I was never very religious. Basically I just believed without thinking too much about it and thought church was boring as shit.

During 10th grade an astronomy class that was supped to be a blowoff class ended up being my favorite teacher and it reignited my fascination with space and science that I had when I was really young but kind of just faded. It also sparked my agnosticism.

That all led to some basic facebook usage of the early 2010s when everyone was getting in to, well not science, but pop sci articles. So id be posting stuff from I Fucking Love science and other pages that turned out to be pretty shit once you peeled their layers.

At the same time I joined a decent amount of atheist pages since living in the south didnt exactly provide me with many to relate to with these new changes in beliefs. Over time it became clear there was a dichotomy in some of the pages where some were super misogynistic while some others had zero toleration for any misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, etc. So I left the other pages and stuck with the ones that were tolerant. By sheer luck the admin of one was a big leftist and posted a bunch of memes dunking on ancaps and supporting ancoms.

This led me to many pages of similar flavor and a lot of pages focusing on rationality, skepticism, and critical thinking in a realistic manner that tackled pseudoscience and fallacious arguments with peer reviewed journals being passed about compared to the "critical thinking/skepticism" that leads you down the path to conspiracy theories and becoming unhinged ancaps.

One day an ancom meme led me to reddit to some lefitist pages. Eventually finding and joining chapo where I lurked and learned and eventually participated.

Throughout the whole process from facebook, as shit as it is, to chapo I was slowly picking up more leftist ideas that just seemed so common sense. Especially with the help of a kid I met only twice in college.

He was only out as gay at the time but the first time I met him the homophobic dicks who my friend was hanging with would always fuck with him. I added him on facebook and hes since come out as, actually I dont know If I can comfortably say as Im not sure where he is in his journey but he does use he/him pronouns but is gender fluid in his style. Dude was a great person. Always volunteering to escort people in to abortion clinics I think every week. Also the fact hed regularly go in to waffle house in the deep south in fishnet stockings and full makeup. He was a straight "I dont give a fuck badass" and dude is crazy smart. Like he learned Latin for fun smart.

Anyway through just basically listening to him and his pro trans posts and his pro leftists posts on facebook he helped shape me the most probably.

Sorry, this is sorta stream of conscious so some things are a bit lout of place time wise but I forgot to mention the cringy shit politics I had before and during my progressions so ill throw in special paragraphs for them.

Basically I was just barely too young to vote for Obama in 2008 or I 100% would of. I fell hook line and sinker for his faux progressive talk. By 2012 I was on the fuck him train because of his drone strikes, reaching over the aisle at the cost of our citizens, and all the other fucked up shit he did. This led to my most embarrassing vote....

Gary Johnson 2012. I was not a libertarian and wasnt well informed on his politics due to laziness on my part but I was at peak anger with war on drugs and locking up minorities for fucking weed and I bought in to the "he needs to get 5% to get on the stage" or something like that. Then in 2016 I had a much better understanding of what a tool he is and after the bernie fucking during the primaries in 2016 (and 2020) it became clear electorialism is not the answer to anything and voting in the big events like that is just a theater show.

Then delved more in to communism, socialism, anarchism, etc. For awhile I thought I was communist but I realize I havent read near enough to say thats my beliefs. I might still be but Idk where I fall in the leftest spectrum other than Its more left than socdems or demsocs, proabably more left than just socialist but I dont have the education on anarchism or communism to say I fall in to that either as I feel they heavily rely on healthy human cooperation and I havent had faith in other people in over a decade. Especially other Americans.

I just really really hate capitalism, classism, racism, sexism, some other isms, etc. Whatever gets as many people taken care of regardless of their status in society from healthcare, to housing, to income, to normal human amenities and basic human rights. The world is far to rich for all people to not be living comfortably and without racial or other prejudices.

So thats how Im here. Didnt not mean to write this much but it just kinda happened and its done so whatever.

Anyway what has been your journey to being a leftist?