Dear Nikkie: An Open Letter of Support

Dear Nikkie,

On Monday you “came out” (I hate that term but there’s no other phrase to better describe it), and openly told the world that you’re transgender.

For the uneducated, this means that you were born with a penis and therefore automatically assigned male as your gender at birth, however as you grew and developed and flourished into the wonderful person that you are today, you realised that you were born in the wrong body and you’re actually female.

After 11 years on YouTube and being in the public eye, this came as a huge shock to millions of people. You have always kept your life off-camera private, and opening up like this was new for your fans.

I believe you went about “coming out” in the correct way, aside from the awful circumstances around being blackmailed. Your success shouldn’t be based on the fact that you’re trans. Your entire life shouldn’t revolve around your gender. You are Nikkie, and you are an amazing woman who has done incredible things, and I’m sure you will continue to carry on doing incredible things.

Speaking as a fan, I want to say a few things:

1) You’re so brave for sharing this and openly telling us about your gender identity and struggles. We appreciate your honesty and it must have been so painful and hard for you to talk about this after putting it behind you so many years ago.

2) The person or people who blackmailed you into coming out can… I have no words. No person should be forced into making a decision like this. I know blackmail alone isn’t illegal in many countries but they deserve to rot in jail for doing this to you. You seem like a genuinely kind and sweet person who has worked hard to build a fantastic life for herself.

3) Thank you. Thank you for trusting us, your fans, with this huge part of your life. It shouldn’t matter. You are Nikkie. People who think it matters, who keep telling you you’re not a woman, are so wrong. You’re ten times the woman anyone could ever hope to be.

You are strong. You are brave. You are a queen. You are an icon. You basically reinvented the makeup tutorial for the modern era. You’ve generated millions in revenue for the beauty industry, from your product collaborations to recommending your favourites (please bring back Hits and Oh God No’s!)

Like so many other people, I learned so much from you. I bought my first highlighter (although the only place I can find it now is Amazon at twice the price, it was only £5 before!) because you recommended a great drugstore product and it was in my price range. You taught me about hooded eyes and how to best apply eyeshadow and eyeliner on them. You taught me about primer because not to prime is a crime. You taught me, and millions of other people, about the power of makeup, and how to use it to empower yourself. You made a career out of YouTube, not only for yourself but for hundreds and thousands of other influencers who followed in your footsteps.

You openly talking about your gender only makes you more inspiring to me. You are arguably one of the most influential people in the beauty industry, and you’re a self-made millionaire businesswoman who is also transgender! The TERFs* must be choking on their phobia.

I hope this hurts the haters :)

As an LGBT+ individual trying to make their way in the world, you give me hope that I can make some success of myself too, whether that’s my career, love, or family. You have all of those things I just listed. You have your career, which I’ve talked about long enough. You have Dylan, who loves you to the ends of the earth and you can see it in his eyes and face when he looks at you. You have your wonderful supportive family, and I’m so grateful that you do. I know a lot of trans people don’t have that support from their family, and it’s awful. Every parent who has a trans child should aim to be like Mama Tutorials.

Nikkie, I hope that one day I get to meet you, not only because you are one of my role models and an icon, but because you’re a badass queen and I want to learn a lot more from you. You carry yourself and live your life with grace and dignity.

Love, Effy x

PS if any transphobes, homophobes, racists or anti-feminists are reading this, you can also sit on Nikkie’s middle finger and kindly remove yourself from the lives of me and my loved ones.

PPS if I have made any kind of incorrect assumption about trans people, or I have made any unintentional transphobic comments, please do let me know so that I can edit this post and change my learned behaviour.

*TERF = Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, i.e NOT A FEMINIST. FEMINISTS STAND FOR EQUALITY FOR ALL.

Many thanks to my friend Claire who proofread this and helped with wording and phrasing!