How I came out to 140,000 people

[Fragment]

Well, we have guest blogs we host here:
https://www.map-union.org/perspectives/guest-blogs

Usually as long form articles, rather than multiple articles. A kind of summary of your experience. Focusing on the positives out of it would be great. It's easy to focus on the negative because there is so much on it. One of my biggest articles talked about MAP suicide, an important but extremely heavy topic. It was exhausting and probably no fun to read.

Although I'm sure it was far from all roses, being able to finish on a note of hope would be awesome.

My mental health has been really unstable recently, but if you want to draft something then I can give it a look. Or maybe BLueRibbon if he has time.

[Julia]

Oh, someone supportive had actually sent me a link to that Medium article at the top of the page after I came out.

I would be more than happy to contribute a guest blog. While there was truly a lot of harassment in my experience, there was also such an incredible amount of support, a lot of it by people with valuable expertise, and most of which I have saved as screenshots, so I do have a lot of positive to focus on. The positive reactions were also often highly detailed and logical, whereas the harassment was usually fallacious, emotionally-charged knee-jerk reactions completely devoid of substantial arguments.

My mental health has been really unstable recently, but if you want to draft something then I can give it a look. Or maybe BLueRibbon if he has time.

I'm sorry to hear that you're feeling this way. It's important to talk about what you're experiencing. If you're comfortable, you can share more about what's been going on in the Member Support forum. Remember, reaching out to a mental health professional through B4U-Act can also be a helpful step.

It may take me a while before I can send a first draft because I've been awfully busy lately, but I'm definitely looking forward to contribute. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share more about my experience, and a general thank you to all the mods/administrators for all the priceless work you do! Y'all are absolutely amazing

[PorcelainLark]

I have started writing answers to some of these questions, but given the unique situation, most answers require a lot of detailed explanation, so this is going to take a while to finish but, again because of the unique situation, I'm sure my answers will be of high value. I am looking forward to submitting my answers once I'm done.

Again, thank you so much. I know I should try to maintain a neutral tone in these contexts, but I have to say I'm excited.

[Julia]

Again, thank you so much. I know I should try to maintain a neutral tone in these contexts, but I have to say I'm excited.

Because of the sheer amount of people I've come out to, the proportion questions are impossible to answer very accurately. I'll still try to answer them as best I can. I should also note the difference between people I've actually come out to (i.e. people who read my essay) and people who had heard of me through the smear campaign. The vast majority of people who harassed me didn't belong to my followers, so while they did react to something (highly deceptive) they heard about me from someone else, they are not people I came out to.

Since I came out online through a public post, I also can't really answer the entire "neutral experiences" part. I interpret people not unfollowing after having read my essay as a positive reaction, since to follow someone is to support them, and not unfollowing in this case is a supportive stance on the matter. No one has explicitly told me that they feel neutral about what I said. Among the friends I came out to before coming out publicly, there also never really was any neutral reaction. It was always either good or bad.

Negative experiences:

These questions in particular will be hard to answer since, as mentioned earlier, the vast majority of negative experiences came from people I did not actually come out to, and these questions are about those whom I did come out to, so I'll try to be as detailed as possible in my answers.

Were there any people who initially reacted positively or neutrally, but later became negative towards you? If so, roughly what proportion do you feel were like this?
I remember there being exactly one such case. One person had sent a brief message of support, but sent me another message a couple days later saying they had changed their mind. I don't remember the exact words, but I remember them calling it "a dangerous paraphilia." My guess is they ran into some pretty bad representation of the community and judged the entire community based on that.

In retrospect, do you feel there were any signs that would have indicated if a person would react negatively to you coming out?
It's probably rather obvious, but the more opinionated a person, the higher the chance of them reacting negatively. Especially very ideological people could not see past their biases and prejudices. It's also the very ideological who participated in making smearing posts about me. They were of various ideological convictions — tankies, other Marxists, alt-right, TERFs, self-proclaimed "anarchists"(*) — but all were notably very orthodox and inflexible in their beliefs.
Another thing I would like to note about two people who first launched the smear campaign is that one of them, who went by the name of queersatanic, got directly accused by someone of having groomed her online when she was a minor and was called a hypocrite by her for smearing me. Another who worked closely with queersatanic and whose name I don't remember had an instagram page full of lolis, so I suspect a classic case of denialist overcompenstaion.

