I remember when I was still relatively fresh in my transition being introduced to another trans woman back in like the early 2010s and had been “out” for a few years but had only still recently gone full time, didn’t even have my name change done because I didn’t have the ~400 dollars to make it happen and I was so taken aback that she said outright “oh I’m a communist.” Was a bit of a major moment for me. I had a lot of seeds planted over the years between Occupy and just the financial crash but was still very much a lib. As time went on and suddenly the word socialism became less toxic it was a relatively quick shift to make, suddenly all those seeds ended up sprouting and it all just clicked together finally. Having more lived experience as trans and having come across a few people online and IRL that helped demystify it all really did help and I think that’s also a relatively big portion of it. We’re pushed towards the contradictions with our lived experiences while a solid portion of the community is already there able to explain the contradictions and demystify leftism.

I also remember early on despising the trans community because the communities I ended up finding were full of trans-medicalists and boomers with all the liberal trappings to be had. Completely exiled myself from trans discussions and attempted to never even mention it in any contexts. Finding /r/traaa was an opportunity to actually see more of the trans community and be happy with being trans and ended up kinda just being fine with being visibly trans, though it still sucks that people are shit. I do think the communities we build and the attitudes we allow are just as important as the lived experiences lest you have libs come in and try to paint it over leaving you wanting to just disconnect entirely because their answers suck.