Transcription
With their faces pumped with Juvéderm and mouths filled with veneers, some gay men have the nerve to speak on trans people getting gender affirming care. From their relatively privileged position in the LGBTQ plus community, they have decided to throw its most marginalized members under the bus for views on Tik Tok.
Some newly minted grifters include Jeffree Star and Leo Skppy, white men who don't make being gay their whole personality and have some interesting opinions about trans people. These grifters fail to realize just how precarious their elevated status is and that oppressing other members of the LGBTQ plus community will not protect them from the rise in conservatism that threatens all marginalized groups in the US.
Gay men who try to distance themselves from trans people do not acknowledge the homophobic sentiments that undergur transphobia. Rather than viewing trans people as distinct from gay people, many transphobes classify trans people as a more deranged and repulsive form of gay person. This is a first they came situation. And if gay men don't stand up for trans people now, their rights are next on the chopping block as society becomes increasingly intolerant.
Jeffree Star has undergone more gender affirming procedures than half of all trans people. Known for his flamboyant personality, neon colored hair, and fierce makeup looks, he has the audacity to police other people's gender identity. His recent ignorance statements about trans people appear to be a stark departure from his entire brand. The former MySpace star rose to fame in part due to his androgynous appearance. He even released an eye shadow palette called Androgyny. It's what he's known for.
Jeffrey, who has previously stated in a YouTube video that he goes by any pronouns, now believes that identifying as trans goes against basic biology. He made this clear last September in a since deleted post where he insinuated that surgically transitioning does not change your biological sex, a claim that no one disagrees with. This post engages with the straw man argument that trans people are arguing with biology. As the caption states, in actuality, trans people are very in tune with their biology. The entire reason why some choose to medically transition. Furthermore, medically transitioning is not what determines your gender. Doctors, sociologists, and psychologists define gender as separate from biological sex. Operations and hormones don't change your sex or gender. They alleviate dysphoria.
Jeffrey weaponizes his identity as a feminine man to delegitimize the identity of trans women. He believes that if he can wear pink dresses and wigs and still identify as a man, why can't trans women do the same? Hearkens back to his childhood experiences wearing makeup to prove that you can engage with femininity without needing to medically transition. "When I grew up and I started looking different, right, my mother encouraged me to just be myself. When I started wearing makeup and being more feminine and wanting to do certain things, it wasn't, 'Oh my god, Jeffrey needs what do they call it now? Gender affirming care.'"
In a podcast last November, he claimed that parents are pressuring children who act to boyish or tom girlish to medically transition. A widespread claim that has not been substantiated nowadays. "It's all these weirdos telling their kids, 'Oh my god, you like you like a Barbie? You're you're a woman.' No, that's just a little boy experimenting, not knowing what the he's doing." Not only have I not heard of a case where a child was told they're a girl for playing with a Barbie, as Jeffree Star stated. But doctors don't give puberty blockers and hormones to any kid based solely on what toys they play with. Additionally, projecting his own childhood on kids who are possibly trans makes little sense. Of course, it would be inappropriate for him to medically transition as a kid because he is not trans. That doesn't mean that gender affirming care for teenagers is never appropriate.
Jeffrey also opposes trans representation in children's media, believing that it will confuse kids. "Why does a 5-year-old watching a Netflix cartoon show need to know about that right now? Why are we encouraging our kids to be a different gender and feed them false information when they're so young?" The idea that trans representation in children's Netflix shows will convince children to be another gender, as Jeffree Star apparently believes, makes little sense. The push to remove trans characters from children's media will not hide trans people from kids, considering that children today have transgender peers. In the 2000s, I don't recall any children's media having characters who were openly trans, but I do recall riding the bus with transgender elementary schoolers. Hiding trans people from kids would involve not only removing them from TV shows, but also removing them from public life.
I think it's foolish for Jeffree Star to support a hate movement that seeks to limit gender expression, considering how he presents himself. Other people who believe trans characters shouldn't appear in children's TV shows would likely pull their kids out of school if Jeffree Star pivoted away from the cosmetics industry and started teaching elementary school dressed in his usual attire. Even though he's not trans, promoting the idea that trans people's existence threatens children will come back to bite him again. Most transphobes believe that trans people are a more deranged kind of gay person. As a feminine gay man, he is not immune to transphobia. So why would Jeffree Star, a famously androgynous and flamboyant influencer, start attacking trans people?
