This video was brought to you by the lovely
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If you wanted be successful right now on the
internet before being trans, I would choose
to be one of these tiktok, F boys.
[music]
Hey guys.
It's Kat and it's time for another episode
of True Tea!
I wanted to thank you guys so much for joining me here for yet another episode of true tea.
We upload these videos every Tuesday at 6:00
PM, Pacific standard time.
I appreciate those you guys who are here every
single week.
You guys leave comments, you guys
contribute.
And that means an awful lot to me.
You're always making me think y'all are always
dragging me every single video.
Like last week's video.
A lot of you guys were like, Kat, I don't
even know why you posted this, but you know,
True Tea is about that.
True Tea is just about me sharing how I feel,
and it's not always the most eloquent or the
most well put together way, but it's true
for me.
So that's what this is.
And if you're not subscribed to this channel
and you like those kinds of videos, I would
highly suggest that you do that!
Anyways, how are you guys doing?
What have you guys been up to?
I got the coolest little package of things
in my PO box.
Um, and it came with this really adorable
card.
Now, first of all, I'm really, really bad
at receiving gifts.
Obviously I love them, but I'm really, really
bad at receiving gifts.
And I've got a lot of cards throughout my
life.
And this has to be of all the cards I've probably
ever gotten my most, my favorite card, it's
this little green alien kind of thing.
And this was sent to me by somebody who, um,
is named...Oh my God, Eli blu.
You know, I looked at this earlier and I didn't
know exactly who this was, but I always see
Eli Blu in my comment section.
Um, thank you so much.
They're from Seattle.
And they sent me this really, really cute
card and had a lot of really awesome things,
including some CDs that I immediately ripped
and put into my computer.
Thank you so much for that package.
It means an awful lot to me.
I love getting mail.
It's like getting a present every single day.
So if you guys ever want to send me anything,
my PO box is always in the description box.
You guys can send me stuff.
My, my birthday is coming up soon.
So, you know, I'm not trying to put any ideas
in your head.
I'm just saying that it would be nice.
It would be nice if you sent me things, I
would appreciate it greatly.
And I've gotten a couple of things.
So thank you so much for those of you guys
do have send things.
Anyway, we're going to be having a conversation
in this video about trans privilege.
We're going to talk about this a little bit.
Um, but before we do, I would highly suggest
you go to your kitchen and grab yourself something
to drink.
This is a strawberry Fresca, and I love it
so much.
I've literally been obsessed with this.
I've been going through it really fast.
So let me take a sip of this and then let's
get into this conversation.
So this is the conversation I wanted to have
because,
You know, oftentimes I have had these really
strange conversations with people who think
that there is some privilege to being transgender.
Um, a lot of times when we talk about this,
it's in relation to what some people would
call trans trenders, right?
This idea of this person who claims to be
trans, not because they actually are, but
because it gets them clout basically because
they can claim to be trans and get followers.
And of course followers mean money, dah, dah,
dah.
And, you know, I just wanted to talk about
that as an actual living real transgender person.
Who's a full time blogger because I find that
concept to be a little interesting and a little baffling.
So let's dive right in.
So I feel like one of the first things we
should established in this video is
that YouTube is a impulse for me.
I've been making YouTube videos since I was
15 years old.
I'm 29, turning 30 next month kill me.
I was 29 years old and I've been making YouTube
videos for a very long time.
And it's an impulse.
You know, it is, it is a habit, it's a reflex.
It's just a thing that I do.
You know what I mean?
And I think it would be even hard for, it
would be hard for me to imagine my life without
making YouTube videos.
That's just kind of who I am.
It's kind of what I do.
Do you know what I mean?
It's part of the way that I've expressed myself
through most of my adult life through my entire
adult life, you know, I've had a tumultuous
relationship with the platform that only until
recently I've decided I actually really like
and want to do, which I know sounds confusing
to some people, but I say all that to say that
a lot of the reason why I share is out of
impulse, it's out of this.
I feel like I have to say this thing.
So I'm going to say this thing, right.
And with that has come opportunity.
And I would be silly to say that there aren't
opportunities that I get because I am an outspoken, open trans person.
We've already made a million videos about
my desires to be stealth and all that.
So we won't get into that.
But long story short, it would be dishonest
of me to ignore.
It would be dishonest of me to not acknowledge
that there has been a way in which me being
transgender has allowed me to have certain
opportunities, but let's talk about those
opportunities.
So back when we used to go to like physical
schools, remember that guys, remember when
we used to like go to school and like actually
go to colleges and things back when we used
to do that, I used to talk at a lot of colleges.
I used to travel the country, speaking at
colleges, usually in the South, usually in
the Midwest, often in upstate New York.
I did a lot of speaking in upstate New York.
