In response to the violence that the Trump administration dealt when they released their intention to define gender as exclusively tied to sex assigned at birth, I wanted to highlight some of the transgender and nonbinary people who have spoken out about this decision and who have been vocal about their identities on Instagram.
In writing this article I realized that this may not be a fully representative list—most of the people I follow transitioned from assigned-female-at-birth to male, identify as trans, and that a majority of them identify as Asian. Hopefully you will find some new people to learn about and hear their stories!
Schuyler Bailar
Bailar is the first openly transgender NCAA Division I swimmer. He swims at Harvard University and is 22 years old. He is very vocal about his experiences as a trans man and how his identity and story will not be erased in the Trump administration’s term, speaking in many different venues and audiences about his mental health, his experience with an eating disorder and other aspects of his life.
Ryan Jacobs Flores
Mostly, I love how much Flores enjoys life and is thriving. Flores’ feed is a fun, genuine and flourishing view of his life. He also has a YouTube channel.
Airin Yung
Their account is amazing, their outfits are incredible and they sometimes freestyle beautifully on the violin. Yung uses they/them pronouns and identifies as trans. They also post on their stories a lot about problematic systems and information on legal processes that marginalize people.
Colby (Cj.ftm)
Colby is a 20-year-old trans man who posts about trans issues and his life experiences. His most recent post caption was “the harder you try to erase us, the louder we’ll be. Loving yourself in a world like this is an act of solidarity. I refuse to be ashamed of this body.”
Kyle Davy
Davy has a YouTube channel and posts about their calisthenics fitness journey, being trans and their life. He talks about gender roles and one recent post he wrote, “Although I consider myself Trans and identify as male. There are days I feel more feminine than masculine because it all comes down to personality and there is nothing wrong with that.”
Chella Man
I first saw 19-year-old Chella Man this spring in a video by the YouTube channel The Skin Deep titled Do You Miss Who I Was Before Transitioning? Since then, Man has gone on to sign with IMG modelling agency, and he is very active on Instagram and YouTube. He produces videos about art, fashion, his identity as a queer, deaf, genderqueer person, what testosterone does to his body, his relationship with his significant other MaryV and more. He is an active participant and leader in protests and discussions about things that affect parts of his identity.
