Gigi Gorgeous Talks About Being a Proud Trans Lesbian

This interview was conducted as part of the interview series, LGBTQ&A, a weekly podcast that documents modern queer and trans history.

When Gigi Gorgeous posted a video to her YouTube channel called Why I Didn't Get Sexual Reassignment Surgery, I was shocked. I watched as she described making the appointment, flying to Thailand, touring the facility, and then changing her mind and flying home.

Gigi's honesty, thorough and surprising, pulled me in; video after video, I kept clicking. To her 2.7 million YouTube subscribers, Gigi Gorgeous doesn't appear to hold back. Alongside her signature makeup tutorials, she shares stories about her fiance, surgeries, staph infections, her mother's death, and one memorable trip to the sperm bank.

"It's a very, very fluid line," she said when I asked about how she decides what she's comfortable posting, and admits that her multiple coming out videos have sensitized her. "Everyone's like, 'Oh, you're the queen of coming out.' I'm like, 'Okay, I guess,' but I feel like I'm just the queen of just being authentic."

To celebrate the publication of her book, He Said, She Said: Lessons, Stories, and Mistakes from My Transgender Journey, Gigi spoke to the LGBTQ&A podcast about coming out as a lesbian, how much YouTube has changed since she began in 2008, and coming out as a lesbian.

Read a preview below and click here to listen to the full interview.

Jeffrey Masters: YouTube was incredibly new when you started. Being a YouTuber wasn't yet a thing.
Gigi Gorgeous: A lot has changed. YouTube really has grown. It's a lot more personal now. It's a lot more deep. I share a lot more than I ever really thought I would with friends, let alone millions of people, and it really started surface level for me: beauty, fashion, lifestyle, whatever.

I think a lot of people feel the same way with their channels. They feel like they can tell their subscribers anything and everything, but back then, it was just very surface level.

JM: Have viewers learned to expect and demand more personal videos?
GG: I think so, but I think it's also something I've set for myself, just for my mental state, for my wellbeing. I've drawn that line in the sand and just said that I'm going to share whatever I want, when I want, whenever it's comfortable for me.

Whenever it's pressured or whenever I feel a little bit uncomfortable about it, it's not going come off as organic or true, and I never want to come off as forced. It's just something that needs to flow fluidly.

JM: Are you able to say what that line in the sand is for you?
GG: You know what? It's a very, very fluid line.

JM: You recently posted about going to a sperm bank and giving a donation.
And that's something I never, ever thought I would talk about. As well as my sexual reassignment surgery. I really never thought that I would ever utter those words. I was like, "That is something that is off-limits."

But now, being in love with the love of my life, I'm just like, "Okay. This is what I'm going through," and it's becoming too much because it's on my mind so much, so I need to share that. And that's kind of how I've always gauged my content, by just being like, "Okay. It's on my mind so much. If I don't speak about it, I'm being fake, because I'm not really being myself."

JM: Was your fiance apprehensive that dating you would put your relationship together on public display?
GG: I'm not sure. I feel like she knew what she was getting herself into. There's a respect level for us there and I think that she just knows I'm outrageous sometimes. She gets that sometimes I say things or do things that're silly or wack to her, but at the end of the day, there's a message and there's a bigger picture. She just gets it and she's very supportive. So, if she doesn't like something that I do, she lets me know.

And otherwise, she just lets me know that she loves it and she lets me know that she loves me.

JM: You had predominately dated men before your fiance. Were you surprised when you started falling in love with a woman?
GG: I was. This was something that was so hard for me to talk about because it was such a change and I had always talked about being in love with men. But when it started happening, it was literally very, very, very similar to me telling my friends that I was transgender.

I was like, "Okay, who do I tell about this? Because this is a gag. This is a little bit of a little, juicy scoop, and it's real."

So just like me coming out as transgender, I was like, "Okay, I'm falling in love with this woman and it is real, and I just want you to know." And then the waterfall just exploded. The dam just went ham after that because I can't keep my mouth shut for very long about things.

JM: I love that you have a sense of humor about all the times you've had to come out.
GG: I know. It's silly. I feel like I've been desensitized to it because everyone's like, "Oh, you're the queen of coming out." I'm like, "Okay, I guess," but I feel like I'm just the queen of just being authentic.

JM: You came out as a lesbian. Before that, you were dating men. Now you're engaged to a woman. My assumption would have been that you were coming out as bisexual. Are you still attracted to men?
GG: This is something I talk about a lot, actually, because I feel like nowadays humans are so quick to not put a label on themselves. I've always been that kind of person where I feel like it is mandatory for me to put a label on myself. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's my generation.

So, no, I'm not attracted to men anymore. I don't think I ever really was. It's a profound thing because I think it was more of a validation thing for me, being with a man. Feeling like, that made me feel like more of a woman. It's this deep, weird thing.

But when I fell in love with Nats, I just felt, "This is right." And I am a lesbian. I am attracted to women. And it's something I never really thought about before.

JM: You write a lot about your father. He has this unconditional love for you. I hate that that stands out, seeing a parent love their trans kid. We don't have a lot of examples of that.
GG: My dad was just literally the beacon of light and it's changed a lot of people's lives because I read these messages every single day. I joke with my dad that he's the star of the documentary [This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous] and he loves it.

JM: Did it take a while for him to get to that place or has he always been like that?
GG: It definitely took him a while. It was never really as quick as it seemed. I think the documentary made it seem a lot more seamless, but I have this saying, "Get into it or get lost," and he decided to get into it. He's not going to get lost. He's my dad, so really just decided to get onboard with what I was doing, and really love me unconditionally. \

I literally hear messages every single day. I read them. I hear them. I see them, and he is an inspiration for people.

For me, how I live every day is with the kind of mentality that you're never, ever guaranteed tomorrow. Losing my mom when I was 19, it was this eye-opening experience and I sometimes have to even remind myself, "Don't take this moment for granted. If you're feeling down, bitch, get up. You are living and breathing and experiencing life. You've worked your ass off to get here." You just wake up every single day with a clear mind and basically just have fun and be positive because God knows what could happen, you know?

JM: Do you think you'll be making and posting videos forever?
GG: I want to say forever, but who knows? I love documenting. Having these videos forever is priceless to me, so I think I will be doing it forever, but who knows if YouTube is gonna be around forever. It might shut down in the next year or two. There might be a huge scandal. Who knows? But I definitely want to keep going as long as I can.

[Click here to listen to the full podcast with Gigi Gorgeous.]

New episodes of the LGBTQ&A podcast come out every Tuesday on the Luminary app.