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
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.
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.