Nikkie de Jager, also known as NikkieTutorials, used Instagram to reflect on her journey as a transgender woman this week.
On Tuesday, the YouTuber honored International Transgender Day of Visibility with an Instagram post about how her life has changed since coming out. She also shared a photo from her childhood, and opened up about what it was like to grow up while transitioning.
"Happy #transdayofvisibility," she wrote in the photo's caption alongside pink-and-blue heart emojis.
Nikkie de Jager says her life has 'completely changed' since coming out as transgender in January
"2020 completely changed my life, and at times it got really, really dark," de Jager wrote on Instagram. "But looking back now, I've never felt so free."
She continued to explain her Instagram photo, which showed her as a child on the left, and as an adult on the right.
—NikkieTutorials (@NikkieTutorials) March 31, 2020
"On the left is the day we left my dead-name in the past and I reintroduced myself to my classmates as Nikkie," she said. "It was the first day I wore a girly outfit and had my hair in braids. I remember feeling so terrified but strong at the same time."
"I wish I could hug that girl, look her straight into her eyes and tell her: 'you're doing exactly what you need to be doing. hold on queen!'" she continued. "On the right is me yesterday — a strong woman who sometimes still is scared of the world but knows she has the most amazing support system behind her."
The YouTuber came out during her first YouTube video of 2020
In January, de Jager shared her journey for the first time in a 17-minute-long video during which she said she knew since childhood that she was a girl. The YouTuber said she started hormone treatments and growth stoppers at 14 years old and had fully transitioned by the time she was 19.
De Jager said she chose to upload the video after being blackmailed by people who threatened to leak her story to news outlets.
"I am me. I am still Nikkie. Nothing changes about that," de Jager said. "The last thing I want in my life is for you to not trust me anymore, or to look at me with different eyes, or look at me in a different manner, or think that I have changed."
She added: "This feels liberating and freeing, but I, at the end of the day, am still Nikkie."
Representatives for Nikkie de Jager did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
- Read more:
- Inside the life of NikkieTutorials, a beauty YouTuber who just came out as transgender in a new video
- Transgender people are having to indefinitely postpone gender-affirming surgeries due to the coronavirus pandemic
- Meet the transgender YouTubers and their partners teaching viewers there is no set narrative to being trans and everyone is so much more than their gender identity
- A transgender drag performer with coronavirus symptoms said it's 'the least scary' thing she's been through
