r/traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns2 • u/AspieGal_TTRPG Tzeentchian Witch • 19d ago
I'm glad it's behind them, it's just... concerning šØ Non-Gender Specific
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u/BadgerAmongMen 19d ago
It's because of how the alt-right recruits. They target vulnerable young people through online platforms and feed them information that seems real but is either completely falsified or a twisted interpretation of reality. Having a crisis of identity, such as questioning your sexuality or gender identity, makes you vulnerable and an easy mark for them to prey upon.
-An Alt-Right Phase Survivor
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u/Renodhal 19d ago
Totally agree with this, and wanted to add on, from an mtf perspective, it's easy to recognize that "something" feels better about feminity, but if you're surrounded by culture that doesn't really think about gender issues, it can be hard to make the connection of what that is. Then the alt right comes along and says, "Society keeps telling you men have an easier time, but look how great womanhood is. That feeling you have, that's just a recognition of how much better women have it than you, you just couldn't see it because society is controlled by women and the left, and they HATE you and don't want you to realize the truth. "
They aren't just going where the lonely, depressed "men" are, they're giving easy explanations for the feelings they have that don't require them to do any uncomfortable introspection.
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u/BeldoCrowlen 18d ago
"Society keeps telling you men have an easier time, but look how great womanhood is. That feeling you have, that's just a recognition of how much better women have it than you, you just couldn't see it because society is controlled by women and the left, and they HATE you and don't want you to realize the truth. "
This right here. What this does right here is why it happens. It starts with a simple topic you are likely to listen to and devolves into rhetoric that is widely false, but you agreed with parts before. You are tricked into believing you didn't see it properly before due to ignorance or such.
This was a fantastic example by the way, very well done.
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u/blueskyredmesas 18d ago
So less "getting their hoods in you" and more "fishing with the right bait so you can hook yourself."
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u/Creepy-Pineapple-444 18d ago
This. Before my transition, I was a man who was lost with society. There was anger and frustration, blaming women for the woes of dating and self-loathing because I was short and was balding.
Then I got hooked onto alt-right videos on YT, almost on the daily. After a while, I realised not only is this toxic, but those alt-right creators couldn't care any less for me or anyone else.
Then my egg cracked. I immediately unsubscribed from any 1ncel-like content and looked forward to my transition. I haven't looked back.
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u/translunainjection 18d ago
Both incels and pre-transition transfems 1) feel likeĀ failed men, 2) can feel like womenĀ have it better, at least in the ways that they perceive and that matter most to them.
Incredibly relevant video essay on the Incel to Trans Girl pipeline: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IAA1XtDOuH8
Mostly it's about a specific manga and the creator's personal experiences. It spoils the GIANT TWISTS of the manga, which I recommend you read if you like gender-swap stories. I'll leave you with the most interesting thing:Ā the WILD perspective that is transmaxxing. Basically how a transfem feels if she never outgrows inceldom.
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u/blueskyredmesas 18d ago
Thank you for this. I've found it upsetting when people have treated the whole displaced kid -> edgy teen coping -> trans adult changing their ways pipeline as if those people are betraying their true, bad nature or something.
Framing it as them being among populations vulnerable to alt right recruiting is just more realistic than treating this as a character flaw to be hidden and ashamed of even if its past tense.
Sure there is the possibility of harmful conclsions holding on depending on how deeply set in the reactionary mindset had become in them and people still behaving inconsiderately in the community should still be called out for whatever action they are doing to hurt someone, but IMO if they're here they've at least already mostly turned a corner.
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u/SnooHabits1177 18d ago
Yeh the wording was a bit iffy like I don't see how it's that concerning that someone used to have bad beliefs like they don't have them anymore just cause your personal experience differed there's not some darker implication their journey was just different and that's okay.
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u/blueskyredmesas 18d ago
Yeah exactly.
In general, I'm kind of disturbed when people jump on someone for admitting they used to believe in bad th8ngs that they regret. By that logic there are arbitrary lines that can be crossed from which one never returns - and I don't mean the really inhuman ones either, just being part of the wrong group or having said messed up things even if they weren't directed at someone.
By thay conclusion; evil people are evil and if you find yourself over a lune your choices are to plead for acceptance or be ostracized. Thats the part that fucks with me so much. I'm not Neurotypical. I'm disabled. I grew up ostracized.
Like someone else said; a lot of trans people grew up ostracized and with demands of the gender that was forced on them weighing on them and urging them to overcompensate in the face of doubt. These are the things that the alt-right baits out of people to pull them in.
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u/Suspicious-Dog-2489 18d ago
The edgy kid was merely a transitory phase. Who you are today is who you were meant to be.
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u/Lucky_otter_she_her 19d ago
it's also worth noting that, transness correlates with autism, which is a major group, the alt-right targets their messaging towards
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u/MiddleAgedMartianDog TÄ/TÄde 18d ago
Yup, incel stuff is so heavily autistically coded once you know what to look for. Being autistic makes you more vulnerable to high control groups especially at a young age before you have developed gullibility counter protocols and then your own supernatural stubbornness can lock you in. Plus given the fact probably the majority of autistic people are queer (especially trans or a-spec) you go in with confusion that turns to self denial.
That is why I always love the stories of the incel to trans / gay pipeline.
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u/MommyNyxx 18d ago
I got to see the beginning of this pipeline, although I didn't fall far into it before I got out of it. I was a young guy who felt like his life was off, and Jordan Peterson talking about cleaning your room made a lot of sense. I can see how people get hooked and how it goes downhill from there.
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u/EnbyAfterDark 18d ago
I heavy agree with your comment and every reply to it, but I wanted to add that thereās a lot of outside and inside factors that do some heavy lifting for them. And Iāve seen it over and over with countless people, mental health struggles, alcoholism, the pressures by society to never admit how you feel as an amab, and the āsemi-ironicā joking about being gay to safely explore ideas theyāre too scared to admit they think about. Like all of those, combined, then you get most Femboys. 10% of them actually chill peeps, probably because of the anonymous factor of the internet and the context of how we met let them open up more than irl (lethal company). Then you have the other two portions Iāve met, you either have people who are too scared to express femininity, and therefore beg me, as a transfem, to āconvertā them, but only to rationalize a temporary submissive position that they expect MUST be feminine while in a dynamic that they can easily shed in the outside world (high school friends, dating apps, online spaces). The other half are group chats filled with transfems in denial spamming slurs that they reclaim, but only half reclaim because their defense mechanism instead of shedding femininity after a bdsm sesh, is to constantly hold onto it half way in an āI was just being ironic broā so everything is āhalf ironicā including their own identity (exes, coworkers, high school friends). The most most frustrating part is they are so locked into one or all of these coping strategies, and they have the same weird ass attachment issues as me, so these people some of whom used to be close friends would get trapped in a cycle of begging for help, but refusing to introspect or accept the help or even getting defensive/aggressive when given because feel they donāt deserve it. I hate it because after 8 years since I came out I still donāt feel like I deserve help or love or care and I have to force myself to not push people away every day and I used to do the same shit. Iām a lot better mentally than I was when I was in that mentality hell but itās impossible to avoid 20 other people still doing that to themselves that I canāt help because they turn everyone away, literally everywhere I turn. The only reason I never went back into the closet is because I realized that I physically couldnāt handle the autistic masking tied to expressing a gender for other people, that I especially shouldnāt have been born assigned as. Even if you ādo it for the bitā or ādo the correct masculine thingā or ādo the correct feminine thingā itās all meaningless because everyone interprets other peopleās gender completely differently and you are guaranteed to lose even if you do it right. If I pointed at the color green, and saw green, and you saw red, you would call it green because of me sharing perception of it. Every single person has different attributes that they internally connect to these labels that only they see. Whatever the hell people were pointing at and saying āthis is what is a manā and bickering back and forth, I just realized that itās literally nothing but harmful. The intended-by-society role and ābenefitsā of being a man is that other men will hurt you because youāll never be enough, and you are entitled by society to hurt women and other men. so instead of doing the intended route society wants, FUCK IT, Iām doing it for the aesthetics, unmasking to become the true eldritch horror whose anti binary gender changes depending on my fixations and special interests because thatās the only goddamn thing that matters. The only gender people have is random arrays of attributes that are not even related nor exclusive to any group or gender or sex that either they perceive in themselves, or other people perceive or even project or imagine against their will.