What were the ages of those with whom you had negative experiences?
Since the vast majority of people harassing me weren't followers I did not have any statistics about them, but then they also can't be regarded as people I actually came out to. Some of the people harassing me did originally follow me, but again I strongly suspect they read a smearing post and reacted based on that without reading my essay. All the people harassing me generally made a highly immature impression and were probably mainly late teens/early twenties, but then again the very act of harassing people online is in itself an immature act so it's only natural that they made a generally immature impression.

What was the education level of those with whom you had negative experiences?

What was the economic status of those with whom you had negative experiences?

What was the cultural background of those with whom you had negative experiences?

Whose negative reaction was most unexpected? (e.g. a family member, a therapist etc.)
Before I posted the essay publicly, I posted it for just a couple of friends. That was actually the reason I wrote the essay in the first place. I did not plan on making it public at the time I was writing it. There was one friend in particular whom I thought could benefit greatly as she was giving strong denial vibes. In the end, she reacted extremely aggressively, calling me all sorts of bad things, and even insulting my friends for accepting me. This was a big factor that motivated me to make the essay public.
There were also some people I thought were my friends at the time, whom I thought would understand, but who ended up stabbing me in the back. I think the fear of social disapproval played a big role in that.

Whose negative reaction was most expected? (e.g. a family member, a therapist etc.)
Kinda obvious answer, but any of my closed-minded followers. I must say, I was expecting a lot more backlash than I actually got.

Did any of those who initially reacted negatively, change their mind at later point?
Here, too, there is exactly one case I remember. This was already months after I first posted my essay. This person had read it later as it was still in a story highlight on my page. Initially, they approached me with hostility in the DMs. I kept responding with compassion and kindness, and eventually this person calmed down. Then I answered some of their questions and won them over. We went on to have a nice chat about the housing crisis.

If so, what do you feel distinguished them from those that didn't change their mind?
A genuine willingness to understand. Most people who react negatively are not at all open to challenging their beliefs as they feel, without a shadow of doubt, that they're right. They only want to hate. This person, after cooling down, was actually interested in understanding.


Positive experiences:

Roughly what proportion of reactions were positive?
I don't know the exact numbers, but tens of thousands read the entire essay and continued to support me. Each individual slide received hundreds of likes. Over a hundred supportive private messages had been sent, plus about fifty or so people defending and supporting me publicly in comments. Most of the 20k unfollows happened after the smear campaign and before I posted the essay on my story, so those can't be regarded as people I came out to.

What were the ages of those with whom you had positive experiences?
While I don't have a screenshot of my follower statistics at the time, they were somewhat the same as those on my personal Instagram, so I'll go by that. 1.2% 13-17, 12.8% 18-24, 40.2% 25-34, 33.5% 35-44, 8.1% 45-54, 2.1% 55-64, 2.1% 65+

What was the education level of those with whom you had positive experiences?
Very hard to say. I suppose it's very similar to that of the general population of English speaking countries (about 70% of my followers were from the US, followed by Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, and India). Although because of the nature of the content I posted, I did have a lot of doctors and sociologists following me.

What was the economic status of those with whom you had positive experiences?
I think it's safe to assume a lot of my followers were rather poor as a lot of my content focused on economic inequality.

What was the cultural background of those with whom you had positive experiences?
Very diverse. The vast majority of my followers belonged to one or more marginalised communities. Especially a lot of queer people were very vocal in their support for me. About 3/4 of my followers were women.

Whose positive reaction was most expected?
Psychologists, sociologists, activists with a good understanding of intersectionality, anyone more open-minded and emotionally mature really, and fellow MAPs of course. I always strongly advocated solidarity among marginalised people on my page.

Whose positive reactions were least expected?
Most people, actually. I didn't have high hopes at all of things ending well, but it all went much better than expected.

Of the people who you came out to, roughly how many stayed long-term friends?
(friendly editor note: "who" should be "whom" because it's not the subject of the sentence) I really don't remember how many friends I had at the time, but more than half stuck around. Unfortunately, while I was already distancing myself from ideological thinking, a lot of my friends at the time were still very ideological. Good riddance ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I also actually made some new friends by coming out like this.

