I want to talk about this because this has been a very major issue for me. I’ve suffered through various kinds of internalized bigotry for a very long time. I’ve had immense internalized racism due to the fact that I’m black alongside internalized anti-neurodivergent sentiment and internalized queer/transphobia.
It’s like every time I feel like I might be able to get rid of these ideas, they keep coming back. Unfortunately, these thoughts run very intensely too. My internalized bigotry is not mild at all, and it usually manifests in ways like being scared and/or uncomfortable around black people, feeling disgusted by trans people when I see them, and insulting neurodivergent people usually through snarky comments I make under my breath.
I even get really frustrated when I see stuff that supports people like me. Seeing “Black Lives Matter” posts on social media drives me mad, alongside things like “Trans Rights Are Human Rights” that just makes me cry. It makes me FURIOUS, and I really want to overcome this kind of thinking, especially for being trans.
I’d argue that my internalized transphobia is the strongest and harshest out of all my forms of internalized bigotry. It started from my family being extremely transphobic to the point of disowning me and kicking me out, but it exacerbated and reached its peak due to the transmedicalist tendencies within the trans communities I’ve visited online. I am non-binary, and even though I have gender dysphoria and am medically transitioning, I have been discriminated against by so many damn truscum that my mindset started expressing violent animosity towards trans people period. This eventually shifted my mind to believing that this is MOST (or maybe even all) of the trans community, and it makes me irrationally angry at anything that’s pro-trans.
This issue has been going on for so damn long, and it’s causing way too much turmoil, depression, and utter distress for me to no longer do anything about it and just leave it untouched. With that in mind, how do I ACTUALLY shift my mindset to not hate myself and other people over these characteristics? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Not trans but had some experience with similar things.
There are couple of valid aproaches to this problem. But first you need to know the cause of this thinking. Does it come from emotion or from internalized belief?
If from emotion:
When you will take some form of thransphobic action or thought. Close your eyes and stop the music or a video. Eliminate all distractions. (1) Ask yourself how do you feel right now. Ask yourself how did you felt 5-10 seconds ago. (2) Accept that you feel that way. This is perfectly human thing to do. (3) Ask yourself why do you feel that way. What is a cause of this emotion. (4) How shoud you respond to this emotion. What is correct action to take here? YOU are in control. Not your emotions.
You are playing a long game here so don’t beat up yourself if you fail one, two or n-th time. If you notice something that is good thing.
If from belief:
Here I don’t have much experience but there are still things to do. I have heard that CBT therapy really helps.
Ask yourself where does this belief comes from. In the sentence “All trans people are […]”. “All” refers to all the people on earth or just the people that you interacted with or It is just what your figure of authority told you to generalize.
It could also come from religion and what your clergyman preached to you. (Assumption 31% confidance) Was it diffrent from what Christ told as to do? “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”
It comes from both emotion and internalized belief in a way.
Even when I feel like things are logically incorrect, my strong emotions override any sense of rationality. Thanks for providing that emotional exercise. It sounds like a very useful tool, and I will utilize it during more intense breakdowns, but at the moment, I feel fairly calm and grounded.
Also, religion plays a huge part in this, and I’m glad you mentioned it. I was raised in a Catholic immigrant family from a country that hardly acknowledges the existence of LGBTQ+ people. Homosexuality itself was legalized there in 2018, but it’s still highly socially unacceptable. My family made no room for compromise with me being queer, and told me that it was inherently wrong, evil, and that I’d automatically be banished to hell for engaging in acts like gender transition and engaging in romantic/sexual interactions with people who are the same sex as the one I was assigned at birth. To this day, I internalize a lot of their bigotry even though I’m an atheist now. They were highly ignorant, yet still so fervent in preaching their hate, and it hasn’t escaped my mind much.