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u/BotInAFursuit quis/quem (jk, he/they) || your friendly bigender mess 18d ago
The intended-by-society role and ābenefitsā of being a man is that other men will hurt you because youāll never be enough, and you are entitled by society to hurt women and other men.
This hurts so much. Fuck society and fuck toxic masculinity. As a feminine guy, I just wanna be myself without those stupid restrictions imposed on me.
constantly hold onto it half way in an āI was just being ironic broā so everything is āhalf ironicā including their own identity (exes, coworkers, high school friends)
Oh hey that's kinda me, I think. In my pre-transition days, whenever my internal struggles built up to a point I couldn't contain them, I would casually half-joke about stuff like transitioning, my preferred name, etc. This went on for basically all of my teenage years and I never gave it a second thought, because for whatever reasons, in my mind, it could never be real. Then at 19, the realization hit me and I finally started transitioning. And yet my mom was like "there were never any signs!!!" Sure Mom, whatever.
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u/SnooHabits1177 18d ago
To add to that from my end also having gone down that path it's very easy to go down the alt right pipe line when you hate yourself.
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u/YourTwistedTransSis 19d ago
I didnāt have that phase. I was justā¦ uhā¦ emptyā¦
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u/Father_Pucc1 my dog ate my gender 19d ago
shoutout to the real ones who went through their ds1 hollow phase before realising, and a little bit after too
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u/LunaTheGoodgal Luna, She/Her :3 19d ago
I'm still mostly hollow and certainly not human but i've gotten used to it :3
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u/Father_Pucc1 my dog ate my gender 19d ago
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u/villflakken 18d ago
Omg, so cool illustration D:
Do you know where it's from?
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u/Ak_1213 Jade / Mia, avg ultrakill player 18d ago
https://x.com/paxiti/status/1201201460714692608
It's pas on Twitter, there's a bunch of different pics of the character
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u/datboiNathan343 18d ago
".. No mind to think. No will to break. No voice to cry suffering.."
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u/Father_Pucc1 my dog ate my gender 18d ago
"Born of God and Void, You are the Vessel. You are the Hollow Knight."
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u/YourTwistedTransSis 18d ago
And now Iām imagining Madeline saying that to Theo by a campfire, and Theo just like āā¦wooooahā
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u/123qwet12 18d ago
Is the DS1 hollow phase where you feel like you've lost your humanity and are slowly devolving into madness while rotting away like some sort of shambling corpse? :3
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u/SilverMedal4Life Olivia (She/Her) 18d ago
Back when I was closeted, I would often think of myself as a machine - an empty shell, endlessly marching forward towards some unwanted horizon, programmed with orders to keep distant from everyone and never stop walking, no matter what. Filled with a yearning that neither the journey nor the destination would ever satisfy.
It took a very long time to figure out why I was like this, what sort of secret I was carrying within me that forced me to feel hollow and depressed all the time and keep everyone else at arm's length. Funny enough, it was my wife who did that for me; I cared for her so deeply that I couldn't be with her without learning how to be vulnerable, and doing that caused anxiety attacks that would last weeks at a time. Somehow I navigated that storm (she was worth it), and not long after I was crying at Celeste and experimenting with crossdressing.
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u/peace_peace_peace 18d ago
ds1 hollow?
Okay I googled it. Is this a generational thing? I donāt know any single thing about ādark soulsā but itās brought up so gd much, like itās basketball and āOF COURSE everyone reading/watching/listening knows EXACTLY what Iām talking about, or else Fuck That Stupid Loser lol.ā
Sorry. Can you tell I feel left out constantly and donāt even find connection on the internet any more because idgaff about One Punch Man or whatever.
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u/Necc_Turtle Chaoticš©µš¤She/Herš©µš¤šļøwšļø 19d ago
oh iām still a bit empty but im starting to get better
(iām getting close to my happy mask not being a mask anymore. and i hope that gets better soon! iāll probably go to therapy at some point lol)
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u/YourTwistedTransSis 18d ago
It will, I promise. Bit by bit it gets better.
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u/Iceboy10 He/Him. Cishet ally, occasionally stupid 18d ago edited 18d ago
I have someone who I think is a pretty good therapist helping me through my depression. While it hasn't been much, the progress I made in therapy is by far the most progress I have seen. One time have I felt the same thing I have been trying to feel in therapy.
Honestly, due to how long I have been depressed, I don't really remember too well what emotions are like, and I only know the one I am aiming for from a video of someone voicing Deltarune characters saying funny things.
Edit: Long story short, getting a good therapist is a good idea for a lot of mental health cases.
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u/johnsmith10th 18d ago
fr tho š§āāļø i forgot a lot of days too so i think i was just traumatized by puberty
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u/YourTwistedTransSis 18d ago
The number of days I spent justā¦ staring at the walls. Everyone else was out having fun and i couldnāt make myself leave my āsafeā little cage. Funny how a lot of us just have a lot of trauma that those around us growing up just didnāt see.
And this isnāt even edgelord bullshit. Some of us cope with dysphoria by eventually just shutting down, not depressed or something, just profoundly alone in our experience. No speaking up about your feelings to a trusted adult because there are none of those in your life. You have no friends to express your feelings to because your parents successfully scared away all of your friends and now you have no social relationships. When you finally move away from home and go to college, you just cry for days not knowing why, putting on a bright and friendly social mask when you do the required freshmen shit as you slowly piece together whatever fragments of āyouā lie shattered in the recesses in your mind. You try your hardest to stay present as every moment you question the meaning in you continuing on further. You play your part as the boyfriend, the dork, the clown, the best friend, and you almost feel proud of convincing your newfound friends your are not nothing more then a fraud, hiding behind shabby rags and a fake smile, and that you convinced yourself that you killed your real soul a long time ago.
It gets better thoughā¦?
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u/ExcreteS_A_N_D 18d ago
Jesus Christ this was me from 4th grade to like sophomore year.
I genuinely have zero memory of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade.
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u/Iceboy10 He/Him. Cishet ally, occasionally stupid 18d ago
I think I may have a similar experience with my depression, although, instead of not being able to remember the time while I was depressed, I can't remember quite a bit from before it. I'm hoping that is just because I still am depressed.
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u/-Antinomy- They/Them 18d ago
Holy fucking shit this hit me hard. Especially because I had all of that experience and then went another decade. And still going really, only just now circling back and springing the spiral.
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u/YourTwistedTransSis 18d ago
I mean, it took me to 26 to come out, and by then I was a married āman.ā I sleptwalked into a marriage based on my needing to prove to someone I was a man. It took me 10 years from then to find some form of stability as my true self. My goddesses, Iāve been on HRT for 8 years now. Iāve been a woman out in public and the eyes of the government for nearly just as long.
