Growing up I always loved superheroes, and heroes like the X-Men were among my favorites.

I loved how they were all a found family that supported each other and helped each other grow and fight back against the hatred that mutants struggle with every day in their world. People born different and unique, having never asked to even be born in the first place, let alone be born with these abilities and differences that make others fear and hate them just for existing.

I remember wishing as a child that I could have amazing powers so I could be a hero to help others too, and I thought that I was always meant to look up to the teachings and ideals of their leader and mentor Charles Xavier, believing his ideals of peace through trying to educate and navigate bureaucracy and not give in to the anger and fear that mutants feel as they’re being targeted and killed because if they did that and hurt humans back like they hurt mutants then they were just perpetuating the cycle. I thought I was always supposed to see Magneto as being understandably hurt and angry at humans for how they treated him, his family, and his people both as a Jewish holocaust survivor and a mutant, but that he was always misguided in his actions and gave into his emotions and impulses too easily rather than focusing on healing from his trauma, and that even though I fully understood why Magneto became a villain that he was still wrong.

As a trans woman after the results of this election, and how all the hope and joy I’d felt believing we’d have the decency to elect a woman over a rapist has been shattered beyond measure, I can’t feel the same way anymore. Women, minorities, LGBT people have been fighting for over a century in this country to just have the same rights and freedoms as straight white men, trying so hard every single day to follow the rules and do what Charles would do in the hopes of bringing peace and understanding to secure equality. As a trans woman who is one of the millions of people Trump has explicitly put a target on to villainize us, I have only one thing to say.

Magneto was right