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In September 2018, transgender YouTuber Natalie Wynn (aka ContraPoints) released “The Aesthetic,” a video in which she explored the social pressure placed on trans women in the public eye to pass. Taking this video as a starting point, I analyze trans beauty influencer Gigi Gorgeous’s early transition vlogs in which she details her experiences with cosmetic surgery. The narrative Gorgeous constructs in these vlogs, I contend, employs transnormative discourses that center an internal struggle with gender dysphoria. However, I complicate this narrative by placing Gorgeous’s vlogs in conversation with Wynn’s vlog where she recounts her own experience with facial feminization surgery, pointing to the external pressures she faces to conform to beauty norms. I contextualize these narratives within the literatures on aesthetic labor and social media influencers to explore how Gorgeous and Wynn’s desires to pass and to be beautiful are informed by their status as highly visible trans women working in the cultural industries. By theorizing passing as labor, I argue that beautification practices such as cosmetic surgery are investments that trans women in the public eye make in the hopes of attaining social and economic capital.

“I don’t just want to look female; I want to be beautiful”: theorizing passing as labor in the transition vlogs of Gigi Gorgeous and Natalie Wynn