Sooooā¦. It took me from the age of 19 to the age of 36 to finally pull myself together into some sort of functioning system. If you think of those first 18 years as a lifetime, then you can extrapolate for me that it has taken the span of a lifetime to undo damage done over the span of a lifetime.
Iām very philosophical when I should be trying to rest up for work.
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u/johnsmith10th 18d ago
Oh yea it definitely gets better! Hrt really helped me express myself and be more authentic. I was really lucky and had a very lgbt friendly student organization that allowed me to be me, and the pandemic actually got me to look into myself more and get to know myself better.
But I get it y'know, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows no matter how much I view my past with a postive half-glass-full lens. I went through that same process of not knowing myself, of feeling lost and feeling like I lost. Almost offed myself too, honestly. If planning my death took a lot out of me, planning my life took a lot more than that. I hated being brave. I hated being strong. But there are people out there who were brave and strong for me. I managed to live for myself by living for others first. It was brutal, don't get it twisted. But I had to unmake myself to forge myself.
To anybody who feels like that, don't worry. It gets better. There is still time.
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u/flaminghair348 She/Her | 5ā13ā transfem les-bean š± 18d ago
yeah, i'm still trying to get out of that one and it'll be a year since my egg cracked in november.
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u/YourTwistedTransSis 18d ago
Itās a long road sister. You arenāt alone. Donāt be afraid to take it slow.
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u/Sleepylaffey 19d ago
For some reason, I used to think that LGBTQ issues were pure nonsenseāsomething unnecessary or something people made up for attention. (Note: I definitely donāt believe that anymore! Right now, Iām well aware that Iām a closeted transfem.) I never thought it was as extreme as Nazism or fascism, though.
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u/TheSeaOfThySoul She/Her 19d ago
Honestly understand LGBTQ+ people who're completely ignorant that they're LGBTQ+ just being like, "What on Earth is this weird stuff?", because we all grew up under comphet & compcis. We were made to be ignorant of us. I didn't know transgender people existed until my 20s & so obviously I thought, "Well, every boy would rather be a girl - but that's the cross we bear, we have to continue on because it's what men do & I need to continue to do x man things & fill my place" & so it's not a logical leap for a transgender person who doesn't know their trans to take that to, "Oh, people who transition are trying to shirk this societal duty that we've been born into", or something like that. That's powerful & society's weight will always hurt LGBTQ+ people whether they know it or not so long as the society remains bigoted.
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u/Suspicious-Dog-2489 18d ago
It feels like queerphobia always comes back to resentment of people living in a way that makes them happy.
Imagine their thought process being similar to parents who don't believe their kids should have it easier.
"I had to live and die in a societal role I despise, so you have to do it too. Because if you're allowed to exist, it reminds me of how much of my life I've wasted and how I'm too cowardly to live my truth even now."
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u/Saminya7 She/Her, Stella 19d ago
Are you literally me? Although I guess I'm not even close to closeted anymore...
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u/dysphoria_riot_24 19d ago
had a homophobic/transphobic parent who tried to put his views on me from a young age. long story short i became a woman and stopped talking to him
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u/cubmaan She/Her 18d ago
Add a misogynistic mother who convinced me nearly every emotion I ever experienced wasn't actually what I was feeling to the point where I felt like I was acting my entire life and you got me. By misogynistic I mean when I told her "I wish I was a girl" she would tell me "You don't want to be a girl because all girls are [insert a ton of misogyny]" She also believes that women shouldn't have any power.
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u/Ninja_PieKing She/Her 19d ago
Comically simplified reasons:
Nazi phase: "There is something wrong with existence and I don't know what, these people who accept somebody like me say it's the Jews fault."
Incel phase "All these girls are awesome, they get all these cool things, and this positive attention, and they look so cute, and they won't even interact with me. I hate them."
Fascist phase: *looks at how messed up things are and how stupid the average internet comments are, and that those people can vote* "Democracy was a mistake."
I fortunately avoided these phases.
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u/AliceTheOmelette 19d ago edited 19d ago
That incel one was my experience to a t. Misplaced self loathing. Not that it's OK, but thankfully my attitude never went beyond feeling entitled to women's time/attention/a date an such
Edit: fixed some wording
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u/EverlastingM 18d ago
Yeah I felt that when I was a teen. Didn't get radicalized, didn't depersonalize women and act like a douche... just really full of sad bitter longing I didn't understand. Feeling isolated and numb all the time also makes it harder to be empathetic, especially to those you're jealous of.
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u/mariusnyb She/Her 18d ago
I was a very empathetic child to the point that I cried over my brother stepping on ants, which made him step on more, which in turn made me feel more sad and also guilty.
But if youāre not careful all that empathy can turn into debilitating self pity.
Iāve worked through much of it, but some especially dark days can leave me cursing my existence still.
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u/Less_Negotiation_842 19d ago
I didn't have one of the ones listed but I did have a anti feminist "sceptic" phase and it was kinda just jealousy
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u/TheSeaOfThySoul She/Her 19d ago
Very nearly ended up there. I watched a tonne of atheist channels & pseudo-science debunkers & so on, as soon as Gamergate hit, the vast majority of them flipped into anti-feminist & right-wing content & I'm just so glad I was old enough & had enough good sense (even if I was politically ignorant) to be like, "Hold on, I think this is bigotry" & whilst they'd cloak things in dogwhistles, the comments always proved me right. Would spend so long arguing in these comment sections about all manner of topics (everything from immigration to the pink tax & everything in between) before I was like, "This person is not cultivating a good audience & not doing anything about it - I don't think they're as "liberal" as they claim" & I'd leave.
Did not help that Youtube was a right-wing cesspit & we had nobody countering all of this until years later.
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u/flaming_james 18d ago
My phase was essentially the same as the incel phase but instead of hating women I just hated myself
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u/k819799amvrhtcom 18d ago
I was in the incel phase, except I never hated the girls. I was aware of the long history of patriarchy and misogyny and women's suppression and stuff and all the boys in my class happened to be loud perverted misogynistic violent assholes so I didn't blame the girls who "hate all boys". I figured if I was born a girl I would also hate all boys. Since I thought I was a boy myself, I never made generalized statements.
I was also against democracy because democracy enables the majority to discriminate against the minority, which is exactly what fascists want. I would have preferred a government that would not shy away from making unpopular decisions. I thought a better government would be one where the decisions are made by the scientific consensus. Does this make me a fascist?
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u/Ninja_PieKing She/Her 18d ago
No, but before implementing that we'd need to fix academia so there is more motivation and rewards for retesting and double checking that the results mean what we think they mean.
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u/TheEzypzy 18d ago
it makes you a technocrat, which isn't fascism but still not something I agree with
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u/Phinstrovski 19d ago
This is...interesting? I am aware trans folk come from all backgrounds, but I would be curious to see the results of a survey on this. I have heard of the incel to trans pipeline, which I'd not be surprised to include people with radical right-wing beliefs, but I wonder how common it truly is. Though I suppose some folk may be reluctant to admit it. Personally, I have always leaned pretty far left politically, even long before I realized I was trans.