And oftentimes when I would do this, I was
one of the first black trans people that the
people in these areas has ever met.
Right.
There were so many situations where I was
in a town and the people there were ignorant,
you know, not in a negative way, no one was
ever mean to me.
I've never had a negative experience of any
of the cities that I've been to.
And girl, I'm the kind of person who goes
right to the redneck bar.
I really don't go fuck.
Like I've never had a problem with anyone,
everyone in every city that I've ever been
to has been lovely.
Um, you know, but, um, it's fairly clear to
me in certain spaces that I go to, that I
am an oddity.
I am somebody who needs to be explained in
certain spaces.
Right.
Um, and it's weird for me because professionally
explaining myself as something that I'm used
to doing again, I've been doing it since 15
years old.
Um, I'm good at it.
I know I can do it well.
I know that I can help people identify with
trans folks.
And that's kind of my goal in many, many ways.
Um, and I'm comfortable doing it.
I'm confident enough to do it.
I know that it's something that I can do,
right.
Personally, I deeply, deeply, deeply.
And I think this is clear through a lot of
the videos I make resent the fact that my
transness, this is important to other people,
especially because it really does stand in
opposition to the way that I live my life.
I guess we have to talk about stuff and things
in passing and things like that.
I'm not currently a person who goes through
life, having a ton of conversations all the
time about me being transgender.
It is something that I've often described
as a footnote on my life, which I know for
a lot of folks is confusing.
A lot of transgender people in their current
position in life.
Can't imagine a time in their life where being
transgender is not this thing.
That's a constant concern, a constant topic
of conversation.
But for me at 29 years old transition who
transitioned at 16, it's like, it's just something
that I often find I have to really force into
conversation.
Um, and so I've always had this weird misalignment
with how I personally feel and what I do professionally.
That's always kind of been a little bit of
a disconnect, right?
That all being said, I, I find this topic,
this concept of being transgender being this....
You know, there's benefit to truly be a fascinating
idea.
I really do because of the way I guess my
life is honestly, you know, in my situation,
I am somebody who has to consistently and
constantly explain themselves.
In fact, I'm at the point where if I'm not
getting paid, I don't really want to do it.
And that's not out of some like, Oh my gosh,
you know, I'm just so whatever kind of thing,
it's like, it's more like it's such a demeaning
process for me in many ways that I can't muster
the energy to do it.
What I'm not getting paid.
You know, of course, because of the way my
head, my head works.
I will educate people for free.
I do it all the time constantly, but I would
rather not.
I would much, much, much, much, much, rather
not.
Now we've talked about this before.
I've been talking about, I've been having
these conversations for a very long time.
And my more recent frustration with, especially
the way that we're starting to have conversations
about transgender folks is that the conversations
are never going to really sh- I I'm very pessimistic,
which is why I stopped talking so much about
politics.
I don't think the conversation is going to
shift a lot in my lifetime.
I think we are still going to be having these
silly conversations about the men who sleep  with trans women.
We're still gonna be having these silly conversations
about which bathroom a trans person should be in.
And that's just going to be consistent.
And for me, it's exhausting.
It's exhausting.
I don't want to have to talk to you about
which bathroom I need to use and whether or
not men are gay for wanting to sleep with
me.
It's just, it's it, to me, they're stupid
ass conversations.
They're stupid ass conversations, which, which,
you know, if you pay me, I'll have, but in
general, I hate the fact that we have to talk
about this shit.
And I have a hard time.
I have a really hard time feeling that frustration.
And also seeing my transness as this thing
that gives me a great privilege, because I
think when we talk about privilege, we often
talk about people just being able to live
their fucking lives.
You know, like a white person being able to
go throughout throughout their life without
having to consciously think of the way that
their race negatively is seen.
I mean, obviously there's always the exception
to the rules.
Don't even leave those comments, but as a
black person, I mean, fuck in my apartment
complex, for example, right.
I am the friendliest person here.
I am super, super friendly.
I'm friendly to everybody.
I smile at everybody.
But you can just tell that there are people
who are, I'm the only black person in the
building, uncomfortable, you know, people
who are scared of me, you know, and that's
kind of upsetting, especially knowing who
I am I've throughout my life, had to do this
thing where I've had to sort of people have
to learn that I'm docile before they can associate
with me.
Basically, that's kind of the way that my
life has been.
You know, now I've got my natural state, which
is fairly docile, right?
But there's this assumption of me immediately
that I have to dissuade.
I have to change now because they come into
the conversation with a preconceived notion,
right?
And that process is very, very frustrating
because has you just not walked into the conversation
with a bias,
we wouldn't even have to go through this strange
process of me proving to you that I am quite
who i present myself to be.
When we talk about privilege, we often talk
about the ways in which people who have privilege
don't need to do that.
Don't need to do that.
