Transgender Woman’s Online Chronicles Have Huge Audience
A 20-year-old transgender woman is inspiring people around the world with her frank videos about transitioning, self-love, and beauty on YouTube and social media.
Transmermaid, as she is known, has more than 97,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel — and her 9 ½-minute “Transgender Transition Timeline” slide show (below), chronicling her lifelong journey from Markus to Maya, has been viewed more than 2.4 million times. Her no-holds-barred approach to such a personal transformation, as well as recent media coverage of her channel, has brought Maya a swirl of praise on social media.
“Omg, I love you!!!! You’re so freakin amazing and beautiful and wow and I’m so excited to be on the sidelines watching you go through your journey :) truly an inspiration,” wrote a supporter on Instagram. Another noted, “Just got done watching your video and wanted to stop by and say you’re stunning! Never stop smiling!”
Related: The Complex Relationship Between Transgender Women and Makeup
On Twitter, a new fan wrote at 5 p.m. on Sunday, “@Transmermaidx I’ve been watching her videos since 6am,” while another tweeted, “@Transmermaidx is so beautiful she makes me want to cry.”
One of Maya’s frequently posted selfies. (Photo: Instagram)
Maya, who lives in Toronto, Canada, covers a range of topics in her brave and witty videos, including details about her hormone replacement therapy, a rant about The Danish Girl (“I think a transwoman should have been selected for the part…”), her coming-out story, a collection of “embarrassing transgender stories” (a child asking her why she sounds like a boy, for example), tales about recent dates with men, fashion hauls, beauty tutorials, and even a cheeky “I’m not actually transgender” confession for April Fools’ Day.
Related: MAC Is Funding a Doc on Transgender Lives
But her most popular YouTube entry is the transition timeline, which has stills of Maya as an infant, toddler, young child, adolescent, and teen, along with subtitles explaining, “I would more often than not wear ‘girls’ clothing as a child” and that she became involved with theater in high school. “This is the dress I dreamed of wearing to the prom!” she explains about the image of a white, one-shouldered gown. “But I wasn’t ready yet; I was too afraid.”
Photo: Instagram
The video goes on to explain that she remained in the closet at college, wearing her hair extensions only in private, but summoned the courage to attend a transgender pride march when she was 18. “The march inspired me to finally take the final steps to become the real me: to transition,” Maya explains in a subtitle, adding that she announced her transition on Facebook in January.
“Casually looking down at the haters.” (Photo: Instagram)
The timeline slide show has garnered more than 12,000 comments, a majority of them positive and commenting on how Maya is “beautiful,” “gorgeous,” “stunning,” and “brave.” Some, naturally, are invasive and insulting, but Maya seems to be taking it all in stride, as her latest Instagram shot is a lovely photo of her “casually looking down at the haters.” To that, wrote one supporter, “The look on your face is perfect Maya. You are so above them.”
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