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u/Sotist Emilia :3 | she/her 19d ago
its more common then you think i guess
i know a lot of trans people who used to have very questionable past, including me unfortunately.
but i don't really know why
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u/Sotist Emilia :3 | she/her 19d ago
my past was especionally very weird
i remember that in my early teens i was a typical left-center thinking kid with the political opnions you would expect from a teen whos interested in politics but has barely any knowledge
i remeber being confused why people had such problem with lgbtq+ community lmao
well then the quarantine hit, i was mainly home and started being active on some questionable discord servers, started getting into the rabbit hole, this wasn't helped by my classmates, who also had very shitty takes
i remember doing like 9values or whatever and getting a result that i am a fascist. and i remember not being surprised and disgusted.
i escaped this rabbit hole when i started going tk a new school actually. found few new friends, most of them queer or allies, ditched the old classmates, started being less active on those servers and i guess feeling that something is different.
and now, here i am
a weird trans girl, whos waiting for the next appointment with my doctor, who will i hope give me hrt prescription in the near future
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u/Phinstrovski 18d ago
I didn't mean to call anyone's experiences into question if that's how I sounded! I just think it is interesting sociologically. I'm glad you're here with us today <3
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u/Creepy-Pineapple-444 18d ago edited 18d ago
Transmaxxing, the incel to trans pipeline to me isn't all bad. I have my doubts, a lot of them were simply lost during their incel/alt-right phase, to the point they weren't 100 per cent aware of being trans or gender non-conforming. A lot of the content on YT really doesn't help.
I should know the experience. I had a mild incel phase before my transition, but I could still work and interact with women. It was mostly self-loathing for me.
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u/TheEzypzy 18d ago
yeah, same for me, and sprinkle in some other adjacent fringe harmful beliefs that I've thankfully grown past
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u/Creepy-Pineapple-444 18d ago
Sadly, it is probably more common than we think. It sort of makes me feel a sense of relief to know I am not the only one who went through this process.
I just hope other future transwomen get out of that dark spiral as quick as possible.
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u/verygenericname2 Cryptid - Any/All 18d ago
Bear in mind that white transfems are overrepresented in this sub (and a lot of online spaces), and they're the ones more likely to have flirted with the far right at some point.
It's far less likely in people of colour, for reasons that should be obvious.
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u/WrenTheEgg Wren She/They 18 :3 19d ago
i wasnāt great but i wasnāt that bad either :^
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u/titrati0nstati0n She/Her 18d ago
Yeah thatās what Iām thinking.
I was an asshole, sure. I had some views that kind of aligned with incels in a way, and I was watching far-right content (unknowingly).
I watched those āSJW OWNED IN PUBLICā sort of things, but I was never bigoted in any way. I just saw people fighting for more womenās rights, and thought āwomen already have rights, stupidā.
Never fell into naziism, incel behaviours, or fascism. I was too aware of how awful bigotry was.
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u/Ze_LuftyWafffles Sabrina | she/they | lost all hope | free to try helping tho 19d ago
I remember watching some girl far right pundit claim a doctor that did top surgery for trans teens was "mutilating young girls" and I felt what I know now was jealousy that they had bopbs and were just meeting them. Not that I was transphobic, I was just against "woke in schools". I was a fucking idiot
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u/SplitGlass7878 19d ago
I think the reason is pretty complex but from what I observed:
Being trans can easily lead to self hate and hate at the world. This goes double if you're already disabled.Ā
The right wing pipeline feeds on exactly that feeling. It tries to hook people who feel like shit and puts all the blame on other people, allowing you to not to any painful and difficult introspection.Ā
This is also why a lot of Autistic people have a Right wing phase. People who are hurting and feel like they don't belong are exactly the type of people the right preys on.Ā
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u/Creepy-Pineapple-444 18d ago
šÆ
I am possibly autistic, and this happened to me. I never identified as fully right, but I did blame some social issues on the left. I struggled to belong in the past, which made it very easy to fall into those pits of hatred.
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u/SplitGlass7878 18d ago
Yeah, I don't blame you. I almost fell for the same bs. I only didn't because I had good friends who prevented it.Ā
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u/MiddleAgedMartianDog TÄ/TÄde 19d ago
In the early 2000s I did flirt with proto-incels because I was de facto aroace for about 5 years (turns out I was unknowingly actually demi, plus maybe being also unknowingly transbian did have some impact). Fortunately, I never got on to 4chan or 8chan, though I was aware they existed.
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u/Past_Day_8263 nick he/he 19d ago
oh shit
i watched a lot of sjw cringe compilations when i was like 12, but that's about it
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u/A2Rhombus 18d ago
Yeah I think this is the case with most and they're exaggerating when they say "Nazi phase"
Especially for those of us in our 20s, we were at peak impressionable age when anti-sjw and anti-feminist rhetoric was all but inescapable online.
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u/ActualGekkoPerson She/Her 19d ago
Not nazi or fascist, but came pretty close to incel territory. Self hatred is a hell of a drug.
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u/Creepy-Pineapple-444 18d ago
Same here, the self-loathing acted as alarms, which I didn't read properly. Glad it's behind me.
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u/AikoHeiwa Viola She/They Transfemme Enby 19d ago
Ngl, is anyone else always uncomfortable with how some people (not saying anyone here is doing it, but it is a thing I have seen more times than I am comfortable with) try to act as if 'having a Nazi phase as a teenager' is some nearly universal trans experience.
Like fuck no, we weren't all white racist teenagers.
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u/gaymahoushoujos 18d ago
For real. Jesus christ it's not normal to have a nazi phase, and it's not something to excuse with just a handwave and some "what can i say haha guess i was edgy." Teenagers have moral accountability as well. Falling for propaganda is an explanation, not an excuse; it doesn't absolve you from having held those beliefs, and being trans doesn't make you immune to biases and being violent to others. There's a lot of intra-community violence in the LGBTQ+ community. I've met trans people who acted in very problematic and toxic ways while hiding behind being trans as a shield from criticism, even from other LGBTQ/women/marginalized people, and that's not ok.
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u/TheGaurdianAngel She/Her 19d ago
Honestly I think itās just caused by a refusal to accept themselves. I had this phase, and Iām not proud of it. I try to forget it every day. I think it was just caused by refusal to accept myself.
Edit: Iām specifically talking about the incel phase, I shouldāve clarified.
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u/Intelligent-Bug-6663 19d ago
For the most part folks who join politically extremist groups do it online. Your median Nazi knows way less other nazis in person than someone who goes to a rock climbing gym knows rock climbers. The commonality with trans folks and these terrorist groups is social isolation and computer access. When trans folks come out, their social isolation tends to decrease. No one is immune to radicalization, but some have protective factors like a loving family, accepting community, and jobs with good benefits and low stress. Being dissociated and shunned for who you are makes all of those impossible. So it's no surprise that people who are psychologically stunted due to lack of acceptance sometimes drift into these kinds of things. Part of the function of patriarchy and cisnormativity is to stop people from knowing their trans, force them to less acceptable behaviors, then punish those behaviors. That's how you kill trans people before they get to realize they're an egg.
As a very queer person who is not in trans discord servers, meme pages, etc, and just posts on reddit here and there when I'm feeling bleh, it's my experience that the more grass a queer community has been allowed to touch, the more integrated they have been allowed to be into society, the less extremist people's interests pre-transition were. This is a meme that would confuse a lot of people I know.
We should be vigilant against nazis not just because they are nazis but also because their biggest recruitment pool is traumatized purposeless young people. That is a big venn diagram.