If you're in tune with internet history, you'll know that he's no stranger to controversy. His entire career was built on being provocative, and he has a long history of anti-blackness, anti-semitism, pretty much anti- everything. Somehow he continues to be wealthy and successful despite decades of being a terrible person. He's living proof that men for the most part cannot be cancelled. Due to his controversial past and present, most woke people have left Jeffree Star's fan base and those who remain are more conservativeleaning. Jeffrey used to appeal to a more general audience, but recently he's crafted his image around being a guntoing yak farmer at his ranch in Wyoming. This rebrand definitely caters to a more Republican demographic, people who would agree with his statements about trans people.
Considering Jeffrey's abrasive personality, prior views about trans people, and recent conservative rebrand, I believe he's grifting. This is not a JK Rowling situation where he's driven mad by his hatred of trans people. In fact, I don't think he cares that much. He's just trying to get a viral podcast clip when he goes on a podcast and says trans people don't belong in the LGBTQ plus community. This doesn't make his statements less harmful. It just contextualizes them as part of his long history of capitalizing on whatever form of bigotry is the most socially acceptable at a given moment.
Now, let's discuss Leo Skeepy, a man whose audience is similar to Jeffree Stars. His whole brand surrounds the fact that he embraces hyper masculinity as a gay man. He has a complicated relationship with being gay, or at least the gay community. He overcompensates for his insecurities about his sexuality by cosplaying as a toxic straight man. It's a bizarre spectacle to behold. It's like bad method acting. "I'm a dude who's into dudes. I don't even know if I'm into dudes, but if I was dating a girl. No, you're not going out and nothing revealing." "What kind of gay man fantasizes about being abusive towards their hypothetical girlfriend?" And the comments were going crazy over this. "Ladies, stand up, please."
Though he has made many controversial statements, I want to focus on his statements about trans people, or more specifically, his statements about a trans woman named Lily Tino. Lily Tino is an infamous rage baiter and went viral for talking about her bottom surgery at Disney using two cake pops to represent her. "You know, last summer I got my cake pops removed, and the plan up until recently was to get my marshmallow wand reconfigured into a marshmallow tunnel." That video typed into all the right cultural anxieties. People in the comments were not comfortable with a middle-aged trans woman talking about her genitals at a theme park with children around.
Lily Tino is fully aware of the optics of this and why it makes people uncomfortable. One of my favorite YouTubers, Cat Black, summed up why her content goes viral quite bluntly. According to Cat, Lily Tino knows she looks like a man. Those are a transw woman's words, not mine, and capitalizes on people's feelings of disgust when they watch her Tik Tok videos. Because of her behavior and her appearance, people claim she's not really trans. They claim she hasn't undergone certain procedures or taken hormones. Cat Black is very skeptical of these accusations, correctly stating that hormones and surgeries only do so much. There are many trans women who have medically transitioned and look like Lily Tino, so there's no reason to doubt the fact that she's trans.
Lily Tino is the target of many transphobic comments because she taps into the well-known archetype of the dangerous cross-dressing male predator. Though many people understand that she's just a trans woman who happens to be a creepy, obnoxious troll, others, including Leo Skeepy, have insisted that she's not really trans. On his podcast, he claimed he is supportive of trans people and denounces transphobia before saying transphobic things about a trans woman he doesn't like, including calling Lily Tino putrid and a crossdresser. "Have friends who are trans. I have fought physically to protect my trans friends. Don't try and come at me with no transphobic Crossdressing is a man pretending to be a woman. Not pretending, but dressing up as one. That is the category Lily Tino more so fits into. That putrid mother predator has come online and said,"
"To reiterate, there is no evidence that Lily Tino is lying about medically transitioning. Additionally, you don't have to medically transition to be trans. There are many trans people who have not gone on hormones or underwent surgeries for a multitude of reasons, and that doesn't make them cisgender. In this way, Leoskeepy gets brownie points for being a trans ally while also getting clout from hating on whatever transwoman the internet has chosen to be dangerous pervert of the month.
Gay men like him and Jeffree Star latch on to the privilege they have as men to spew transphobia, but only when it benefits them. Somehow they think they're immune to the damage they're causing because they consider themselves to be above the rest of the LGBTQ plus community. They have seemingly forgotten that only a few decades ago, it was gay men who were derided as dangerous perverts. From a purely selfish perspective, it is so stupid to toy with transphobic ideas as a gay man because of how intertwined transphobia is with homophobia. Jeffree Star and Leoppy are growing their following by advocating for a less tolerant society. And if their rhetoric takes hold, it won't be long before they become the targets of their own hate movement.
Anyways, I'm Robert Hulie. And if you enjoyed this video, don't forget to like, comment, share, and subscribe. And I hope you have a great week.