i feel a deep responsibility to be on
youtube and to have certain
conversations and to hopefully change
minds if i can because i know what it's
like to live in a world where people
don't understand trans folks
i started youtube when i was 15 years
old and i started it
as a public sort of diary but when i
said public i really only met you know
the few people watching um my youtube
channel which literally was like 20
people back then and i'm somebody who
um did go from making little youtube
videos in their bedroom the way that a
lot of us did in the early days to
actually making youtube my full-time job
as a trans person there's a benefit to
not being super public there is a
benefit to not having a lot of eyes on
you but i had to sort of recognize that
i had a lot of really important things
to say which is why i still make youtube
videos despite maybe occasionally being
uncomfortable with being as out as i am
i remember being very young and closing
my eyes and trying to think of
what could possibly be for my life and
literally not being able to think of
anything and of course when you feel
that way that especially as a child that
can be a really depressing upsetting
feeling part of the reason why i make
the videos i make now is because it was
literally impossible for me to imagine
myself now when i was a kid for me life
for a really long time was so scary
because i was struggling to find myself
and my self-worth and i was also
struggling to feel loved and embraced in
a world that told me that there was no
place for me and for a really long time
on youtube i really tried not to talk
about that stuff i didn't want to talk
about my my you know my experience with
sexual violence with grooming with all
these various ways that men have abused
me because i wanted to appear
as though on i was just this this
functional trans adult and i've never
really struggled in that way because
that is so common
in the trans narrative but what i
recognize is that i need it to be honest
and i need to be real with my with my
followers
one of the things i say this time i've
started my video is sometimes i'm right
um sometimes i'm wrong but either way
i'm honest true tea is all about me
being honest even if i'm right or i'm
wrong it's me being honest saying that
at the very beginning of my videos helps
people know that i still have
on areas in which my perspectives can
change i think that people like to
believe that we're all just gonna at
some point in time hit this like set of
rules that makes sense for everyone and
everything's gonna be correct and we're
all gonna be right and this is the
ultimate truth and if people don't
subscribe to that then they're living in
the wrong way but i don't think that
that's how it works we each have our own
sort of compass
um
and i think that that compass for you
often is valid
what i try to encourage people to do is
widen that understanding a bit
i have my perspective and you have your
perspective let's talk about it
some people absolutely hate this about
me but
i'm
i say this in every video i'm a virgo
i'm a virgo i'm a virgo
i have a tendency in general to like
over analyze everything and part of me
being over analytical is often really
wondering why people feel how they do
because i will say one of the issues i
have personally is people criticizing me
but not criticizing me for things that i
actually believe in but for what they
assume i believe
even if you ultimately disagree it's
important to sort of understand the
reasons why they got to where they got
you know and i recognize that sometimes
giving people that amount of
consideration
is not always the right thing to do i
spent a lot of time being very patient
with people about white supremacy and i
shouldn't be i shouldn't have to that's
not deserved
it's always so
amazing for me to run into my followers
because they all say that i've had a
really profound impact on their life and
sometimes seeing that has has made me
feel a little bit a little bit more
responsible for um what i'm putting out
there a little bit you know i would like
to think that i challenge people that i
made them think but i don't ever want
people to walk away feeling more
alienated in the world because of me and
so i i think a lot of my work is kind of
made hopefully to
to encourage you know positive
self-reflection and and growth i just
always hope that i have a positive
impact on people because that's really
what i'm trying to do
you