“I haven't been met with acceptance”— The Bachelorette alum Josh Seiter opens up about death threats and gender identity

The Bachelorette season 11 alum Josh Seiter recently opened up about her experience after coming out as a transgender in May. In an interview with the Daily Mail on August 12, 2024, Josh talked about how things around her have changed, from people commenting on her gender identity to giving death threats.

"I have had death threats, people telling me they’re going to hang me, they can’t wait to see me so they can kill me. These are all messages I have in my direct message inbox,” Josh said.

She added that she was most marginalized by the far left and LGBTQ community, which made her heartbroken as she realized that they are surely not as accepting as they poss to be.

"Ironically, I’ve actually found that the far left and the LGBTQ community have been some of the most vitriolic and mean towards me throughout all of this. So that’s a very tough issue for me because I haven’t been met with acceptance, tolerance, and open arms like the left loves to preach about."

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Josh Seiter on her journey of coming out as transgender

Josh Seiter is a 37-year-old trans activist and educator, as her Instagram bio suggests. She hails from Chicago and has been very vocal about her gender identity, the hate it followed, and how she is dealing with it. The reality TV star first appeared as a contestant in 2015, season 11 of The Bachelorette, with Kaitlyn Bristowe as the lead, but was eliminated in week 1.

The Bachelorette alum recently talked about her journey since she decided to accept her authentic self and live her life the way she wants. She frequently posts about this new transition on her Instagram @josh_seiter_official.

Through an Instagram post in May, she confessed that she had struggled enough with her gender identity and now wanted to come out as who she is, keeping aside all the guilt and shame that only pulled her down. She also mentioned in the post that, coming from a conservative religious family, she had no choice back then but to pretend to be someone else.

"I felt I had no choice, given my upbringing in a strictly religious, conservative family. As I’ve gotten older, I have tried my hardest to project the expected image of a strong, masculine son and brother. However, I no longer want to hide who I am, and I no longer want to deal with the mental turmoil.”

Josh Seiter also talked about the death threats, hate comments, and negativity that she got online. She expressed that she has been judged by people for being on OnlyFans in the interview with Daily Mail.

"I don’t take life advice from people screaming at me on social media. That’s just never how I’ve lived my life,” she told the outlet. “When I was a male stripper, people were saying nasty things about me. When I did OnlyFans, people said nasty things about me.”

In 2023, Josh Seiter got her Instagram account hacked, and a false announcement of her death was also made via a post in August. Josh talked to People about it in an interview on September 26, 2023. Later, Josh deleted the post and uploaded a video clarifying the incident to her followers.

Josh Seiter spoke to the People on August 29, 2023, about the death hoax that terrified her to the core. She also admitted that she had to check into the mental facility to deal with the things and come out stronger.

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