Warning, this article mentions transphobia, cissexism, misogyny, and racism.
After cis gay makeup artists (or MUAs, by the social media community’s jargon) have grown more in numbers through social media, it is almost not uncanny that Manny Gutierrez (known through the internet at Manny MUA( and Jeffree Star displayed more ignorant behavior. This time, Gutierrez and Star dabbled in transphobia via social media.
Gutierrez tweeted “Roses are red, violets are blue…the number of genders is only 2“, tagging Star in order to mention a video that they had both collaborated in the day prior.
https://twitter.com/MannyMua733/status/851554810188840961
Gutierrez, who has gained his notoriety from being an openly gay Latino man who makes make makeup tutorials on YouTube, if often highly remarked for all of the fame that he has acquired at the age of 26; he has 628,000 Twitter, 3.5 million Instagram, and 2.7 million YouTube followers. In the midst of this eminence, people forget that Gutierrez is still a white-passing, rich, cisgender man who doesn’t get a free pass to joke about all systemic oppression due to his few intersecting identities that he claims.
It is not Gutierrez’s or Star’s place to laugh at this remark which was first made in a video where they both read aloud hate comments posted on YouTube. Being offended or humored at such a comment is a disrespect to trans and gender non-conforming individuals. As people with cisgender privilege, it is important to criticize their platform when they are repeatedly using it to get a free pass on harmful, pattern behavior for being flamboyant gay men instead of uplifting further disenfranchised voices.
Gutierrez, when working with Gerard Cosmetics on making collaborated lip products, called beauty reviewer Kaina Kaboom “ugly” over Snapchat when she gave his lipsticks a negative review. Jeffree Star has an even longer history of more than a decade of crude behavior, misogyny, and antiblackness, which lead beauty reviewer Stephanie Nicole to make an informational video about him in order to summarize his rather vile character. With this evidence, it is easy to see that they are both not first-time offenders of ignorant actions, and two cisgender men laughing at a transphobic joke instead of actually trying to support more than just the “G” in LGBTQ+ is what should have happened.
Even when haters spread negativity about you… girl you still in they mouth and gettin that free press ?? #thankyou
— Manny MUA (@MannyMua733) April 11, 2017
Even when haters spread negativity about you… girl you still in they mouth and gettin that free press ?? #thankyou
— Manny MUA (@MannyMua733) April 11, 2017
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