TWIBS: Reality TV Loser Fakes Death and Gender
One week contestant of The Bachelorette, Josh Seiter, who faked his own death last year and came out as trans in May has revealed that his non-transition was a “social experiment,” in a stunning display of Hollow Skull Syndrome. But does this weirdly committed vitriolic act against trans people stem from a more intimate source… ?
Humor by Alyssa Steinsiek
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s oldest column! Every Friday, Alyssa Steinsiek digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
Hey, you guys remember that super weird thing where Steven Crowder was inordinately into wearing feminine clothes and pretending to be trans? Like, in a way that sort of made us all collectively scratch our heads and wonder what, exactly, his deal was?
It’s happening again! But this time, it’s reality TV loser Josh Seiter, a week one castoff from The Bachelorette’s eleventh season in 2015. After that embarrassing performance, Seiter was radio silent until August of 2023, when he inexplicably faked his own death for a month. On August 24th, 2023, Seiter posted to Instagram saying he was “surviving depression and anxiety one day at a time with a smile,” and on August 28th he posted a lengthy informal obituary suggesting he had taken his own life.
In this obituary, Seiter describes himself as “an incredibly bright light in an increasingly dim world,” whose “fearless voice and indomitable spirit helped thousands of people in their darkest moments feel just a little less alone,” which is a stroke job and a half if I’ve ever seen one. A month later, Seiter posted a video claiming he had been hacked and that rumors of his death had been greatly exaggerated. Presumably by him.
On May 20th of this year, Seiter came out as transgender on Instagram. He blamed his religious upbringing and family for forcing him to remain in the closet, but said that he no longer wanted to “deal with the mental turmoil” of hiding his transgender identity. A quick perusal of replies to the post from the first week it was up contain primarily messages of support and affirmation for Seiter and his gender identity.
In the months that followed, Seiter frequently posted videos in which he wore makeup and feminine clothes, discussed topics such as vaginoplasty, which he said he would not get because “our manhood does not negate our womanhood,” a sentence that I believe is now nominated for the 2024 Red Herring Awards.
In October, Seiter announced on Prime Time with Alex Stein that his transition was a hoax, much like his faked death in 2023. Unfortunately. He insists that he’s simply owning the libs with a “social experiment,” which we all bought hook, line and sinker by believing and supporting him. Curiously, he continues to dress in feminine clothes and wear makeup on an almost daily basis, posting pictures to his Instagram and accusing trans women of being men.
There are plenty of reasonable theories you could gin up to explain Seiter’s bizarre behavior over the last five months (and, presumably, his entire life), but one TikTok user uploaded a very enlightening video that shared what seems to be the most plausible explanation.
On October 19th, TikTok user 0o0ethereal0o0 shared a fascinating theory that ties together Seiter’s fake death and fake coming out by revealing that, in August of 2023, when Seiter was busy pretending to have taken his own life, he had just been dumped by transgender activist and drag queen Monica Beverly Hillz. Hillz, celebrated for being the second transgender woman to come out on Ru Paul’s Drag Race, publicly called Seiter out in 2023 for his fake death, at which point he began denying that they had ever dated… which was, unsurprisingly, an easily disproven lie.
Hillz herself confirmed 0o0ethereal0o0’s story on Monday.
This would hardly be the first time a cisgender man has devoted his entire life to attacking transgender women after he was dumped. Consider the lowly Elon Musk, king among worms, whose hatred of trans women may have been inspired by Chelsea Manning shacking up with his BM, stupidest woman alive Grimes, if not because his trans daughter rejected him.
Seiter is, like Crowder before him, an annoying pig who doesn’t understand trans women or our community in the slightest, and whose desperation to be famous by any means necessary is deeply embarrassing. I’ll give Seiter the same advice 0o0ethereal0o0 did:
Seek help.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer who spends too much time playing video games!
