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"It doesn't matter to me if you’re male or female. Whoever is in there, I love," Jenna Tea's 89-year-old great-grandmother Katherine says in a viral video.
A great-grandmother's reaction to her great-granddaughter coming out as trans is going viral for all the right reasons.
Jenna Tea, a 21-year-old makeup artist and drag performer, posted a video to her Instagram last month that has since garnered over one million views, capturing the conversation she had with her great-grandmother, Katherine, when she told her that she is a transgender woman.
"Well, it's your life, honey. You have to do what makes you happy," Katherine says in the audio, as pictures of her and Tea as a child flash onscreen. "It’s something that we have to adjust to and sometimes, it’s hard for other people but they’re not living your life, you are. It’s kind of their problem to readjust and so, the best thing is to put it out there, deal with it, and it is what it is."
“And I’ve always thought it. I always noticed that you had more of a softer side when you wanted dolls and not trucks and things,” Katherine continued. “There were signs, but we never said anything to you because until you know, it’s not fair to say anything to you either. Because I don’t want you to be unhappy and struggle with this and let it destroy you because people are not accepting. They’re just idiots.”
"I love you. It doesn't matter to me if you’re male or female. Whoever is in there, I love," she concluded.
Tea told PEOPLE that she came out in January and began hormones in April. She's been performing in drag for over three years now, which her great-grandmother often comes to watch.
Tea wrote in the caption of the video that she "sobbed so much creating this," and that "at 89 years old I hope to be half the woman she is."
"I knew when I came out to her that it wasn’t going to be a bad reaction and I am very lucky to be able to know that," she said. "As a trans person I often get a lot of dysphoria, but sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see parts of her face in me, and that erases all of the fear and discomfort. She is such a rare and special soul and we need more people like her in the world, I am so lucky to call her Grandma."
Ryan is a staff writer at the Advocate, and a graduate of New York University Tisch's Department of Dramatic Writing, with a focus in television writing and comedy. She first became a published author at the age of 15 with her YA novel 'Someone Else's Stars', and is now a member of GALECA, the LGBTQ+ society of entertainment critics. In her free time, Ryan likes watching New York Rangers hockey, listening to the Beach Boys, and practicing witchcraft.
Ryan is a staff writer at the Advocate, and a graduate of New York University Tisch's Department of Dramatic Writing, with a focus in television writing and comedy. She first became a published author at the age of 15 with her YA novel 'Someone Else's Stars', and is now a member of GALECA, the LGBTQ+ society of entertainment critics. In her free time, Ryan likes watching New York Rangers hockey, listening to the Beach Boys, and practicing witchcraft.