What qualities do you feel distinguishes a long-term ally to MAPs (e.g. beliefs, character, personality)?
Same as all other marginalised communities. In regard to beliefs, people with no strong convictions; non-ideological, open-minded. If one holds firmly to some set of beliefs or other, one looks at everything through that particular prejudice or tradition; one doesn't have any contact with reality. We automatically translate what we see or hear according to our prejudices. We experience it according to our conditioning as a leftist, a socialist, a humanist, an atheist, or some other "ist." Whereas, if one is none of these things and therefore does not look through the screen of any idea or belief, one has direct contact with concrete reality. It is only when a person can look at MAPs without their view being distorted by some belief that they can see the absolute truth of it as it really is, and thus are able to see clearly that it is not at all what society makes it out to be.
In regard to personality, people who are soft, sensitive, compassionate, kind, and passive. Such people have not a shred of malice that they can project onto others. They always see the good in people, and only strive for harmony. I have a friend like that. She had missed the essay on my story, but when she told me that people were saying bad things about me, I sent it to her. When she was done reading, her only reaction was "is that all?" No judgement whatsoever.

(*) I should note that I've spent a lot of time in anarchist communities in the past as a highly revered essayist and agitprop, and have concluded that nearly all self-proclaimed "anarchists" hold views that are completely incompatible with anarchism; most notably the red anarchists, aka "ancoms". While I've given up on trying to reclaim the word, I wouldn't call them anarchist without quotes around the word.

edit: typo

[Fragment]

I'm sorry to hear that you're feeling this way. It's important to talk about what you're experiencing. If you're comfortable, you can share more about what's been going on in the Member Support forum. Remember, reaching out to a mental health professional through B4U-Act can also be a helpful step.

I had shared a lot of what was going on (I'm on bail, facing a 2 year prison sentence for AMSC, trying to appeal, but it's a long shot), but in a bout of mania I deleted all 900+ posts I'd made here (as Communications Officer of Mu, I was the number 1 poster).

I'm on B4U-ACT. Had a therapist through there for about 3 sessions but it was too expensive. I have a local therapist now, who knows I'm exclusive. I'm also seeing a psychiatrist to try and manage my bipolar.

If you're interested you can hear my story here:
https://fstube.net/w/4bmc3B97iHsUA8rgyUv21S
https://fstube.net/w/tTzRE29yrrA3xqXUaFuV9G

[Julia]

I had shared a lot of what was going on (I'm on bail, facing a 2 year prison sentence for AMSC, trying to appeal, but it's a long shot), but in a bout of mania I deleted all 900+ posts I'd made here (as Communications Officer of Mu, I was the number 1 poster).

I'm on B4U-ACT. Had a therapist through there for about 3 sessions but it was too expensive. I have a local therapist now, who knows I'm exclusive. I'm also seeing a psychiatrist to try and manage my bipolar.

I'll give the entire story a listen as soon as I've got some time to do so.

It sounds like you're going through an incredibly challenging time. It's completely understandable to feel overwhelmed with everything that's happening. Facing a potential prison sentence is a heavy burden, and it's okay to feel a mix of emotions.

I admire your strength in seeking help. Remember that it's okay to take things one day at a time. You're not alone in this. Although I'm still fairly new here, I'm here to listen and support you however I can.

Are there any small things that bring you comfort or joy right now? I'd love to hear about them.

[PorcelainLark]

Again, thank you so much. I know I should try to maintain a neutral tone in these contexts, but I have to say I'm excited.

Because of the sheer amount of people I've come out to, the proportion questions are impossible to answer very accurately. I'll still try to answer them as best I can. I should also note the difference between people I've actually come out to (i.e. people who read my essay) and people who had heard of me through the smear campaign. The vast majority of people who harassed me didn't belong to my followers, so while they did react to something (highly deceptive) they heard about me from someone else, they are not people I came out to.

Since I came out online through a public post, I also can't really answer the entire "neutral experiences" part. I interpret people not unfollowing after having read my essay as a positive reaction, since to follow someone is to support them, and not unfollowing in this case is a supportive stance on the matter. No one has explicitly told me that they feel neutral about what I said. Among the friends I came out to before coming out publicly, there also never really was any neutral reaction. It was always either good or bad.

