Kat Blaque

Kat Blaque is an American YouTuber and LGBT rights activist.

Early life

Blaque was born in Lynwood, California and raised in Walnut, California. She is adopted. In middle school, Blaque began to question her gender identity and started to identify as genderqueer. She began identifying as a trans woman in college. Blaque graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in 2012 with a BFA in character animation.

Career

YouTube

Blaque started video blogging in December 2010. Her YouTube channel Kat Blaque is focused on discussing race, gender, and other social justice issues. Blaque has described herself by saying, "I'm a woman, I'm black, I'm curvy and I'm trans. There are a lot of things that I deal with. When I talk about those things, I am literally talking about my embodiment of these intersections."

In 2017, Blaque started a weekly YouTube series called True Tea where she answers questions that viewers send her about racism, transphobia, black culture and several other topics. Blaque has made guest appearances on several other YouTuber's videos such as the BuzzFeed video about gender pronouns. She has also collaborated with YouTubers such as Franchesca "Chescaleigh" Ramsey and Ari Fitz. The Advocate reports that "Her YouTube videos are shown as educational tools in classrooms".

Illustration

In 2015, Blaque also teamed up with fellow artist and YouTuber Franchesca Ramsey to animate Ramsey's story "Sometimes You're A Caterpillar". This short film addresses privilege and has since been shared on several sites, including Everyday Feminism, Upworthy, Mic, and MTV.

Other ventures

Blaque has contributed to websites such as Everyday Feminism and the Huffington Post's Black Voices section. Blaque participated in a panel on writing transgender characters at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con and was the keynote speaker at the University of Toledo's LGBTQA History month celebration.

Further reading

• Rudnicka-Lavoie, Dani. (2023). Trans vlogs beyond the transition process: transnormativity, visibility and controversy in Kat Blaque's True Tea Videos. Fronteiras ? Estudos Midiáticos. 24. 114-126. Template:Doi.