What radicalized me?

According to my parents: college.

According to me: my parents.

This is the story of how they are solely responsible for radicalizing me.

To understand how this happened, you have to start with the way they raised me: a home steeped in conservative values, rules that leaned heavily on compliance, and a worldview carefully curated to keep me from questioning too much. It wasn’t just about religion—it was about structure, authority, and the expectation that I would always trust their framework for how the world worked. And for a long time, I did.

But here’s the thing about strict boundaries: when cracks form, they don’t just let light in—they can flood the entire system. It wasn’t college, at least not at first. It was the moments of inconsistency I started noticing when I was younger. The hypocrisy of claiming kindness but showing judgment toward those different from us. The insistence on absolute truth while rejecting evidence that didn’t align with it. The way “respect” was demanded but rarely reciprocated when it came to my thoughts, questions, or emotions.

I was taught that everything outside their bubble was dangerous—that people who believed differently were misguided or even malicious. Yet as I grew, I couldn’t ignore how often those same “dangerous” people embodied the empathy, curiosity, and open-mindedness my parents claimed to value but didn’t practice.

College didn’t plant the seeds of radicalization; it watered them. By the time I got there, I was ready to ask questions they’d forbidden me to ask. Why were people like me—queer, neurodivergent, curious—painted as broken or in need of fixing? Why did their version of love feel so much like control? Why did their “truth” feel smaller than the world I was discovering?

Ironically, the critical thinking skills they once praised me for as a child became my greatest act of rebellion. They wanted me to be smart, but not too smart. They wanted me to think deeply, but only within their framework. And when I stepped outside it, I became the very thing they feared.

It wasn’t rebellion for rebellion’s sake. It wasn’t anger, either—not at first. It was clarity. It was finally understanding that I didn’t have to believe their worldview just because it was handed to me. And in that understanding, I saw how much of their fear—fear of the unknown, fear of difference, fear of losing control—was at the root of their belief system.

So no, college didn’t radicalize me. It only gave me the tools to put words to what I already felt. My parents radicalized me, not by intention, but through their insistence on building walls around me without realizing they were only teaching me how to climb.

And I did climb. I didn’t just leave their walls—I left them behind entirely.