Negative experiences:

These questions in particular will be hard to answer since, as mentioned earlier, the vast majority of negative experiences came from people I did not actually come out to, and these questions are about those whom I did come out to, so I'll try to be as detailed as possible in my answers.

Were there any people who initially reacted positively or neutrally, but later became negative towards you? If so, roughly what proportion do you feel were like this?
I remember there being exactly one such case. One person had sent a brief message of support, but sent me another message a couple days later saying they had changed their mind. I don't remember the exact words, but I remember them calling it "a dangerous paraphilia." My guess is they ran into some pretty bad representation of the community and judged the entire community based on that.

In retrospect, do you feel there were any signs that would have indicated if a person would react negatively to you coming out?
It's probably rather obvious, but the more opinionated a person, the higher the chance of them reacting negatively. Especially very ideological people could not see past their biases and prejudices. It's also the very ideological who participated in making smearing posts about me. They were of various ideological convictions — tankies, other Marxists, alt-right, TERFs, self-proclaimed "anarchists"(*) — but all were notably very orthodox and inflexible in their beliefs.
Another thing I would like to note about two people who first launched the smear campaign is that one of them, who went by the name of queersatanic, got directly accused by someone of having groomed her online when she was a minor and was called a hypocrite by her for smearing me. Another who worked closely with queersatanic and whose name I don't remember had an instagram page full of lolis, so I suspect a classic case of denialist overcompenstaion.

What were the ages of those with whom you had negative experiences?
Since the vast majority of people harassing me weren't followers I did not have any statistics about them, but then they also can't be regarded as people I actually came out to. Some of the people harassing me did originally follow me, but again I strongly suspect they read a smearing post and reacted based on that without reading my essay. All the people harassing me generally made a highly immature impression and were probably mainly late teens/early twenties, but then again the very act of harassing people online is in itself an immature act so it's only natural that they made a generally immature impression.

What was the education level of those with whom you had negative experiences?

What was the economic status of those with whom you had negative experiences?

What was the cultural background of those with whom you had negative experiences?

Whose negative reaction was most unexpected? (e.g. a family member, a therapist etc.)
Before I posted the essay publicly, I posted it for just a couple of friends. That was actually the reason I wrote the essay in the first place. I did not plan on making it public at the time I was writing it. There was one friend in particular whom I thought could benefit greatly as she was giving strong denial vibes. In the end, she reacted extremely aggressively, calling me all sorts of bad things, and even insulting my friends for accepting me. This was a big factor that motivated me to make the essay public.
There were also some people I thought were my friends at the time, whom I thought would understand, but who ended up stabbing me in the back. I think the fear of social disapproval played a big role in that.

Whose negative reaction was most expected? (e.g. a family member, a therapist etc.)
Kinda obvious answer, but any of my closed-minded followers. I must say, I was expecting a lot more backlash than I actually got.

Did any of those who initially reacted negatively, change their mind at later point?
Here, too, there is exactly one case I remember. This was already months after I first posted my essay. This person had read it later as it was still in a story highlight on my page. Initially, they approached me with hostility in the DMs. I kept responding with compassion and kindness, and eventually this person calmed down. Then I answered some of their questions and won them over. We went on to have a nice chat about the housing crisis.

If so, what do you feel distinguished them from those that didn't change their mind?
A genuine willingness to understand. Most people who react negatively are not at all open to challenging their beliefs as they feel, without a shadow of doubt, that they're right. They only want to hate. This person, after cooling down, was actually interested in understanding.


Positive experiences:

Roughly what proportion of reactions were positive?
I don't know the exact numbers, but tens of thousands read the entire essay and continued to support me. Each individual slide received hundreds of likes. Over a hundred supportive private messages had been sent, plus about fifty or so people defending and supporting me publicly in comments. Most of the 20k unfollows happened after the smear campaign and before I posted the essay on my story, so those can't be regarded as people I came out to.

