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Point #1: I am transgender

I have transitioned from female to male, I have been on HRT since 2019, and I am referred to as a man.

Point #2: On my past life, I tried to make a trans singing positivity video, but it completely shadowbanned my channel and it was no longer viable for growth.

This is why I absolutely refuse to take any risks on my new channel to say I am trans directly. But it's really messed up that all I wanted was to create a video about trans positivity, but the video itself kept getting privated and comments turned off without me doing anything, and then my channel just. Views were totally tanked from that point forwards. I couldn't do anything anymore. I couldn't grow properly. The algorithm wasn't picking up my videos anymore. So I had to give up on and all the hard work I put in over the years to get 4,000 subscribers and hundreds and thousands of views.

Point #3: I do not explicitly say I am trans as Alchemist ZETHIEL on my main YouTube channel.

Because of this incident, I decided to take no risks going forwards. I wouldn't curse, I wouldn't say I'm trans, I wouldn't do anything too risky or “out there,” I have to be seiso in order to continue on this path, I don't want to start over again and ruin everything.

But as a workaround, I devised my lore and character concept to be undeniably transgender when you take a look at it. “An alchemist who changed his body and voice using alchemy.” My UTAU voicebanks, my ZETHIEL ZERO UTAU voicebank having that high voice while I have my post-transition voice, if you connect the dots then it's very clear to the people who know.

On Bluesky and Tumblr my profiles have the trans flag. On my character lore document and on my Toyhouse and VSona it also states I am trans. It's YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter where I do not explicitly state it.

Point #4: For most of my past life, I was openly trans and not on HRT.

I was perceived as a female vocalist even though I didn't want to be perceived that way. Dysphoria crushed me but I loved singing more than anything. I had many opportunities and a lot more popularity than I have now, but it was eating me up inside to have to deal with the misalignment of my voice and gender, and always getting harassed for it. I would get tens and thousands of views, sometimes videos I was featured in would get to a million views. But that's around 8-9 years ago now.

At first I felt bad going on HRT partially because I knew people would miss my old voice. That's why I created the arcdia persona and character, to preserve and archive it in a way. And when I was able to recreate her voice using new technology, that was exciting. But I haven't done as much with her recently, mostly because I don't really miss it anymore, and people forgot about the past me also. She's still a key part of the ZETHIEL lore though.

Things are different with Alchemist ZETHIEL, where I'm not exactly openly trans, I'm kind of stealth, but also kind of not? It's something you wouldn't exactly know when you first encounter me, and especially if you're someone who doesn't know what the “changed my body and voice with alchemy” means exactly. Granted I still do get mistaken as a girl now and then but, because I know my voice is more stereotypically masculine now, and most especially my singing voice more than my speaking voice, it's easier to correct people than it was before and be understood. And I'm also legally male too, which is nice.

All in all, how I've presented as ZETHIEL has fostered a much kinder and welcoming community now than it was before. I think also part of it is because back then, I had a mostly male audience because men are typically attracted to women, so they like me because I have traits similar to a woman, but they get angry and harass me when I say I'm not a woman. My community felt like something I had to actively fight against.

But nowadays, I'm on the other side, where I'm attracting more of a female audience, or rather a balanced audience, which is new?? I'm not used to girls liking me for being a boy… But it's nice. I also have the privilege of my voice and gender aligning so there's less harassment. More or less, I present as expected by cis people so I have some privilege there, but I still express my transness and androgyny in a roundabout way.

So, it's resulted in a community that is definitely more welcoming and kind than the one I had before. I truly want to thank the AlcheGang for being such lovely people because I never imagined I would have a community that actually is so accepting and supporting rather than fighting me.

Another aspect of my popularity before and now is just that I just don't cover popular songs anymore, I just sing what makes me happy and fits my lore and character concept. But I think my strategy for this will change going forwards, I want to cover more popular songs, but specifically still ones that are fitting for my lore.

Point #5: I want to get more popular to be a role model for other trans people, especially trans men & transmascs.

At first, ZETHIEL project was something more for fun and not as serious, so I didn't really care about subscribers as much back then. It was mostly to make myself happy, nobody else. But I think things shifted 2 years ago in 2024, that's when I started getting more serious and more active with singing. I've ramped things up even more this year with streaming and having a Live2D model and doing even more collabs.

I want to become popular again, not just for the sake of popularity itself, but because there's something far greater than myself on the line. See, something happened maybe 2 or 3 years ago, I actually – there was a trans man artist I looked up to, a lot, and his OC was widely beloved by other trans people especially. There's a lot of different types of transmasculinity, and that was the only one I saw that was popular and also actually resonated with me. But that artist has since detransitioned, which left me incredibly devastated.

I think I came to the conclusion that if there's no one else, then it has to be me. Which is why I’ve been working really hard ever since, and I truly don’t think there’s any compromise on this, that I cannot stop no matter what at this point, and I have to give it my all. The reason I want to “tell my story” so badly is because that story is a narrative yet unknown, yet resonates with so many people who are out there but suffering just like me.