YouTube star Trisha Paytas broke down in tears as she opened up about her gender identity just a few weeks after she was slammed for coming out as a transgender man while still identifying with her ‘natural-born gender.’
The 31-year-old Celebrity Big Brother star clarified her controversial comments on Wednesday’s episode of The Doctors, during which a psychotherapist said he believes that she is, in fact, transgender.
‘I don’t like labels. For me, saying I’m transgender was just a thing to say because it’s what people want to label me as — a female, who’s a male,’ Trisha explained. ‘I was born female, but even from a young age I had a hormonal imbalance where I knew I wasn’t female.’
Emotional moment: YouTube star Trisha Paytas, 31, broke down in tears as she opened up about her gender identity on Wednesday’s episode of The Doctors
Expert: Trisha has faced backlash for saying she is transgender man but still identifies with her ‘natural-born gender.’ Psychotherapist Mike Dow (right) said he believes she is transgender
When asked if she has considered physically transitioning into a male, Trisha said she hasn’t because of what she does for a living but noted that she does want male body parts.
‘I’ve always wanted a penis,’ she said. ‘I always have because it just makes dating easier. I’ve dated gay men and this is what offended people in my video is when I date gay men, a lot of gay men think I’m not man enough because I don’t have a penis.’
Trisha said she has ‘always been very uncomfortable in the female body,’ but her feelings conflict with her work.
She explained that even though she thought of herself as a man from an early age, her job when she worked as a stripper and an escort was to ‘give guys what they want.’
Candid conversation: The social media star said she hasn’t considered physically transitioning to male because of what she does for a living, but she has ‘always wanted a penis’
‘I still do adult work — not porn, but I do nudity and stuff like that because it what makes the money,’ she said. ‘It’s what my job is, so I don’t consider transitioning because my job is this.’
During the interview, Trisha sat next to psychotherapist Mike Dow, who helped shed some light on her conflicting feelings, which he admitted don’t ‘fit under the normal idea of what a transgender person is.’
Opening up: Trisha (pictured as a child) said she has ‘always been very uncomfortable in the female body’
‘I actually believe you are a transgender person,’ he told her.
‘The fact that your assigned sex at birth was female, but in your brain, you feel male, that, to me, meets the classification for a transgender person,’ he added. ‘It’s not so much if you ever have a surgery. It’s about the way you feel.’
Trisha started to tear up after hearing what he had to say about her gender identity.
‘I wasn’t going to cry,’ she said, wiping away tears. ‘You’re just the first person out of LGBTQ that I don’t know on a personal level, that’s accepted me. It means a lot because so many people think I’m faking this and it’s just so hard.’
As a YouTuber, Trisha is well known for her ‘mukbang’ videos in which she films herself binge eating in front of the camera.
Keeping it real: Trisha said she won’t transition because the adult photo shoots she does is ‘what makes the money’
Nonconforming: Trisha recently shared a photo of herself wearing a short brown wig, a baggy T-shirt, and jeans, saying she felt ‘so happy’ in the outfit
The social media star, who has borderline personality disorder, admitted that she has struggled with binge eating since she was a child. She recalled how she wouldn’t eat during the school week only to consume as much as she could on the weekend.
‘I don’t know why I can’t control it. I don’t know if it’s self-sabotage. I don’t know if there is something mentally wrong that I really just can’t control this,’ she said, but she insisted her mukbang videos don’t ‘glorify’ her struggles with binge eating.
‘I’ve actually lost 50 pounds in the past five months, and I do mukbangs every day. It looks like a lot of food, but I don’t eat all of it,’ she stressed. ‘So I wouldn’t say I’m glorifying it. I enjoy eating. I love eating, so it’s a lot of fun.’
Trisha said she has worked with nutritionists and gone to therapy, though she isn’t sure she will ever be able to fully control her binge eating.
She noted that announcing her ‘real gender’ affected her mental health because of the backlash she faced, but she said she was able to pull herself back up.
Controversy: Earlier this month, Trisha came under fire for saying she is a ‘female transgender to male, but also like a drag queen’
Demons: Trisha is well known for her ‘mukbang’ videos in which she films herself binge eating in front of the camera. She admitted she has struggled with binge eating her entire life
Before and after: ‘I’ve actually lost 50 pounds in the past five months, and I do mukbangs every day,’ she said. ‘It looks like a lot of food, but I don’t eat all of it’
Earlier this month, Trisha came under fire after she posted a video to her YouTube channel entitled ‘I am Transgender, female to male’ in which she said she actually feels she is a ‘gay man.’
‘I identify with men better. People always think there’s something wrong with me because I don’t have that many girlfriends,’ she said. ‘Like, I love girls, I do love girls and I love their sensitivity. But that’s why I identify more as a gay man because I like guys but I also identify as a guy.’
‘In my head I feel like I’m a female transgender to male, but also like a drag queen,’ she added. ‘I don’t like to be center of attention, except for when I want to be the center of attention.’
The YouTube star said she came to the conclusion that she is a transgender man after feeling ‘so happy’ while wearing short hair and trousers for a video in which she dressed up as Zac Efron.
At the end of the 15-minute clip, she concluded: ‘Do I think I’m transgender? Yes, a thousand per cent. Do I identify with my natural-born gender? A thousand per cent.’
Viewers were left outraged by the announcement, with some accusing Trisha of treating the LGBT community as ‘a joke.’