What were the ages of those with whom you had positive experiences?
While I don't have a screenshot of my follower statistics at the time, they were somewhat the same as those on my personal Instagram, so I'll go by that. 1.2% 13-17, 12.8% 18-24, 40.2% 25-34, 33.5% 35-44, 8.1% 45-54, 2.1% 55-64, 2.1% 65+

What was the education level of those with whom you had positive experiences?
Very hard to say. I suppose it's very similar to that of the general population of English speaking countries (about 70% of my followers were from the US, followed by Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, and India). Although because of the nature of the content I posted, I did have a lot of doctors and sociologists following me.

What was the economic status of those with whom you had positive experiences?
I think it's safe to assume a lot of my followers were rather poor as a lot of my content focused on economic inequality.

What was the cultural background of those with whom you had positive experiences?
Very diverse. The vast majority of my followers belonged to one or more marginalised communities. Especially a lot of queer people were very vocal in their support for me. About 3/4 of my followers were women.

Whose positive reaction was most expected?
Psychologists, sociologists, activists with a good understanding of intersectionality, anyone more open-minded and emotionally mature really, and fellow MAPs of course. I always strongly advocated solidarity among marginalised people on my page.

Whose positive reactions were least expected?
Most people, actually. I didn't have high hopes at all of things ending well, but it all went much better than expected.

Of the people who you came out to, roughly how many stayed long-term friends?
(friendly editor note: "who" should be "whom" because it's not the subject of the sentence) I really don't remember how many friends I had at the time, but more than half stuck around. Unfortunately, while I was already distancing myself from ideological thinking, a lot of my friends at the time were still very ideological. Good riddance ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I also actually made some new friends by coming out like this.

What qualities do you feel distinguishes a long-term ally to MAPs (e.g. beliefs, character, personality)?
Same as all other marginalised communities. In regard to beliefs, people with no strong convictions; non-ideological, open-minded. If one holds firmly to some set of beliefs or other, one looks at everything through that particular prejudice or tradition; one doesn't have any contact with reality. We automatically translate what we see or hear according to our prejudices. We experience it according to our conditioning as a leftist, a socialist, a humanist, an atheist, or some other "ist." Whereas, if one is none of these things and therefore does not look through the screen of any idea or belief, one has direct contact with concrete reality. It is only when a person can look at MAPs without their view being distorted by some belief that they can see the absolute truth of it as it really is, and thus are able to see clearly that it is not at all what society makes it out to be.
In regard to personality, people who are soft, sensitive, compassionate, kind, and passive. Such people have not a shred of malice that they can project onto others. They always see the good in people, and only strive for harmony. I have a friend like that. She had missed the essay on my story, but when she told me that people were saying bad things about me, I sent it to her. When she was done reading, her only reaction was "is that all?" No judgement whatsoever.

(*) I should note that I've spent a lot of time in anarchist communities in the past as a highly revered essayist and agitprop, and have concluded that nearly all self-proclaimed "anarchists" hold views that are completely incompatible with anarchism; most notably the red anarchists, aka "ancoms". While I've given up on trying to reclaim the word, I wouldn't call them anarchist without quotes around the word.

edit: typo

This is great information! I'll look at how it compares to what I learned about it in the previous survey, and do an analysis of it when I get the time. In particular I find it interesting the age demographics of your followers are different from the global user age distribution of Instagram. This could give some indication of how likely each generation to accept a person coming out as a MAP.

[Julia]

This is great information! I'll look at how it compares to what I learned about it in the previous survey, and do an analysis of it when I get the time. In particular I find it interesting the age demographics of your followers are different from the global user age distribution of Instagram. This could give some indication of how likely each generation to accept a person coming out as a MAP.

After giving it some more thought, there is something I can add about neutral experiences. Specifically initial neutral reactions turning negative only after coming out publicly. As mentioned previously, before coming out publicly, I first came out privately to some friends. I did that through a story post as well, using the "close friends" function. One person didn't react at all, and another initially tried to argue that I might be mistaken before letting it go. Neither unfollowed me at the time, but when I came out publicly, both abandoned me. The former telling me that "calling yourself a pedophile ain't it," and arguing that "pedophilia is illegal" before blocking me. The latter blocked me without a word.

These two people were close friends long before I met them. The former was a somewhat socially awkward, white, trans woman from the US who was also into ABDL. Not sure about her beliefs, but I'd guess socdem. The latter was a really socially awkward, white guy from Belgium who fetishises trans women, dogs, and rape, unironically believes in magick [sic], and who had a history of sexually assaulting trans women. He called himself a post-left "anarchist." Both were in their early twenties.

