Formset with request.post not initializing correctly

Question

I am having an issue using formsets and request.POST. Whenever I initialize the formset without request.POST it works as intended, but will not send the data through as the form is never valid. If I include request.POST (as I have done on all my other forms in the view) the formset doesn't seem to initialize correctly. No data gets through, I can't see any form fields, and I get a html warning saying:

(Hidden field TOTAL_FORMS) This field is required.
(Hidden field INITIAL_FORMS) This field is required.

Here is a very simplified version of what I am doing in my project. This is bare minimum and the project itself is much more involved. But this should be the heart of the problem I am having.

The intent of this very basic form is that my formset would have 3 forms, each one initialized with a letter, 'a', then 'b', then 'c'.

views.py

def MyView(request):
    my_formset = formset_factory(my_form)
    my_list = ['a', 'b', 'c']
    if request.method == 'POST':
        my_formset = formset(request.POST, initial=[{'field1':x} for x in my_list]) #If I remove 'request.POST' then the form initializes correctly, but will never pass .is_valid()
        if my_formset.is_valid():
            print('valid')
        else:
            print('invalid')
    else:
        my_formset = formset(initial=[{'field1':x} for x in my_list])

    ctx = {'formset' = my_formset}
    return render(request, 'template.html', ctx)

forms.py

class my_form(forms.Form):
    field1 = forms.CharField(required=True)

template

   <form method="POST">
    {% csrf_token %}
    {{formset.management_form}}
    {% for form in formset %}
        {{form.field1}}    
    {% endfor %}
   </form>

When including the request.POST in the initialization of my_formset, it seems like it kills the form entirely.

When I run it without the request.POST in that line, it works. The form comes through and the initial value is there.