud of myself for get suckered in, but I am very proud of myself for getting out of it. When I was around 14 I started deeply questioning my religion. My parents had me going to a gender separated catholic school about once a week and I absolutely hated it. I started skipping class and this gave me a lot of time to think about things. At this time I parted ways from both religion and conservatism.
After leaving conservatism, I became a neoliberal, and then gradually moved further left until I became a socialist when I was 15. I also got my first phone and I ended up downloading reddit where I saw egg memes and other queer content for the first time in my life. A year later and my egg cracked. It took my parents a while to come around to it, and I wasn’t able to get HRT until turning 20. I am now almost 8 months on e and I am very excited to try prog soon. :3
Unfortunately though I still live in a rural area with a bunch of bigots, and I still have no irl friends since it’s mostly just grumpy old farmers where I live. Once I graduate from college I hope to move to the cities and have a much better life.
