For me it was around when I joined the furry fandom.

Grew up in a small, secluded town in the deep south, one with a 99.3% white majority at the time and wasn't far from a sundown area. I was very much sheltered from outside culture and world views both by my mother and just from the circumstances of where I lived. Throw in some undiagnosed autism and a deeply trusting nature, and I was effectively set to stay in the mental cesspool of my peers.

As a troubled teen facing emotional and religious trauma from an abusive father figure, I turned to escapism wherever I could, and once I got my first computer I started getting into PC gaming online, and I eventually found a furry friendly server on a Half-Life 2 mod.

All of the sudden I'm talking to people of all places and creeds. Most were Americans, sure, but there were tons of folks from far more backgrounds and environments than I'd ever seen before. And most were furries. People from a generally more left leaning background who are also comfortably open about sexuality. Found out I liked dudes from them, cause I'd genuinely never even considered that as a possibility until then and mom hadn't instilled her anti gay rhetoric in me yet.

And of course, I started learning new things from them. Things I'd never heard of before, things that would never be taught at the school I went to. I learned of the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments, of MK ULTRA, of Guantanamo Bay and the atrocities there. That roughly 1 in four prisoners in the world are in American prisons. That the pledge of allegiance is really fucking weird. I learned of the massive income inequality we're troubled with, of the police brutality our people of color experience, that our healthcare system is utterly broken by design, that our lawmakers are paid for and bought out, and of course I learned that this list is FAR from exhaustive - feel free to add to this list!

Plus just generally interacting with people from other countries and cultures, seeing these different perspectives and world views and experiences, it all helped me slowly, gradually realize that there's so much beautiful culture and so many beautiful people in this mote of dust we all share. Cultures and people that so many of my peers were apathetic towards most often, mildly entertained by in media and media alone at best, and actively hostile towards at worst. Just the idea of my neighbor yelling obscenities towards a Latino man for working the exploitative jobs that Americans would never touch themselves broke my young heart.

Once Trump's campaign really started taking steam, I was a very different person from who my mom wanted me to be, and though it drove a wedge between us (on top of her just being a shit parent for me), I prefer it this way.