Mr Beast, otherwise known as Jimmy Donaldson, is one of YouTube’s biggest and fastest-growing social media influencers, notorious for his lavish sketches and selfless monetary donations to strangers. The Youtube channel started when Donaldson was only 11.
While his videos are primarily focused on him, over the years, others such as his friend Chris Tyson have integrated their way onto the screen as constant collaborators. As seen in many videos, Tyson has recently faced backlash from fans and patrons of the channel, as earlier this month they announced on Twitter that they have started hormone replacement therapy.
“HRT and it’s only been 2 months,” reads the tweet. Tyson’s tweet included two selfies showing the physical changes they have noticed so far; the post has surpassed 40 million views. Hormone replacement therapy is often defined as medically necessary treatment that allows transgender and gender-expansive identifying individuals to feel more comfortable in their bodies.
“I’m genuinely so glad so many people are learning what HRT is and how it CAN and HAS helped so many people because of my tweet,” Tyson says. “I was super nervous to be public about this bc I’ve always been so private when it comes to this, but seeing conversations started bc of me is amazing… It makes everything so worth it. I’m so excited to have more conversations like this in the future with you all.”
While some fans are complaining that they miss the old Chris and others are concerned about what having a gender-expansive content creator will mean for the family-friendly channel, Mr. Beast quickly responded to the post by saying “Gotchu????????????” leading by example and showing support and acceptance to Tyson.
Despite Mr. Beasts’ encouraging and affirming response, hate and discouraging posts are still appearing on social media. One Twitter post claims that Chris will soon be a nightmare for the Youtube channel. “Yeah, this is getting absurd. Chris isn’t my “nightmare” he’s my fucken friend and things are fine.” Mr. Beast retorts.“All this transphobia is starting to piss me off.”
With recent anti-LGBTQ legislation being passed all over the nation, specifically concerning gender-affirming care in correlation to transgender youth, we need now more than ever to see positive queer and gender-expansive role models in the media.
“Informed consent HRT saved my and many other’s lives,” states Tyson. “The hurdles gnc people have to jump through to get life-saving gender-affirming healthcare in a 1st world country is wild to me. Just let people make informed decisions about their own bodies.”
Photo courtesy of Twitter