You know, so it's interesting to me to hear
this concept of trans privilege, which really
for a lot of people, it boils down to a transgender
person, being able to be out as transgender
and go on social media and, and get, you know,
paid for it.
You know, which of course there's people who
do that.
There's plenty of people who do that.
Plenty of people that I follow, who do that
and things like that, but it's not  an enjoyable...
I don't know.
Like I love my job.
Okay.
I'm not, let's not get it twisted.
I love my job, but it's exhausting.
It's very, very stressful to constantly feel
like you have to explain yourself, especially
when it's something as simple and as basic
as your gender, right.
It's hard for me to, again, process that frustration
that I very much have with this idea that
I have privilege because I'm trans now to
bring this into perspective, I've had a conversation
with, um, I won't mention who, but
I had a conversation with a YouTuber once
where they're talking about other YouTubers,
specifically LGBT YouTubers.
And they were talking about all of the opportunities
that LGBT Youtubers get and how to some
degree they wish they could claim that because
they would get some of those opportunities.
Now, this is a person who's to my understanding,
doing very, very well, doing much better than
some of the people that they mentioned.
But what they're seeing is all of these sort
of initiatives being put forth to support
LGBTQ Youtubers.
Right.
And they're seeing that there is this sort
of thing that happens where when a person
is LGBT, they almost have, I mean, I won't
say they have a built in audience, but most
of us who are LGBTQIA+ are looking for people
like us.
And so I can kind of see where they were coming
from.
But at the same time, it was like, sis...
You have all the opportunities in the world and you're
going to get so many more than I will ever
get, simply because you're a CIS person simply
because you're a heterosexual person, you
know, you're going to get so much more,
So much more, you know what I mean?
And it's interesting to hear, you know, these
weird sort of thoughts around this, because
I know that there's a lot of opportunities
that I would have tomorrow.
If I were a CIS person.
I know for a fact there are opportunities
I would have tomorrow.
If I were a CIS person, you know, it's interesting
because there was a time on my YouTube channel
where I wasn't talking as much about being
trans.
Mostly when I was in a relationship, it wasn't
talking as much about being transgender.
And so there were a lot of people who followed
me around then, who didn't know that I was
trans, even though it was never a secret because
they only saw, for example, my stuff on a
race, they had no clue that I was transgender.
Right.
And some of these people, once they figured
that out, like I'll never forget.
I did a video that went viral where I recited
the letter from Birmingham jail part, part
of it from, um, by Martin Luther King.
But I did it in a very vlog style.
Like I was just saying it and, and really
the point was to see how differently these
words would be received if they were said
by a woman.
Right.
And, and so that video got shared everywhere.
There were people that were saying, Oh my
gosh, I really love this.
And then there were people who were making
sure in the comment section of the people who shared
it knew that I was transgender.
And you could just see the way that people
with, with suddenly withdraw their support,
you know? Oh fuck. That's a dude.? Oh no. Oh my gosh.
I really liked this video too bad. that's a man though,
You know, and it's so wild,
how quickly and easily my work is invalidated
because I'm trans, I could do something amazing
and influential and, and educational and uplifting
for
A community of people.
But because I'm trans, it
contradicts it, you know, and that's what
I feel.
Last time I checked my YouTube channel.
I had 175,000 subscribers.
Very humble, small channel.
Thank you for being here.
I appreciate you.
Or 275 channel.
yeah, shit,
Let me not undersell I 275,000 subscribers.
Thank you so much for that.
Right.
I have a lot of subscribers, but I am technically
in comparison to a lot of other YouTubers
on the smaller side of YouTube.
I'm not a Jake Paul or to get, to give a more
mainstream example, Gigi gorgeous, or a Nikita Dragun
Right.
I would love for you to give me five Trans 
 Women on YouTube
who have at least my amount
of subscribers who are not Nikita Dragon,
Blaire White or Gigi Gorgeous.
Give me just give me five, because I personally
can't think of any, I suppose, even the ones
that I respect, I don't think Diamond Stylez.
I know the Diamond Stylez and how as many
subscribers as I do side notes subscribed
to Diamond stylez.
Right.
I guess I would imagine that if, if there
were this trans privilege, right.
If it were such a privilege, if it were so
easy for you to just be LGBTQIA+ and get
all this money, that there'd be more people
doing it, you know what I mean?
This idea of claiming to be trans, to get
clout.
I have a hard time processing it.
I've got a really, really hard time processing
it because I don't see that.
I don't see that.
I don't see people claiming to be transgender
and suddenly getting all of this fanfare.
Now we've talked about this a little bit before.
We've had this conversation on here before
in my video about trans acceptance, because
I think that some people might reach this
conclusion because they see these documentaries.
You know, they see these Barcroft videos where
you get this trans person and they come out
and they're getting surgeries and they're
doing this and they're doing that.
