YouTuber and MrBeast collaborator Chris Tyson opens up about gender journey: ‘HRT saved my life’
MrBeast YouTube star Chris Tyson says that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) saved their life. (Robin L Marshall/WireImage)
Chris Tyson, who regularly appears alongside mega-YouTuber MrBeast, said hormone replacement therapy (HRT) ‘saved their life’ after opening up about their gender journey on Twitter.
Chris Tyson, a content and video creator often featured in videos reaching MrBeast’s 141 million subscribers, made the revelation about HRT in response to a social media user comparing an old and new picture of Tyson.
“Bro wtf happened,” the user wrote on Thursday (6 April), to which Tyson, 26, who first appeared in MrBeast’s earliest videos and is his childhood friend, replied: “HRT, and it’s only been 2 months.”
Gender-affirming healthcare includes hormone replacement therapy and surgeries, while some people also receive speech therapy, family therapy, counselling, puberty blockers and hair removal.
Below the original tweet, Chris Tyson also posted the link to a tweet from their ‘non-MrBeast related’ Twitter account, recounting how “informed HRT” helped save their life.
“Informed consent HRT saved my and many others’ lives,” they said, replying to a tweet that claimed conservatives are trying to “erase the trans community”.
“The hurdles gnc (gender non-conforming) people have to jump through to get life-saving gender-affirming healthcare in a 1st world country is wild to me,” Tyson wrote. “Just let people make informed decisions about their own bodies.”
Tyson’s reveal could not have been more timely, as the US is currently plagued by a wave anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, with a particular focus on trans and gender non-conforming individuals. In states like Tennessee, some laws even deny trans and non-binary folks access to vital healthcare.
The wider LGBTQ+ community is also targeted by online hate and the false “groomer” narrative, that smears queer and trans people as ‘dangerous’ to children.
This is an accusation Chris Tyson experienced after those objecting to Tyson receiving gender-affirming care said Tyson’s child had lost a “father figure“.
In response, Tyson wrote that their child, Tucker, is “loved and happy” and that the insult is just “more dog whistling that somehow trans and gnc folks aren’t safe around kids”.
“I made this decision because I wanted to show up as my best and happiest self for him,” Tyson wrote on Twitter.
Other replies to Chris Tyson have included MrBeast himself, who wrote a simple “gotchu” with three heart emojis.
In January, the now-indicted former US president and Donald Trump announced that if re-elected, he would abolish gender-affirming care for minors, referring to it as “child sexual mutilation”.
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