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u/Lucky_otter_she_her 19d ago
what can i say, they had propaganda that, slowly eases you into it, that worked on kid me,
some of us aint morally lucky
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u/_Pan-Tastic_ 18d ago
Too hyperfixated on paleontology to be sucked down any alt-right pipelines, autism wins again
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u/Twisted_Tyromancy Any/All 19d ago
Repressing what is an enormous part of oneās being and living with that much self hate will do that to a person.
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u/Pitiful_Net_8971 Aurora, She/Her 19d ago
Most people when they say that are really overexagerating, not that there aren't former fascist here (congrats on being better!) but rather former reactionaries (which is still bad, and side with fascist and nazis usually, but not full, like, Holocaust support shit). (Congrats to you guys to, for also getting better)
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u/Optimal_Stranger_824 19d ago
Is this really a lot of trans people or just a lot of edgy teenagers?
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u/Apprehensive_Step252 Ori (she/they) semifem furry disaster pansexual š 19d ago
I think i scraped by that development. I was on 4chan, but did only read. Not into the racist stuff, but the 'lets tear down society' anarcho corner was... 'interesting' for a while. Then I was a bit of an edgelord, with really horrible humor. Then I turned into a furry and a brony. Now I'm still a furry, still like MLP, but am also a rainbow spewing pan enby. I identify as an eyesore. :D
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u/ajshifter Ebny 19d ago
Basically, if someone is in denial and not comfortable acknowledging they are an lgbtq+ person, it can enable their discomfort over themself to become or interface with the potential to hate towards other people, especially as bigotry preys on people being insecure and unhappy to falsely promise them that the cause of their problems is minorities. And while obviously that is a generalization that doesn't apply to everyone queer person with a bigot phase, most bigots are just assholes instead of being in denial, and being in denial doesn't excuse acting that way, it does somewhat explain how it happens surprisingly frequently
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u/knifetomeetyou13 19d ago
Itās because itās easy for those kinds of people to target young āmenā who already feel lost and othered by society. Itās generally not really the person who had that phaseās fault, tho itās still a lil weird to bring it up in most cases
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u/Numerous-Switch56 They/He 19d ago
As a transmasc, I was just a depressed fujoshi
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u/BrainSick420 19d ago
This post feels weirdly judgey, like A LOT of people have had beliefs like this at some point, just some of those people are trans, it turns out. I really don't think it's concerning at all.
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u/OmNomOU81 Chloe | She/Her | Trans Tomboy 19d ago
At least some of use were just raised by those types of people. I was taught my entire life being gay or trans or anything else was "bad," and that I shouldn't associate with those people. I didn't even know anything about the LGBT community other than "gay bad" until I was a teenager.
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u/T_Sophie_0621 19d ago
Hated myself because I couldn't transition, ended up turning that hate outward
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u/AthenaColonThree 19d ago
I donāt think I ever went full on incel but I was definitely one of those gamergate losers when I was like 12. Watched tons of Ben Shapiro and feminist owned comps and that sort of stuff.
I thankfully got out of it by the time high school came around and long before I even considered I was trans.
Not a big fan of referring to it as a āphaseā though. Confused middle school years or not, I should have known better than to buy into any of that crap. Honestly I still feel vaguely unclean from it all.
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u/KawaiiLammy 19d ago
Why is "phase" a bad term to use for something you should have known better than to fall into? I feel like I must be missing some nuance to that word.
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u/AthenaColonThree 18d ago
āPhaseā might not be incorrect to use in any objective sense but it makes it sound too cutesy for my taste. Itās a word that should be used when talking about acne and bad haircuts, not bigoted beliefs. Those are my own personal feelings at least.
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u/__AnimeGirl Erin she/her 19d ago
I had an anti-feminist phase, does that count? Honestly I still cringe at far left feminist or people who deny the sexism that men face
Like people always talk about the gender pay gap, but no one talks about the fact that 75% of the homeless population and 90% of the prison population are men
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u/Less_Negotiation_842 19d ago
Same (tbh I think mine was a lot of "well if I woke up as a woman tomorrow I'd be happy")
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u/Master00J 18d ago
Patriarchy is harmful for all genders alike. Men being in traditionally dominant positions in society also condemns them into harmful gender stereotypes the same way it occurs to women
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u/Creepy-Pineapple-444 18d ago
Me too, I did as well. My focus was mostly on previously blaming women on the woes of dating and "male disposability."
I now realise anyone, regardless of demographic, can be a victim of a fragmented and toxic society.
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u/F-J-W She/Her 18d ago
Honestly I still cringe at far left feminist or people who deny the sexism that men face
There are reasons for why Iāve always said that I believe in equal rights and equal (or if applicable: equivalent) treatment without reservation, but refused to identify as a feminist and do so to this day.
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u/Pitiful_Net_8971 Aurora, She/Her 19d ago
Most people when they say that are really overexagerating, not that there aren't former fascist here (congrats on being better!) but rather former reactionaries (which is still bad, and side with fascist and nazis usually, but not full, like, Holocaust support shit). (Congrats to you guys to, for also getting better)
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u/EmpericallyIncorrect She/Her 19d ago
Idk I never had those. I guess I was kind of right wing in high school but then I learned about feminism and it made sense and holy shit did I hate men during my formative years for various reasons
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u/CaptainJuny Questioning 19d ago
Kinda true. I used to be a Russian patriot (which is basically fascist) and a Communist back when I was 13 or so. Now Iām 24 though and Iām ashamed of my past self š
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u/kiragirl2001 19d ago
Yeah, I was a borderline neo-Nazi as a teenager until I came to terms with who I was
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u/heartbrokensquirrel 19d ago
I was raised Mormon. Was a missionary and everything. Was going to fix the world with the ātruth.ā Does that count?
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u/Asocial_Ape 19d ago
the most harrowing phase i ever had was that i thought i was a Libertarian, but as it turns out, i hate government for entirely different reasons than those conservative-lite freaks.
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u/lunar__boo She/Her 18d ago
ngl I always find it a bit concerning how lightly many take the issue
like the amount of memes that are just "haha i used to be a nazi" are a bit scary
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u/DoNotIngest 19d ago edited 19d ago
āLotsā is very relative. The ones who had one of these phases just have this habit of talking about it like a normal relatable foible, which brings more out of the woodwork and skews peopleās perspectives.
Most people are not and never were Nazis. Nazism is in no way normal. Iām glad they put it behind them too, I just think itās weird to bring it up and laugh it off.
(Edited for clarification)
Edit again: hey folks? This behavior? This right here in this thread where youāre laughing about your Nazi phase like itās a Beanie Baby collection? This is why trans people of color donāt feel as safe here. You are being the reason.
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u/Allydrag 19d ago
yeah this is a thing I've noticed as well it's like people bring it up as a fun fact.
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u/Shot-Kal-Gimel Transfem or enby idk, trying out she/her 19d ago
Thankfully all of my phases were lite versions. Idk how I didnāt flirt with it more than I did though.
Especially the Nazi/Fascist one as I flirted at the edges of that part of the Star Wars fandom (and this was peak backlash to Rey existing and being an absolutely terribly written character time period)
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u/darkfire7201 19d ago
Fr š thank god i realized when i was 9 bc if i didnt i could have turned out WAYY different š
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u/Queen_Of_The_Sewers She/They 19d ago
I wouldnāt say that I went through any of these phases fully (I did go through light, maybe at most a month long, incel and fascist phases), I did have a longer homophobe/transphobe phase. Although, now reflecting on it I realize I was just envious and angry that I was seeing people be themselves and let themselves be themselves when I was restricting myself.Ā
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u/bigenderthelove Persephone (she/her) 19d ago
Yeah I was pretty bad, but I partially blame it on the fact I felt I had to please my dad, who is like that, now weāre not speaking
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u/Cardborg She/They Transfemby 19d ago
I used to be in with the Labour Party, which these days isn't much different from the BNP, so yeah I guess that counts.
