• IamtheMorgz@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Eh, I grew up conservative and I started swinging in high school (then admitted it to myself in college) mostly over gay rights, which were becoming more and more front and center debate at the time. At the time I would have said I was 100% straight and 100% woman, but I had gay friends and I wanted them to have all the things I could have. It was my first ideological break.

    Sometimes it you, sometimes it’s the people you care about which get affected. While it might be true that people with low empathy might have to be directly effected, the reality is that for most people it will be simply gaining an affected friend. This is why college makes you liberal, by the way. It’s not the teachings, it’s the fact that you spend time rubbing elbows with real people who turn out to be nothing like the caricatures you were told they would be.

    • frickineh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My ex-husband’s kid did the same thing. When they were in elementary school, they told me we should hate a celebrity because they’re gay (obviously parroted from their born-again mom and creepy youth pastor stepdad). Then in middle school, they made a gay friend and their mom threatened to make them change schools, and I think that was one of the first big wtf moments where their lived experiences really clashed with what they were told at home. It kept happening as they made more diverse friends and figured out most of us are just trying to live our lives in peace, not eat babies on the weekends at our interracial sodomy parties or whatever.

      Now they’re a young non-binary adult who is full on pro LGBTQ+ rights, pro-choice, anti-racist, etc. I’m sure their mom blames their dad, but all he really ever did was be supportive and clear that in his house, bigotry wouldn’t be tolerated.