Photo: YouTube
This isn't the first time he's made transphobic statements.
By Alice Kelly — Written on Jun 16, 2021
YouTuber and beauty influencer Nikita Dragun has responded to Taylor Caniff after the former Vine star shared a disgusting video outing Dragun as transgender to security guards at a Los Angeles restaurant.
The video shows Caniff filming Dragun as she exits a restaurant holding hands with a male friend, while Caniff makes transphobic comments and mocks from afar.
Taylor Caniff shared a transphobic video of Nikita Dragun.
The video, which was recorded from Caniff’s Close Friends story on Instagram, and reshared across social media, documents Caniff outing Dragun to strangers and shaming her.
“My boy is hooking up with a guy tonight,” Caniff says while zooming in on Dragun. He follows up with a video explaining how he told security Dragun is transgender.
"I tell the security guard like 'Yo bro like it’s none of my business but like, I just don’t, I just feel like a crazy fact that you guys wouldn’t know like did you guys know that was that’s a dude?'" he says.
“They were like: 'Bro, what?' And I was like: 'Yeah, that was a dude,’ and they could not believe it and they were like 'bro, our boy John needs to get a phone call right now,'” Caniff continues.
Nikita Dragun addressed Caniff’s video.
Dragun shared the video to her own social media with an emotional response explaining how she feels “terrified” and “embarrassed” about how she has been targeted by transphobia.
“This is how trans people die. It just takes that one ignorant transphobic comment to threaten my entire livelihood and more so than that I fear for the people that are with me," Dragun says through tears.
Caniff followed up with an Instagram live explaining that the video was “a joke to 140 people on my Close Friends.” He later contradicted himself and said his Close Friend list contains just 30 people.
Caniff said that Dragun has been hooking up with “innocent males” since 2015, and makes the assumption that these men must be “traumatized” after sleeping with a woman.
Caniff says he has apologized but then adds, “I wasn’t being transphobic, I was just speaking absolute facts.”
Taylor Caniff and Nikita Dragun’s drama continued on Twitter.
Dragun took to Twitter to call out the ongoing issue of transphobic hate and the threat it poses to the transgender community.
She also pointed out, “Trans women are women,” in response to Caniff’s inaccurate claim that Dragun’s friend was unknowingly going home with “a dude.”
Caniff allegedly revealed in a live stream that he was bisexual, which Dragun argued was an attempt to draw in more attention.
Caniff has a history of transphobia and homophobia.
Caniff, who garnered popularity as a member of Vine group Magcon, has previously been called out for problematic behavior.
Old tweets show Caniff repeatedly using homophobic slurs. YouTuber Tana Mongeau posted a video in 2017 accusing him of transphobia and homophobia.
Mongeau claims that Caniff would refuse to attend parties with gay people and accuses him of making a transphobic comment to fellow social media star Trevi Moran.
Mongeau says Caniff refused to let Moran come to his home and told Mongeau, “If you’re going to have b****es over at least let them be real girls.”
At the time the comment was made, Moran had not yet come out as transgender.
Transphobia is disturbingly common.
Dragun accurately points out that transphobic comments like the ones made by Caniff enable transphobic violence by making transgender people targets.
As of May 2021, 27 transgender people have been murdered this year alone. 2021 is on track to be the deadliest year for the trans community, which will be the second year in a row that anti-trans violence reaches a new record.
Direct violence is only part of the threat. Transphobia is well documented to increase risk of suicide in the trans community.
Transgender youths who report having their pronouns and gender identities respected attempt suicide at half the rate of those whose pronouns are not respected.
As Dragun concludes in her video, "We must stop trans hate because it leads to trans violence and people lose their lives, or even worse they take their own lives because experiencing things like this just makes my heart hurt and my entire world and it's disgusting. I won't stand for it."
If you have been impacted by transphobia, know someone who has, or if you are in need of trans peer support, you are not alone. TransLifeline is a service run by and for trans people. Their hotline is open 24/7 for support. Call (877) 565-8860.
Alice Kelly is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Catch her covering all things social justice, news, and entertainment. Keep up with her Twitter for more.