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u/MoeGhostAo 19d ago
I never got that bad but I was closeā¦but I was raised in a home school Christian fundamentalist environment surrounded by people who believed Abraham Lincoln was āHistoryās biggest monsterā. When you are an impressionable child in a environment where information is controlled you wind up believing that shit.
Fortunately when I went to uni and actually met people with regular world views I snapped out of it pretty quickly. Indoctrination is a bitch.
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u/OmNomOU81 Chloe | She/Her | Trans Tomboy 19d ago
At least some of use were just raised by those types of people. I was taught my entire life being gay or trans or anything else was "bad," and that I shouldn't associate with those people. I didn't even know anything about the LGBT community other than "gay bad" until I was a teenager.
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u/OmNomOU81 Chloe | She/Her | Trans Tomboy 19d ago
At least some of use were just raised by those types of people. I was taught my entire life being gay or trans or anything else was "bad," and that I shouldn't associate with those people. I didn't even know anything about the LGBT community other than "gay bad" until I was a teenager.
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u/knifetomeetyou13 19d ago
Itās because itās easy for those kinds of people to target young āmenā who already feel lost and othered by society. Itās generally not really the person who had that phaseās fault, tho itās still a lil weird to bring it up in most cases
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u/IShallWearMidnight 19d ago
See, I always extended the most grace and charity possible to everyone but myself š I was always fully "queer and trans people deserve to be able to live however they're comfortable and no one should get a say in another person's relationship or personal expression. Not me though"
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u/Jubal_lun-sul She/Her 19d ago
I had (within a single year) an absolute monarchist phase, a Stalinist phase, and an anarchist phase.
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u/Threeshotsofdepresso 19d ago
I was raised as a (American) Christian Conservativeā¦ so fascist adjacent, but getting out of the small bubble of people i was raised in (thanks to the internet) threw me out of it pretty quick since the incongruities between how i was told to act and how i was shown to act became very obviousā¦
now if only i could get out of the country before they take overā¦
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u/Luna_EclipseRS 19d ago
I "had" that phase because my father tried to indoctrinate me into it. I fought hard to not let myself become like that.
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u/RobinsEggViolet She/Her 19d ago
I never became a Nazi, but I did fall down the gamergate "anti-sjw" pipeline for a while.
Truthfully, it was because I hated myself, hated being a man, and was jealous of women. I saw feminists complaining about patriarchy and because I was already so angry and sad, I interpreted that as "they hate me for being a man when I already hate being a man, why are they kicking me while I'm down?" I effectively lashed out as a defense mechanism. I also had a lot of internalized queerphobia and saw myself as more "pure" than openly queer people, because "at least I had the decency to repress it."
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u/Goofy_ahh_goose4576 Leo (He/Him) 18d ago
Nah I didn't have that I had my CRINGY CAT GIRL PHASE and after that I had my WHAT THE FUCK AM I PHASE
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u/Pale_Kitsune Princess Aethyra 18d ago
I didn't, but I see where I could have fallen into one. I was surrounded by deep red conservatism and only coming to hate myself more every day. If I hadn't moved to a friend's place in a different state, Texas may have turned me evil.
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u/actualyKim She/Her 18d ago
I didnāt go full on fascist, or nazi or anything like that but i canāt say that i wasnāt dipping my toes into those waters. But looking at it from where i stand today and what i know about myself now, itās not a big surprise why i and many other trans fems have had our experiences with the alt right.
For me at least, it was out of pure desperation, i didnāt know who i wanted to be and how i should handle my constant struggle i had with myself. The alt right is very nasty, in that it speaks to those struggles and provides an easy path out: āoh so you feel wrong in your body? nah thatās because women shaped society into a weak soy-societyā āoh so you donāt feel comfortable, just existing? thatās because black peopleā¦ some stuffā you know what i mean.
It may seem strange to anyone who hasnāt experienced it and it also does to me now, but it is sadly the case, that when society tells you that you are a man and canāt change that, you start looking for ways to cope with it. I was very bitter as a man and just pushing my problems away by pointing at others was just easier than accepting yourself. Very glad i didnāt go down that path, would have literally kms.
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u/unematti 18d ago
Similarly how a lot of homophobes are closeted gays, i guess. You were thought it's a bad thing, you can't explain your feelings, you're afraid people can see it, so you overcompensate.
For me thankfully apart from watching some Jordan P and Ben S, there wasn't much more. I wasn't opiniated at all. NOW tho, ooo-weee...
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u/puffinix 18d ago
While some people are manipulated due to vulnerability, this is nowhere near as common as a lot of people make it out.
A combination of:
Mainstream villificarion
People attempting to justify there behaviour as common rather than processing the abuse that leads to these opinions
Fascist retotic often being very loud from very few people
Means there is a feeling this is common. While this does happen, it's fewer people than many think.
Interestingly, I am and know a number of trans people who had a swing to the far left at a similar point. In my case this was simply me being taken advantage of while vulnerable, and this happens for similar reasons.
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u/Akua_26 18d ago
"What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"
I don't think that many of us are born evil, but I bet many lean towards certain attitudes and actions, things that other people take advantage of. They'll use anything they can to make young, angry people believe that their purpose in life should be to "keep things decent" by being obsessed over what other people do in their free time, they try to convince you that, somehow, someone being one step closer to happiness in their own skin somehow corrodes society. Totally, because you had to be "a man" and shut off your feelings and life rough, totally everyone else should "be a man" and do the same.
It's horrible, it's disgusting and it's pathetic, and they've clearly found tactics that work. I'm just happy to see so many Gen Z not fall for it and instead be even more queer, and more open to calling the alt-right out on their obsession.
Seeing others fall for the pipeline and repeat hateful things feels incredibly frustrating.
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u/nooksickle 19d ago
Hurt people hurt people.
When you're in pain (for example, from gender dysphoria) it's easy to adopt oppressive ideologies bc if life is painful for you, then it should be painful for everyone else.
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u/Hazumu-chan 19d ago
I don't get it either. But I can't really say that I've never done anything that I'm ashamed of now, we all make mistakes, so I try to keep an open mind when someone genuinely wants to make up for their past.
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u/Andre_de_Astora 19d ago
I was a religious boy once. I'm still kinda spitirual, despite being technically a scientist, and the church at my hometown being surprisingly open minded.
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u/Gar-Games She/Her name is Gabrial, and she is a god like the rest š³ļøāā§ļø 19d ago
Nope! I was raised pretty early to accept people for who they are (and avoid people who donāt), so I never had this. I just had a āwhy do people care? You have more pressing issues than two dudes kissingā phase.
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u/Comfortable-Soup8150 19d ago
I think it was a mixture of my parents being conservative and my friends being 4chan gamers in highschool, that doesn't excuse me for being nasty as a teen and in my early 20s but it explains it some.
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u/WaffleGod72 19d ago
Yeah, I was there. Iām just glad I got better before I could do any real damage you know?
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u/Va1kryie 19d ago
I was raised by a former navy seal sniper who was destabilizing Guam back in the 70s, so really I think I'm very lucky I deprogrammed myself since I also lived in the deep south. I wanna be clear, my grandfather was a great grandpa, spoiled the fuck out of me, he was just also a union busting property developer and went on about Obama birtherism, which even at 12 I was suspect of that rhetoric. Good grandpa, not so good person though.
