Queer, trans TikTok couple challenges what love looks like, one video at a time
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Even with queer and trans representation growing more broadly, certain types of LGBTQ+ people and relationships can still go unseen.
But that’s exactly why couple Grey and Grayson Prince are sharing “gay, funny and weird” videos on social media to challenge stereotypical notions of what queer, trans love looks like.
TikTok has become a place where love is the one trend that’s always in style, and Grey and Grayson openly share their love for each other as well as the LGBTQ+ community on their page.
Scrolling through their account, aptly named ‘officiallyverygay’, there are vulnerable snippets of Grey crafting a fierce look while experiencing dysphoria. In another clip, Grayson opens up about how getting top surgery ranks among the “best days” of their life.
There are also plenty of wholesome, cute videos of the pair deeply in love with each other. Amid a turbulent time for the LGBTQ+ community, their channel is a much-needed glimpse of the representation and love stories queer folks crave.
Grey and Grayson tell PinkNews that their TikTok has become a “bit of a time capsule” of their time together and how deeply impactful it has been for others to see a couple that challenges the cisgender, heteronormative narrative of relationships.
“I think it was really important to see. I loved watching couples when they first started going on TikTok, especially queer couples, interracial couples, plus-sized couples, couples of differing religious backgrounds,” Grey says.
“I don’t think we realised immediately, but people were like, ‘This is a twisted Americana romance. I don’t understand. You’re Afro-Indigenous. He’s an ex-Mormon.’
“It feels complicated when it’s not. While we were having George Floyd happen, all these things were going on, I don’t know if we could even believe that we are big enough to make a difference.”
Bu they were, and the couple leaned this through the people who contacted them after watching their love unfold on social media.
“When we were making videos, the comments we got, the parents who messaged us, the kids who messaged us, it was just like we’re doing something positive,” Grey continues.
“And we love making funny little videos, being ourselves being gay and going to small towns and being exactly who we are within reason and safety.”
When they started documenting their relationship online three years ago, Grayson says there weren’t many TikTok couples around at the time, and there was certainly a lack of queer couples that looked like them on the platform.
So they were focused on their joy instead of “necessarily trying to follow an archetype or anything”.
Grey adds that seeing people like them is a “big deal for people who don’t have access to some of the things” they do or for those who’ve only seen a “lot of queer suffering” and not much “queer joy and celebration”.
The couple truly appreciate being part of the shift in what “people understand as a couple” because Grey thinks it helps others understand love more broadly, the concept of a family unit and even marriage.
Their 2022 wedding videos, which featured everything from their vows to the outfits they chose to wear at the ceremony, are among their most popular TikToks. But they were almost among the videos that attracted the most hate.
‘I did not expect that many people to care’
Grayson recalls staying up at night to read all the comments on their wedding videos. He was struck at how many unpleasantly pointed out how he was wearing jeans, which he chose to wear because he had “so much gender dysphoria”.
“I couldn’t find a pair of pants so I wore the jeans that she bought for me, and we had millions of views and hundreds of comments of people ripping through me,” they say.
“Honestly, that’s probably the worst response I’ve ever received, and what we posted was what I wore for a wedding.
“I’ve grown a completely different feeling about it now, but at the moment – especially when they were saying things like, ‘Who would want to marry somebody wearing that’ and that kind of energy like ‘Why would she even want you? You should turn him back around’ – I was like I embarrassed [Grey] at our wedding or I didn’t look good when she bought me the pants.
“She would have loved me in anything, and I know that.”
For Grey, the videos were a “catalyst” because they burst the very queer, supportive community “bubble” that they’d created, and having a new audience exposed to their content “blew up in [their] faces on [their] wedding night”.
“It’s an analogy for the pressure cooker that is this world, but people had no choice all of a sudden to see something that they may not have thought they’d ever see and to either accept it, reject it or figure out what was interesting about it to them that they don’t understand,” he says.
“I did not expect that many people to care because people go on TikTok all of the time.
“I saw TikTok videos of weddings all of the time, and they did not get the traction that our videos got … This was their first time coming across us, and most of those people have still not left.
“They’ve followed us into this next chapter of our lives. We’re about to try to build a house, buy land and farm.”
Grey believes some people are “uncomfortable” with their joy and love, but that doesn’t “mean it should not exist”. Despite the negativity, they know they’re treating their account like they did when they first started because they just “want to be gay, funny and weird”.
“It feels like we’re doing something for the greater good, or just helping people get through their day by knowing that they could have something beautiful too or they already have it and need to appreciate it,” Grey says.
“Or they have to get past that one little hard part of life, and then it could get so much better.
“Or you could dream about having those things because they are possible even if your circumstances made you feel like you couldn’t have them.”
Being able to have a dream of a future with Grey is something that Grayson is immensely thankful for. The musician credits Grey for helping them “be delusional” and dream big beyond thinking about how one day they’d want to play Madison Square Garden.
“I didn’t dream of having a family,” Grayson recalls, speaking to Grey.
“I didn’t dream of having a now life. It was like, in 10 years, somebody, I will be playing music – it’ll be fine.
“Through our love, I want to get a mortgage. We have a dog. We want to get a baby.
“Things I never would have wanted because they were given to me under a Mormon context and umbrella.
“I think that one of the most beautiful things you’ve taught me, and I think one of the most beautiful things that we can share with people is that delusion. And it’s not a delusion because it should be a reality.”
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