YouTube is full of creators of all colors and creeds, so it's no surprise that there's a plethora of LGBTQ+ YouTubers out there making the world a more vibrant and exciting place. There are thousands of creators out there to choose from, each with their own flair and fanbase, but these are the creators that we like to watch the most.
While YouTube is not always the easiest place for LGBTQ+ creators — their channels tend to face demonitization more frequently, which led several creators to launch a class-action suit against Google last fall — that isn't stopping creators from sharing their content with the world and trying to spread messages about acceptance, taking care of your mental health, and just being a better person than you were yesterday.
Hannah Hart
Hannah Hart's original claim to fame on YouTube was My Drunk Kitchen, which involves making fun dishes of varying complexity, sometimes while drinking alone and sometimes drinking with friends. It's goofy, it's hilarious (at times), but it's not all Hart uses her YouTube channel for.
Hart uses her platform to help promote LGBTQ+ acceptance and also mental health issues. She and her partner had also been sharing their wedding preparations for months, but the wedding had to be postponed because of the pandemic.
The MyHarto channel features two playlists worth binging: an LGBTQ+ playlist that ranges from fun Pride month videos to more serious videos about coming out and discovering your sexuality, and a playlist about Mental Health that covers topics like depression and insecurity.
Eugene Lee Yang of The Try Guys
Eugene Lee Yang came out publicly as gay in a music video in 2019, but has been a queer advocate for years. He took on many projects during his tenure at BuzzFeed, such as hosting the site's first Queer Prom back in 2017 and projects with The Trevor Project and Human Rights Campaign to help bring awareness to suicide among LGBTQ+ youths. These days, Yang is no longer with BuzzFeed, but he's still cranking out great content with The Try Guys, who executive produced Yang's raw and powerful coming-out video last year, which you can watch above.
Dodie Clark
Dodie Clark is a bisexual singer/songwriter YouTuber who's outspoken about mental health issues, including her own struggles with depression and anxiety from Depersonalization/Derealization disorder. Her vlogging channel on YouTube features a lot of intimate videos about coping with the pressures of the pandemic and of normal life, and she also shares a lot of demos, covers, and traditional on-the-road antics. As someone who is turned off by loud noises and those dreadful meme reactions so many YouTubers insist on shoehorning into their vlogs, Clark's channel offers a softer, sweeter approach.
Anna Akana
There's a lot of focus on relationships here, but Anna Akana also focuses on mental health and specifically suicide prevention. She has released several videos as well as a book that chronicled the two years after her sister's suicide. She came out as bisexual last year, and has created a couple of videos since then showing how things have developed for her, like the above video of finally empathizing with some of the "old-fashioned" stereotypical complaints some men have about dating.
If you have YouTube Premium, you can also catch Akana in the YouTube Originals series Youth and Consequences, where she plays a badass teenage queen bee uncovering corruption and scandal in her high school.
Thomas Sanders
This Florida-born Disney nerd got his viral start of Vine and then came to YouTube. While he hasn't been quite as active over the last year (although you can still find him on TikTok), he has a pretty sweet series called Sanders Sides, which he uses to debate issues with the various sides of his mind. They're exemplified as a preachy dad, a school teacher, a Disney-type prince, and an emo kid. There are songs, snappy sarcasm between the personalities, and the quest to figure out how to be a better person while still being yourself. What more can you ask for?
Also, I'm with you, bro, we totally need a gay Disney Prince — movie or show, I'm fine with either. However, the music better be awesome and the romance sweet as honey.
Rose and Rosie
This lovely British couple are an absolute hot mess, which is great because their channel mostly focuses on LGBTQ+ drama and reactions to it. They also work in some relationship advice. Lately, they've been open and honest about their heartbreaking experience with a miscarriage this spring, which is powerful because even though miscarriages are far more common than you'd expect, they're not something most couples are willing to talk about.
Stevie Boebi
This channel is a little more adult than most of the LGBTQ+ creators you find on YouTube, but if you're a fan of safe sex jokes and tips on how to pleasure your female partner, Stevie Boebi has a whole Lesbian Sex 101 series for your edification. She also has a really great video about her diagnosis and dealing with her disability that everyone should go watch. It's so important to remember that disabilities are not always something you can see, nor something you should make assumptions for.
Frederic Chen
Love art projects, nerdiness, and hair dye? Frederic Chen is here, queer, and and ready to get creative. He's better known for his painting projects and has a mostly younger following, but he's fun to watch and is a confident little mess. He chronicled his first time going to a Pride parade last year since coming out, and he shared first-hand experience with what hundreds of thousands of college kids endured this spring as college dorms evicted students with less than a week to pack their bags and get out — regardless of if they had somewhere else to go or not.
