Recently, a YouTube star by the name of Trisha Paytas made a video claiming she was Transgender (FTM). While most people try to respect and support everyone, her “coming out” wasn’t convincing. This is what Clackamas High School’s GSA club members had to say on the matter.

Jack Gotter, who identifies a bisexual transgender male, has already seen Trisha’s video and says he was not in support of her. He explains that “I was not in support of Trisha. While it is not my place to judge those who make the hard decision to come out, she made statements directly contradictory to that of the definition of being trans.” He added, by quoting something Trisha said in her own video, “‘So do I think I’m transgender? Yes, 1000%. Do I identify with my natural-born gender? Yes, 1000%’”. 

When Gotter was asked about how he felt after watching the video, he said he was “altogether offended and confused”. He says that “Not only did she make the stereotypical and offensive statements (such as saying a trans man could never please his partner and implying that men have more authority over women), but also said many things that altogether struck as strange, such as that she is “everything” and that labels “don’t matter” while also applying the label of transgender to herself.” 

Gotter has some concerns about the video saying, “The most concerning thing about this video is that it is not alone. While this is arguably the most publicized version of a person claiming to come out and not adhering to the definition [of being trans], there are many other cases of it.” He continues on this route of people falsely coming out as trans, bringing in statistics such as follows, “In a survey done with 250 families with a transgender teen, over 80% were assigned female percent, and again 80% showed no signs of being trans prior to puberty.” 

 Grace Lovell, who attends Clackamas High School and identifies as bisexual says she has seen Trisha’s video and also disagrees with the content of the video. In an interview, she stated, “I think that it’s really irresponsible for her to say that she’s trans when she’s not. She has a big audience of young kids and she shouldn’t speak on behalf of the community when she’s uneducated and spreading misconceptions about trans people to young audiences.” Lovell also added that she believes Trisha is uneducated and confused.

When asked about how the video made her feel, she said, “I was really just embarrassed for her for saying things so obviously wrong and ignorant. I think that a lot of people think that LGBT people are just trying to be special and she is doing that and is ignorantly saying she’s trans makes us all look stupid.”

Students believe honesty about the issue is the best way for people to talk about sexual orientation.