Drag Race star Jasmine Kennedie claims she had a harrowing experience last night where she was harassed and followed by a man on her way home from work.
Kennedie, who came out as trans while filming season 14 of Drag Race, posted an Instagram reel with video footage of the man she alleges harassed and followed her and was caught on tape saying, “Trump is still your daddy.”
After a short clip of the man at the heart of Kennedie’s allegations, the 25-year-old drag performer assured her followers that she was safe before detailing what happened to her while she was on the Oculus PATH train.
“I was verbally harassed and followed on the New Jersey Transit back home, and I will be sharing my story as well as video evidence and giving you all the rundown as to what happened to me last night,” she said in the reel.
Kennedie pointed out how scary it is to be a trans woman during the current political climate. “Y'all, it is very, very dangerous right now to be a trans woman in Trump's America. I have lived in this city since 2017 and I have never been treated the way that I was treated last night,” she explained.
Kennedie was on her way after doing a show at Playhouse in the West Village when she was accosted by a strange man.
“The one time I decide to take public transit home is the one time I get verbally accosted, get called slurs, get followed, and really I had to stand up for myself,” she said. “And I was actually very proud of myself, because in this world and this climate, they want us to be afraid. They want us to be scared. They don't want us to be able to stand up for ourselves. And this person was very shocked to see that I, as a trans woman, was willing to stand up for myself and my rights.”
She was waiting for a train while on the phone with her boyfriend and still had a “full face on of drag” when the random man decided to “sit very, very, very close to me.”
Kennedie immediately stood up and the man called her the “F slur” and said “this is Trump’s America” and “Trump’s your daddy.”
Despite being called anti-trans slurs, Kennedie said she refused to back down and take his verbal abuse.
“I said, Yes, I am a tr*nny do you have a problem with that? Yes, I am a trans woman. Do you have a problem with that? And then he had the nerve to say, you know, like you have a dick. And I said, Yes, and it's probably bigger than yours,” she said.
Kennedie went on to explain that trans women aren’t trying to claim that they were born male at birth, but Republicans seem incapable of understanding that “our gender is different than our sex at birth” and that “gender and sex are two different things.”
“Now, because the right-wing party has decided to make it their number one villain in attack and make them feel make them feel like an outsider, make them feel like they shouldn't belong,” Kennedie said. “But we do belong. And I stood the fuck up to this person. I do not care. I was not gonna let some man make me feel insignificant because I'm confident in who I am, and let's be honest, why'd you sit so close next to the doll?”
Kennedie said that the man then told her that she should be deported. “I'm a US citizen. Are we just deporting anybody who doesn't go with the ideology of Trump? Now, is this what we're becoming? This is what the Trump's America wants is to deport people that aren't in their ideology.”
She may have felt “vulnerable," but she didn’t allow the man who was harassing her to make her cower.
“I don't give a fuck. I am who I am, and I'm never going to back down on this,” she revealed. "This is a message to all trans women out there and trans brothers and trans men, do not let them stoke fear in you. Do not because at the end of the day, when you stand up, they don't expect you to stand up, but when you do, they back down, and they get scared, they get cowardice.”
Kennedie explained that once she pulled out her phone and started to record him, the man backed down and started to “grovel.” She also said that people were standing near her and on the train who defended her and made her “feel safe.”
“It was very comforting to know that the people in this world see me for who I am, and are willing to defend me while assholes and bigots like that can run around rampant and they think that there's no repercussions,” Kennedie said. “So, at the end of the day, you can never make me feel insignificant, because I know my power, and I did not let them take it from me.”
Kennedie finishes the reel with more recordings of the man, where he claims that she started the problem, tries to grab her phone, and even follows her onto the train.
After posting the reel to Instagram detailing the harassment, Kennedie experienced an outpouring of support from followers and fellow Drag Race alum like Daya Betty, Amanda Tory Meating, Alyssa Hunter, Aurora Matrix, and Deja Skye.
Other people reposted her reel asking for help identifying the man in question, which Kennedie added to her Instagram Stories. She also added a video clip where she said that she’s received a tip that the man supposedly works at Gym U, but the information has yet to be confirmed.
PRIDE has reached out to Kennedie for comment but has not heard back as of publication.