YouTuber Charlie McDonnell, better known to people of a certain age as charlieissocoollike, has proudly come out as trans to her 152,000 followers on Instagram.
After two years of relative silence on social media, Charlie took to Instagram to write: “New gender just dropped.” She added that she still goes by Charlie, but that her new pronouns are she/they.
McDonnell was a hugely popular YouTuber back in the day, and was one of the first in the UK to reach a million subscribers. She also wrote a number of truly excellent songs about Doctor Who and was a leading proponent of "Trock" (Time Lord rock). As a massive nerd myself, I appreciated that.
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A few years ago Charlie made the decision to step away, removing all of her videos from her channel - which still has 2.12 million subscribers.
A number of fans and followers have praised Charlie for coming out, including Doctor Who showrunner and It's A Sin creator Russell T Davies.
“Hello Charlie! Much love”, he wrote. A number of other UK YouTubers who came to prominence alongside Charlie were quick to congratulate her.
“You’ve just had the almost imponderable joy of watching charlieissocoollike coming out as trans, which makes you, like, cool," wrote one fan in a reference to the original charlieissocoolike outro (which was famously voiced by Stephen Fry!)
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"charlieissocoollike came out as trans," another fan wrote on Twitter. "I am beside myself with joy for her. i hope that she has every happiness, they deserve it so much."
While Charlie no longer has a presence on YouTube, you can find her regularly streaming content over on Twitch.