YouTube star Abigail Thorn has come out as transgender with a moving announcement as she added her voice to the call for equal rights.
The 27-year-old from Newcastle, also known as Philosophy Tube, and has made the brave decision to tell the world.
She announced she would like to be addressed using she/her pronouns and has since received an outpouring of love and support.
The social media star, who boasts a following of 830,000, found fame in the wake of the 2012 increase in British tuition fees.
Abigail penned a powerful and lengthy statement with an updated photo of herself.
She wrote: "Hello friends! I’m delighted to say I’m a trans woman; my name is Abigail and you can refer to me with she/her [pronouns].
"Thank you to everyone who kept my secret for such a long time as I prepared to come out publicly! I’m excited to continue my acting career and Philosophy Tube.
"Please respect my privacy and treat everyone with kindness and patience, even those who don’t treat me kindly.
"It’s lovely to finally relax, to sleep well with sweet dreams and be at home in myself! But I’m also scared. Things are very, very bad for trans people in the UK and they’re getting worse.
"My existing following means I have now instantly become one of the most recognisable transgender people in the country and I feel an enormous pressure to be “good at it” like if I could only be clever enough, or pretty or funny or articulate enough, things would magically come right!
"Alas. I can’t be a perfect paragon of trans Britain. I’m only an actress but I can relay the following facts."
Abigail has raised over £100,000 for the Samaritans and her YouTube channel branched out in 2018, becoming more theatrical.
She concluded her statement by adding to the call for equal rights for transgender people.
"I hope that someday soon people of all ages realise that being trans is perfectly normal," she said.
"Like all human beings we are inherently valuable and entitled to self-determination, and if that makes others upset then it’s only because they’re choosing not to live in reality."