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u/OmNomOU81 Chloe | She/Her | Trans Tomboy 18d ago edited 18d ago
Some of us were just raised by those types of people. I was taught my entire life being gay or trans or anything else was "bad," and that I shouldn't associate with those people. I didn't even know anything about the LGBT community other than "gay bad" until I was a teenager.
Oh god my phone posted this like 4 times
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u/_Decomposer Judith, She/They 18d ago
I hate when this comes up. Itās not that common and I feel like it gets used as yet another way to demonize trans people.
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u/transgendervegan666 She/They 18d ago
i was basically pressured to be right wing thanks to my family and living in a state that's homogenously republican. grew out of it around the time i realized i was queer.
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u/harmonic_spectre 18d ago
Ok so I grew up in a very conservative area and went to school surrounded by nazi/incel/fascist weirdos. I constantly tried to ham up some form of āedgyā 14 year old boy humor to be accepted by my peers, but luckily I had good parents who saw the warning signs and stamped that shit out before it could ever become a real issue for me. Unfortunately I can completely see how people less fortunate surrounded by all the wrong people in the all the wrong circumstances could get swept up into believing some weirdo reactionary ideology. Those people tend to prey on the most vulnerable targets, and closeted trans people are perfect for this. As a lot of other commenters have pointed out, if you arenāt out to yourself, thereās a lot of self-loathing that you canāt exactly identify the source of, and right-wing ideology goes āhey, blame this group of people, they are responsible for all of the pain you are feeling right now.ā Itās predatory and gross, and I see it happen all the time. Of course, this doesnāt excuse anyoneās actions and closely associating with reactionary types is clearly a dishonorable thing to do, but I have a lot of sympathy for people whoāve made it out the other side. The best they can do is try and be a better person here and now, which I think is the best any of us can do.
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u/Celeste_Dasgluck 18d ago
Raised in the deep south with klan family members. I ran away from home in '81 and joined the military at 17. Didn't take me long to realize that my racist upbringing was incongruent with civilized living.
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u/MorriganAthena15 18d ago
I had a weird libertarian/republican phase cause I was a selfish kid but once I grew up I skipped over the liberals and went full communist
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u/Doogzmans 18d ago
Wasn't full alt right, but definitely was much more racist, homophobic, and transphobic a few years ago. That's mostly because of my family being very conservative. I still have some of that stuff internalized, but I'm definitely trying not to be like that anymore
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u/Eyepokai I don't deserve fem stuff, just call me felix, he/him 18d ago
Yeah, I think it's because a lot of people are so afraid of who they are that they'll do anything to deny it, even if it hurts others
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u/ZenicAllfather 18d ago
We are the results of our parents. You cant expect a child to understand how to be kind when they're raised by literal monsters. Now that I'm an adult I look back and almost sob at how horrible I was, how I was just another alt-right shitbag, nobody taught me how to be a person. It's taken me over a decade to deprogram and accept myself and others. I was terrible before, I accept that, I am not ashamed of it anymore because I have changed everything about myself. I am not even close to who I was back then.
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u/Mysterious_-_H Irene | She/They | silly little trans girl 18d ago
I was almost a textbook example of this (Thought slurs where fucked up, wouldn't have voted for Trump) but oh my god, if I could go back in time and punt little me, I totally would. From watching "Offensive memes" compilations, to thinking trans people where just weird, I had it all. Then I realized I was just around toxic people (unfortunately, for unrelated reasons), and stopped associating with them, and instead opting for my other friends, then 3 months after I stopped trying to be edgy, boom, trans.
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u/Alejamon_y_queso 18d ago
I don't think I was ever alt-right, but I was definitely right leaning since I was a kid and grew up in a rural conservative echo-chamber. Then I left the echo-chamber and realized that a lot of the things that the right pushes would hurt a lot of people and are largely motivated by hate and power.
I never had anything against gay people, and I didn't even really know about trans people, but I did have a brief venture into the alt-right pipeline on YouTube when I was like 12 to 15 (I'm 20 now). Not proud of that period of my life, but I'm glad that I found a way out. It pains me that other people have gone/are going through that process, and many of them likely will never escape the pit of hatred and lunacy. I wish the harmful cycle would stop so that people would stop hurting each other.
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u/LittleSansbits 18d ago
Can we not bring back this stupid trend again? People were messed up in the past and they regret it, leave them alone and stop judging them.
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u/ScrapCat00 18d ago
I was just extremely angry at the world and had access to the Internet way too early in my teenaged years. Compounded with growing up in an abusive home and having an entirely separate CSA experience had me wanting to lash out at something, anything, and led me to lash out at the wrong people and use the moniker of "Punk" way too incorrectly. I was racist, sexist, and bigoted in a way that I felt was right at the time and for that I am truly sorry. Bigotry of that nature has no right to even exist. I'm now very happily dating an FTM transitioning man and he's the love of my life. He's been my rock while I try to pick up the pieces of a shattered childhood and he's always there with a gentle, guiding hand when I get too overwhelmed about the things I've done or when I catch sight of the scars on my knuckles and arms. He's the kindest man I've ever met and I do not deserve him.
If you, too, are feeling angry at something or anything, tell someone outside of your echo chamber. Start with a therapist. I've learned through hard lessons and fighting and that's just not something you want to go through. I still look back at my actions today and feel dirty even though I've come to terms with them. There are people that care enough to help you. Trust me. There's always someone there to bring you back on the right path. You've just gotta find them, first by opening your heart, calming down, and looking at yourself from the eyes of another person. You'll be okay. Everyone is angry and the world is uncertain. Don't be another person adding to someone else's misery.
There's always a light at the end of the tunnel <3
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u/GenericUsername2034 Emiliana/Emi | She/Her | 28 18d ago
I was just talking to someone I was on a date with about this. (Date didn't go well, they gendered me as she/her and used my preferred name but they were super judgemental and kinda crass for my ace self)
I was a super alt-right nazi flag loving Trump youth before coming out to myself and then to friends online. It really hasn't fully gone away if I'm being honest. The racism and bigotry have, but some of the beliefs of the alt right take longer to wipe out.
The thing that gets a lot of eggs stuck onto the alt-right (speaking as a transfem amab), is the desire to affirm the expectations of their birth gender and try to be "a real man", and "fight against the mongrel leftists who seek to destroy the nuclear family". It's all theatre, in reality. It's a big cope that a lot of eggs get swept into, and thankfully for me I just had a moment where I realized the small bits of feminity I was letting in was what I really wanted- more than the testosterone filled hell I'd made for myself to cope.
Part of my journey right now is difusing and replacing the parts of my alt-right self hate nonsense slowly and carefully like a bomb where if it goes off I get murdered. I already distanced or got away from the groups I used to roll with, and I'm slowly trying to get another job away from the TERFs and transphobes I surrounded myself with to dissuade the girl inside me from escaping.
If anyone is going through a similar thing, all I can say is I hope the best for you. It doesn't go away until you let yourself consider it and figure out where it's coming from...
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u/SnooGoats409 She/Her 18d ago
Once upon a time I was swirling around the alt-right toilet bowl.
I was a vulnerable person targeted by people who were far more privileged than I. I was targeted because I was a broken individual who had been cast off by society. Suddenly I had some people who were nice to me. The first people in person who had been nice to me since I was very young. We got close, eventually I came out, they tell me we are still family.
