'I just don't want to apologize because it took me so long to get to this point.'
Trisha Paytas is speaking out after her latest YouTube video.
One day after the 31-year-old vlogger received backlash from both fellow YouTubers and members of the LGBTQ community for saying that she's "1,000 percent" transgender, though she still "1,000 percent" identifies with her "natural-born gender," she posted a nearly 19-minute-long apology video.
"I'm overwhelmed by the amount of backlash," she admitted of the response to the video, which left her feeling "like part of the community without being part of the community because no one wants me in it."
"This is something that I have just felt since I was five, six, seven," Paytas, who added that she identifies "as a male" and feels "like a prisoner in my own body and I always have," said.
"... As a child I hated my breasts. I hated my vagina," she continued. "I hated going into the female bathroom. I hated being classified as female. I hated being told to play with, like, Barbies and stuff like that."
Paytas, who said she has "so much anxiety" over the response, also shared that she has "a gender identity therapist that I've been talking to for the past six months," revealing that the therapist is one of the only people she's opened up about her gender identity to.
"I feel like I should just apologize so people just stop being nasty to me because this is something that I've really struggled with," she said. "... It just sucks because I feel like I'm apologizing and I just don't want to apologize because it took me so long to get to this point."
"... I can't apologize for who I am and how I feel and it sucks that we live in this world and I'm just not allowed to identify as a man because of how I look... I dress up in wigs and makeup, but I'm still a boy too," she added. "It's triggering. It's PTSD of when I said that I was, like, bisexual. I have come out as gay before too, as lesbian, I thought I was, you know? I'm so scared."
Paytas also said that, though she's "always been drawn to the transgender community and movement," the backlash to the video has caused her to question if "my life would just be easier" if she accepted "the shell that I'm in... and just continue being unhappy."
While Paytas admitted to trolling people "in the past" and saying "stuff that I don't mean or I don't stand by," she said that the people calling her "stupid" online really shocked and bothered her.
"How can you tell me who I am and what I am on the inside? How can you tell me that?... You haven't been with my struggles mentally. It just sucks," she said. "... My story and my truth isn't meant to, like, offend anyone. I didn't think it would. I wasn't talking about anyone but myself. For that I apologize because that hurts my heart more than me not being able to be myself."
Despite the hate and backlash, Paytas praised her friend, YouTube star Gigi Gorgeous, for calling her after the video was posted and educating her on transgender topics.
"Gigi called me yesterday and I just lost it. I just broke down because I was already getting so much backlash and she was so sweet... I lost it because I haven't told anyone in my life these feelings, I mean a few people, but not a lot. Because of the judgment, of the backlash," she said. "... I've loved Gigi for so long, since the beginning, and for her to, like, be open and supportive to me was really, really amazing."
Though not intentionally meant to upset anyone, Paytas did apologize for how the video came off.
"I'm sorry if I offended people with my language and the way I said things. I'm so new to all of this... I'm sorry if my confusion or my vocabulary discredits me in any way, but I could never mock a community that I've loved and that has loved me, has been so open and accepting to me," she said. "I would never mock them. I would never do a disservice to myself... I just don't get how people think I could choose this. That I'm just deciding to do this."
In another tearful video on Wednesday, Paytas was still clearly overwhelmed by the backlash and backtracked on using the word "transgender." She said she was "questioning" on the LGBTQ spectrum.
"I'm not comfortable in my body ... I want so badly to know who I am," she said.
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