Popular YouTuber stands up for transgender friend and co-host

MrBeast, the world’s No. 1 YouTuber with 146 million subscribers on his main channel, has come to the defense of his longtime co-host after he started hormone replacement therapy. The two have been creators together since 2012.

“All this transphobia is starting to piss me off,” MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, posted to Twitter. “He’s my f**ken friend.”

Related:

Is the Republican “anti-woke” agenda killing young people?

Republicans are ignoring the real problems facing our children in favor of fighting “wokeness.”

Donaldson’s MrBeast brand is a sprawling empire of five YouTube channels with a combined reach of 236 million subscribers, plus enterprises like a wildly popular virtual burger chain and a Gen Z-targeted snack line, plus partnerships including Epic Games’ “MrBeast’s Extreme Survival Challenge” with Fortnite.

He runs multiple philanthropies, as well, tackling environmental issues like ocean cleanup and tree planting.

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.

Sign Up

Daily

Weekly

Good News

Promotions (occasional)

In January, Donaldson, 24, paid for the eye surgeries of 1,000 blind people, and last week he was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People.

Now his close friend and longtime co-creator, Chris Tyson, is under attack just for living their life authentically.

Earlier this month, Tyson, 26, who identifies as gender non-conforming and uses any pronouns, revealed they’d started hormone replacement therapy.

HRT, and it’s only been 2 months 😱 https://t.co/uAWOw59eMm

— Chris (@chris) April 6, 2023

Tyson came out as bisexual to close friends when they were 16, and publicly in 2020; last month they confirmed they separated from their wife a year ago.

A follow-up tweet added: “Informed consent HRT saved my and many others’ lives. The hurdles gnc people have to jump through to get life-saving gender-affirming healthcare in a 1st world country is wild to me. Just let people make informed decisions about their own bodies.”

The revelation received a mixed reaction, with some longtime viewers applauding Tyson’s bravery, and other’s dunking on him for breaking up his marriage.

“There goes a father figure the kid won’t ever be able to look up to,” one former fan posted to Twitter.

The controversy was stoked with prejudice by YouTuber SunnyV2 in an online breakdown of Tyson’s transition and the effect on Donaldson’s business: “The Chris Tyson situation could become a complete disaster for MrBeast’s brand.”

The nine-minute video racked up six million views going ominous, portraying Tyson’s transition as a betrayal to both her family and the MrBeast brand.

The negative vibe prompted Donaldson to react.

“Yeah, this is getting absurd,” MrBeast posted to Twitter on Thursday. “Chris isn’t my ‘nightmare’ he’s my fucken friend and things are fine. All this transphobia is starting to piss me off.”

Yeah, this is getting absurd. Chris isn’t my “nightmare” he’s my fucken friend and things are fine. All this transphobia is starting to piss me off

— MrBeast (@MrBeast) April 13, 2023

Responses to Donaldson’s tweet were as mixed as the reaction to Tyson’s, and pretty much everyone else who has weighed in on the co-host’s very personal, and public, decision.

It even drew a reply from senior advisor to former President Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, who’s promoted an anti-trans agenda through his boss’s campaign speeches and Miller’s own far-right America First Legal advocacy group.

Said the MAGA mouthpiece: “Not ‘transphobia’ to want to shield children from a pernicious, destructive ideology that promotes chemical castration & sterilization, the amputation of healthy organs & body parts, the blocking of puberty in vulnerable teenagers, the erasure of woman & exploitation of children.”

Unlike the reactions to MrBeast’s tweet, Miller lurking in the replies earned nearly universal scorn.