Drag Race star Gottmik faces ‘wild amount’ of transphobic abuse online
"All I can do is continue to be me," says the Attitude April Style issue cover star.
By Will Stroude
After establishing herself as a force to be reckoned with on RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13, Gottmik is feeling plenty of love from fans – but the transgender trailblazer and drag star isn’t immune from the abuse that transgender people are confronted with day in and day out on the internet.
As she appears on the cover of the Attitude April issue, Gottmik, aka Kade Gottlieb, says that despite being surrounded by a “core group of queer friends” who helped her with a “seamless” gender transition process after she moved from Arizona to LA to pursue a career as a make-up artist, the internet still leaves her open to attack from transphobes.
Gottmik wears petticoat by Moschino, boots by Balenciaga, necklace by Diana Law, sunglasses by Natasha Morgan; gloves, stylist’s own, (Photography: Magnus Hastings)
“There’s always going to be the online haters” the 24-year-old (who uses she/her pronouns in drag and he/him pronouns out of drag) explains in this month’s issue, out now to download and to order globally.
“I’ve never had really crazy in-person stuff like me walking Downtown and being called a f*ggot, or anything like that. But I do get a wild amount of transphobia online that just comes from being uneducated, and this being a very new path.”
Gottmik’s comments come just weeks after trans model, activist and Attitude Hero Award winner Munroe Bergdorf was forced to shut down her Twitter account due to the torrent of transphobic abuse directed at her each day.
“No one should have to endure even a fraction of the abuse that I am exposed to and have to put up with on a daily basis”, wrote Bergdorf earlier this month.
Attitude Hero Award winner Munroe Bergdorf was forced to shut down her Twitter account earlier this month due to the level of transphobic abuse she faced (Photography: Markus Bidaux)
“At what point are social media companies going to clamp down on the transphobia on these apps?”
As social media firms continue to fail in their duty to protect trans people, for Gottmik – whose Attitude shoot with photographer Magnus Hastings set the internet alight for all the right reasons this week – the actions of a hateful minority of bigots can’t take the shine off a year that so far belongs to her.
Gottmik wears dress by Ryunosukeokazaki, shoes, stylist’s own (Photography: Magnus Hastings)
“All I can do is continue to be me and keep pushing forward and ignoring the haters”, she admits.
“There’s some people online that have their opinions, but that’s fine. They’re on the wrong side of history, and I’m just… I’m laughing from a gorgeous place.”
Read the full interview with Gottmik in the Attitude April Style issue, out now to download and to order globally.
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