And then, and it seems like they're getting
attention.
But what I said about those sorts of videos,
and I'll say it again in this video, is that
a lot of those sort of documentaries that
you, you, you would, you would think that
they're about representing these trans people
in a very honest way about, you know, trans
positive representation, dah, dah, dah, but
in truth and truth, it's a freak show.
You go to any one of these trans videos on,
on bark, on Barcroft, all of the comments
are negative.
None of them are affirming.
None of them are celebrative.
None of them are turning to this trans person
who is getting attention for being trans and
affirming them and celebrating them and saying,
Hey, this person's gender is valid.
No, all of them are saying, this is demented.
This is sick.
You're trying to, you know, sex change our
children.
That's what, that's what they say.
That's what they believe genuinely genuinely
with being out and transgender comes an immense
amount of vitriol and immense amount of vitriol.
I have been cyber bullied since I was a fucking
teenager guys.
It is not an enjoyable experience to be an
open and out trans person at all whatsoever.
You get so much bullshit.
And then you sacrifice so much.
I mean, it's so weird to me.
Like if you want to be successful right now
on the internet, before being trans, I would
choose to be one of these Tiktok fuck boys.
You know, like that's what I would do.
I don't understand this idea of being out
as trans this being this amazing thing that
brings you all of this fame and love and adoration,
because that's not what I feel well, it's
not what I feel at all.
You know, I mentioned in one of my videos
recently that I feel so behind in the world,
actually that video hasn't been posted yet.
So maybe next week, but in my, one of the
videos I have, I'm going to have getting posted soon.
I talk about jealousy and I talk about one
of the ways in which I feel, um, jealousy,
I guess, is how I personally feel very behind
in life as a trans person.
I feel if I were cis I would be so much further
in life because I would have had all of those
years where I was afraid to do things because
of my paperwork, where I was nervous about
having to explain myself, because my paperwork
and just simple, simple shit that like, if
you're cis, you never think about right.
You know?
And so I just,
I think that if you, I'm not going to say
that it's impossible.
I'm not going to say that it's impossible
for someone cis to just pretend to be trans.
I'm sure that's possible.
Anything is, but there are just so many easier
ways.
So many easier ways.
Why would you put your life aside?
Oh God.
You know, it's so funny.
I would say that.
Why would you put your life aside for clout
was what I was going to say, but listen, some
of y'all out here, aren't just willing to
do anything for money.
So I guess I can't even really say that.
I guess my point doesn't really have one.
It just seems like a really strange thing
people would do.
And as much as I enjoy my job, I wouldn't
wish it on other people.
It's a stressful job.
It's a, it's a thankless job.
It's a very exhausting job where you feel
like you have to justify yourself all the time.
So I think there are just easier ways to get
money than being a trans blogger.
I think there's just easier ways.
Anyway, I really feel like that's what I had
to say.
It's a baffling idea to me, you know, there's
idea that being trans is this fast track to
getting internet clout, because I can't think
of very many trans bloggers.
Again, give me a five Trans Women who have at least as many subscribers
as me,
five.
I'm not trying to say that as like a, Oh my
gosh.
Oh, I'm just so boom.
But girl, I can give you five blonde white
girls who are cis on YouTube.
Who've who got large followings larger than
I'll ever have.
You know, like we're not over-represented
here.
And I guess maybe you could make the argument
because we're not, over-represented like a
one, one new person we'll just, but I follow
several like really tiny trans bloggers who
I follow So many of those people being trans isn't
is not this, this ticket to success.
It just isn't, you know, there's a lot of
trans bloggers who have really teeny, teeny
tiny channels for X reason or another.
I would actually argue that one of the reasons
why their channels are small is because they
focus so much on being trans.
I think because I don't and I make content
about other stuff.
I think that's probably why I have more subscribers
for me.
Totally honest.
But it's, it's a, it's a baffling idea.
Anyhow, I will leave you guys there.
If you guys made it through this entire video,
I would highly suggest that you put this emoji
in the comment section below.
I appreciate that.
The people who do that are part of the cool
kids club and you know what, like, listen,
look....  you.
I don't- look.
I don't believe in peer pressure.
Okay.
Don't believe in it.
I wouldn't engage in it personally.
Um, I also feel like I have to acknowledge
that all of the cool kids are doing that.
All the cool kids are putting the emoji in the comment section.
And I, I look, I look, I know you're cool.
Okay.
We know each other we've been vibing for awhile
now.
I know you're cool.
And all I'm saying is if you care about your
image, you would put the emoji and I was actually
below, but whatever you, you didn't have to
be cool.
Who likes being cool?
I don't, I hate it.
It's so hard. What a burden.
Anyway, I'll talk to you guys next week.
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Bye.
