Hailey Bieber has spoken: Some of the "most beautiful" people in the world are transgender, and she doesn't mind being compared to them at all.
The model and businesswoman appeared on the podcast In Your Dreams with Owen Thiele late last week, when a wardrobe mishap led the two friends to discuss the criticism Bieber sometimes faces for her appearance.
Bieber stopped mid-conversation to point out that her pants had bunched up around her crotch area, and Thiele joked, "Hailey, you're hard." Beiber then responded with a laugh, "The rumors are true!"
When Thiele asked if people had accused her of having a penis, Bieber said she gets it from misguided bullies.
"When people are trying to be mean, they're like, 'She looks trans,' and I'm like, 'Why do you think that's a diss?'" she said. "As if being trans is a diss? Or, like, some of the most beautiful women in the world and men in the world are trans, so I just don't take that offensively at all."
Bieber's comments mirror those of pop superstar Lady Gaga when she was asked in 2011 to address rumors she had a penis by Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes.
"Maybe I do. Would it be so terrible?" she said in response to Cooper's line of questioning. "Why the hell am I going to waste my time and give a press release about whether or not I have a penis? My fans don't care, and neither do I."
In 2024, Gaga stood by those comments in an interview with Variety, saying, "The reason why I didn't answer the question is because I didn't feel like a victim with that lie. I thought, 'What about a kid who is being accused of that, who would think that a public figure like me would feel shame?'"
Transvestigating is "investigating" if a cisgender celebrity is secretly transgender by looking at their physical features, body language, and pseudoscience like phrenology and physiognomy. It's become increasingly popular in recent years, as trans-exclusionary radical feminism and anti-trans witch hunts have been on the rise and respect for people's privacy has severely decreased.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, filed a defamation lawsuit this summer against right-wing commentator Candace Owens, after she allegedly spread rumors that the first lady is transgender and her husband is part of a CIA mind control experiment. A few months before that, some fringe voices on social media were even transvestigating Pope Leo XIV, pushing claims that he has a "bio female skull."
