Yea this was me too. I grew up pretty isolated and wanted to impress my big(oted) brother so I emulated a lot of his worldview. The 90's and 00's was also a tough time for a queer kid who had no supporting community to grow up in and most of the queer representation she saw was either negative or heavily mocked. I didnt want to be the butt end of a joke so I became overly homophobic to try to deflect attention from the deeply confusing and shameful-at-the-time thoughts and feelings I had. Luckily I never directly bullied anyone, but I'm sure there were countless peers who could've used my support (and who I could've used theirs) that never got it. And I missed out on being part of a rich and amazing community. But we move on, hopefully better than we used to be.