there’s no real reason i need to discuss this but it’s sort of been on my mind lately anyway and last night sort of crystallized a process i’ve been going through lately in my own mind. it’s not really a secret in my friend group that i’ve been getting courted by nrx & nrx-adjacent people for over a year now, and they’ve always been nice to me and invited me to their house parties and so on. left wingers in contrast have exiled me from friend groups, brigaded my account and threatened my life for helping people improve their lives with capitalism, and even giving ~every discretionary dollar i made on wall street back to the queer community, it’s just more proof to them that i am a capitalist running dog who needs punishment. some of my friends have wondered why i’ve gradually drifted more to the right, and i think that’s really just a lot of it. the rw people i meet mostly really respect what i’ve done for the queer community as a demonstration of agentic behavior even if they have different views. the left wing people have shouted me down about how bad it is that i engage in capitalism and shouldn’t use my contributions as a proof that i care, that anyone could do that and it doesn’t mean anything and oh by the way you and your friends deserve the death threats we post at you for participating in the economic system we all live under at all and especially for trying to use it to lift each other up. now, i know a lot of this is probably selection effects. many of the rw people who don’t like me probably just avoid me entirely. but even so, i’m a transwoman with no education living in the gayborhood of one of the most liberal cities in america with a history of queer community efforts. it shouldn’t be hard for the lefties to win me over to their side or at the very least be allies. and sure enough, i am friends with a few communists irl who are lovely people. but if your messaging is alienating me, and targeting me as a person to exile, why on earth should you expect it to play well with normies. i want all queer people to win, leftists included, but at some point it feels like you just want to lose and want to be oppressed and angry. this is spitting in the wind, i know, but i guess getting called a usurer to my own community really got to me when 90% of what i’ve done have been grants to help young people have enough runway to get tech jobs and be on the top of their game without fear or desperation. not for nothing, i’m not going to let one night of leftists radicalize me entirely against them. im still happy to work with or help anyone of any political persuasion. it just feels so. strange, i guess, that i’ve found myself here. it makes my soul sad a bit, and i just wanted to write about it. i’m doing my best for everyone, haters included. it’s all i can do.