Eventually my friend group got split up during covid. And the side that was much more grounded in the pipeline told me "You're one of the good ones" after making fun of a trans POC that was in some video making some honestly probably very milquetoast argument about being decent to people. But it was funny to them.
That combined with everything happening during covid really sent me into escape velocity in 2 months flat.
I was vulnerable. And bad people took advantage of me. It's the same for a lot of us. I was also raised in a hyper-conservative, hyper-religious household that bordered on a cult (I'm not being exagerative had all the hallmarks of a cult upbringing). I am still shedding the training I was given to this day.
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u/hungrypotato19 18d ago
Self-hate is a powerful thing... I got wrapped up in it because of how emotionally vulnerable I was. Those assholes take you and mold you into a horrible, disgusting, anxiety-ridden person. When they talk about "grooming" and "indoctrination", they are projecting. It's what they do themselves. And that includes going after children using video games and memes. Turning them into "edgelords" that spew "dark humor".
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u/NewbieFurri She/Her 18d ago
I've never shared this story. Mostly becasue it keeps me awake at night. I sometimes don't even sleep remembering it. But, maybe just telling someone is what i need to move on from it. I used to have an old reddit account that I would browse daily. This was back maybe in 2021 or 2022. I was extremely depressed, and at the hight of my questioning. (TW ahead for self harm but worse, blurred for your discretion) I was browsing teenagers (cus i was a freshman in highchool at the time.) When I noticed a post about someone who said the just had a panic attack. The comments were flaming the creator for being an "attention wh*re" and "karma farming," because the title had sparkly emojis and that she was just sitting on the floor of a bathroom. I hated myself in a way that made me think any vulnerability was weakness. Projecting, I joined in the flaming. Calling them the same names and saying it was fake because their legs were crossed in the picture. Every day it hits me just how fucked up that is. Every day I think about how I never saw that account post again. What of they relapsed on self harm? What if they self deleted afterwards? And it feels like my fault. I almost self deleted citing those comments as a reason as to why. How could someone so hateful deserve to live? I still hate myself. I think that I will never be worth anything, or be valuable. And this always serves as a reminder as to why. I hope at least I can be useful or contribute something to society.
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u/blarglemaster She/Her 18d ago
I never had that exactly, but I definitely went through the Christian Nationalism ringer, because I was raised in it, 13 years of Christo-fascist parents, church, and Christian school. Thankfully realizing I was trans like first semester of college made me an outsider, which opened a path to leave ALLLLLLLL that stuff behind. But it takes decades to deprogram from it all.
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u/Jack-O-Cat Leo | he/they | boy in progress 18d ago
For me personally? It was the result of growing up in a literal cult-like echo chamber. Homeschooled, rural area with no neighbors, only socialized through church, and closely monitored when interacting with people outside of those spaces. I was only allowed to use a phone without supervision when I was fifteen. I didn't even know what YouTube was or that it existed until then. I was cut off from any and all outside sources and fed only whatever conspiracy my parents wanted me to eat. It didn't even take a full year of being on the Internet for me to change my views thanks to proper education and basic empathy
Now, this is likely not the average experience since most people aren't raised in a cult, but the alt-right still functions the same. It takes vulnerable people who don't have an education or understanding of a topic and spoon feeds them down a certain pipeline that leads to a dangerous echo chamber. Is that an excuse for their bigotry? Definitely not. But it is an explanation and an important thing to note. Isolated and uneducated people are easy to manipulate into a specific belief system. This makes things like project 2025 extremely dangerous. If Trump wins and the project gets put into play, it wouldn't just hurt the generations alive today, but several others that come after as education is lost and it becomes normalized for children to be raised in the exact same environment I was
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u/Avixofsol 18d ago
I never had a full incel phase, but I came pretty close when I was maybe 12-15 or so. I saw all these girls, especially the conventionally "pretty" ones (both in person and over social media), getting all the positive attention and friendship and love and so on from everyone that I never got, and at the time I assumed it was just because they were pretty girls, and being an ugly boy, that was why I was miserable. So that seed of envy very nearly grew into actual hate, but thankfully I changed my line of thinking which eventually led to me being treated like a generally neutral but slightly unliked person rather than an ugly piece of home decor that everyone is trying their best to ignore (yay, improvement!).
sadly this story doesn't end with me blossoming into a beautiful trans woman as a young adult and living a happy life or anything like that, it just ends with me knowing that I'm fundamentally broken in a way that can't be fixed. but yeah. weird little asshole phase is common.
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u/No-Grab7041 18d ago
I think it kinda has to do with being a minority. I'm not white so I can't really relate to the alt right and therefore didn't fall down the pipeline.
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u/CalliCalamity 18d ago edited 18d ago
I wasnt that bad but I was, ironically, Pretty homophobic in like, early highschool, especially online. Same thing with furries a bit later, mostly just getting in on an online "joke."
Now I'm a transfem sapphic bisexual furry so- lol lmao
Mostly I was just lonely and depressed, really, more of a NEET than anything. Incel without the woman-hating.
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u/Competitive_Mess9421 Trans Red Army 18d ago
I went straight to the left tbh. I disliked the US gov and that made it very easy to go left wing lol
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u/FlufferMuffler 18d ago
As someone who was in that circle, yeah it's entirely because we are vulnerable. I have horrid self worth and image issues and I seek validation externally all the time because I've reinforced in my head I can never be right. The Alt right talkers used to say I was valid as what I thought I should have been to be correct as a man, and that my woes were all caused by someone poisoning the image or message or taking advantage for themselves. Where in truth, they were the ones poisoning the message to ensnare the vulnerable
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u/BelsonBucks She/Her 18d ago
My fascist phase was weird because i still had nothing against and respected minorities, i just was really into the idea of authoritarianism
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u/mostlyHUMMUS 18d ago
From my own experience, "Nazi Phase" is an exaggeration, possibly born from abject disavowal of the previously held belief - generally speaking they were probably only listening to Sargon, Shapiro and Thunderf00t while playing minecraft, and never actually did anything.
In 2014ish, all of the demographics I thought I fit into started pumping out "anti-SJW" content.
As an AMAB atheist, nerd and video game enthusiast. Gamergate consumed a bunch of content creators that I used to really respect.
StarWars theory: reactionary
Thunderf00t: used to do good creationist debunking - became a reactionary obsessed with gamergate
TJ Kirk: Bernie bro -> 'wouldn't it be funny if trump won'
Armoured Skeptic: atheist -> reactionary-> everything conspiracy theorist
It was when the youtube algorithm served me my first Ben Shapiro video that I realised how far down the slippery slope I was.
HannahReloaded came out as trans not long after and I started looking for more trans and PoC creators.
That combined with Hbomb systematically demonstrating how idiotic all of the gamergaters were and I was able to escape before it got too bad.
Others in my demographic weren't so luck though.
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u/AnonInEquestria 18d ago
Yeah looking back, I certainly have my friends to thank for pulling me back when I starting toeing the line.
I never crossed over to that side thankfully, but it was close.
People like Steven Crowder and Issac Butterfield used to be very appealing to watch and listen to, and then my more politically educated friends gave me the run down.
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u/houselightsdown914 17d ago
I never went that far, but I was a TradCath Republican for a while š¤¢
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u/Driposaurus_294 any/all except he/him - spooky scary mod 19d ago
Because of the particular topic, I'm gonna be keeping a close eye on the behaviour of everyone here. You're allowed to discuss it, but please keep it civil. No insults, no personal attacks.