[PorcelainLark]

After giving it some more thought, there is something I can add about neutral experiences. Specifically initial neutral reactions turning negative only after coming out publicly. As mentioned previously, before coming out publicly, I first came out privately to some friends. I did that through a story post as well, using the "close friends" function. One person didn't react at all, and another initially tried to argue that I might be mistaken before letting it go. Neither unfollowed me at the time, but when I came out publicly, both abandoned me. The former telling me that "calling yourself a pedophile ain't it," and arguing that "pedophilia is illegal" before blocking me. The latter blocked me without a word.

These two people were close friends long before I met them. The former was a somewhat socially awkward, white, trans woman from the US who was also into ABDL. Not sure about her beliefs, but I'd guess socdem. The latter was a really socially awkward, white guy from Belgium who fetishises trans women, dogs, and rape, unironically believes in magick [sic], and who had a history of sexually assaulting trans women. He called himself a post-left "anarchist." Both were in their early twenties.

Could I show you the overview of the results of the previous survey and ask if you feel it reflects your experience? It came from asking about 8 people.

The original results:

Positive indicators that suggest a person might be more likely to be accepting if you come out as a MAP:
A family member
A long-time friend
A woman*
Your father
People who display open-mindedness
People who demonstrate a strong resilience to stress
People who show a willingness to listen
People who treat others respectfully

Negative indicators that suggest a person might be less likely to be accepting if you come out as a MAP:
A person who is religious*
People who study LGBT issues academically
A member of the LGBT community*
A recent acquaintance

*This isn't meant to be taken as an indication that women, religious people, or members of the LGBT community as whole have specific attitudes toward MAPs.

I'm particularly curious about the difference in experience between you and the previous participants regarding the LGBT community. Perhaps attitudes have shifted, or maybe it was because I was talking to an older demographic? I think it's something I need to think about if I do another survey.

As for the age statistics, it's interesting that the 25-44 demographic is so much more supportive than the younger generation. I wonder if there's some outreach that needs to happen.

[Julia]

I'm particularly curious about the difference in experience between you and the previous participants regarding the LGBT community. Perhaps attitudes have shifted, or maybe it was because I was talking to an older demographic? I think it's something I need to think about if I do another survey.

As for the age statistics, it's interesting that the 25-44 demographic is so much more supportive than the younger generation. I wonder if there's some outreach that needs to happen.

It is hard to say. I think there were both a lot of supportive and a lot of unsupportive reactions from LGBT people. If I go through the screenshots of supportive messages, the majority seem to be LGBT. But when I looked at the comment section of the first smear post by queersatanic, it was also full of LGBT people The reason for this is that both our pages posted content that attracts LGBT people, so both our general audiences were already largely made up of LGBT people to begin with, in which case it doesn't really indicate if LGBT people are more likely to react positively or negatively.

That being said, the content that this person posted seemed to generally appeal more to callow people (e.g. lots of memes, advocating violence and hate, encouraging groupthink), whereas my content tended to be more wordy, encouraging critical and independent thought, and focused on personal development and compassion. So while we both had a lot of LGBT followers, they were of very different mentalities.

Similar with the political views of both our follower bases. Broadly speaking, we both had mainly leftist followers. However, while this person was a leftist themselves and specifically appealed to leftists, I had denounced the concept of wingism altogether long ago, and would occasionally post critiques of leftism which where always well received even among my leftist followers.

As to why the older demographic may be more supportive, I would guess that the type of education system that out society values may have something to do with it. Our society's education system focuses on rote learning; on turning kids into obedient, civilised workers. I am sure that with a more holistic education system that encourages critical thinking, creativity, and emotional intelligence — one that fosters a sense of enquiry rather than conformity — there would be a lot more support from younger people.

Something unrelated that also came to mind recently that might be interesting for collecting statistics is that of the four friends I've had who also turned out to be MAPs, all four were trans women. Two of them told me they felt the same way after I came out to them privately. The other two came out to me. All of these cases were before I came out publicly. Their ages ranging from 17 to 23 or 24. If you're interested, I can tell you their nationalities as well, though not publicly. Feel free to message me here or on IG.