Hunter Schafer Is Coming Under Fire For Eyebrow-Raising Instagram Comment

Most high-school girls struggle with their identity during their teen years. However, it's harder when they also have to fight for acceptance as a transgender woman. On HBO's "Euphoria," Hunter Schafer plays trans student Jules Vaughn, a role she can identify with — as the truth about Schafer's journey of coming to terms with being transgender closely mirrors her character's.

Schafer found it cathartic to publicly portray the inner struggles of transitioning. "Part of surviving [that] experience was just, like, getting through s***. Letting it rest and not addressing it," they explained to V magazine. The star opened up even further about how she felt. "When your exterior world and your body and your self are not in line with who you are, you turn inward," Schafer told Harper's Bazaar. "[I built] a really rich inner world until I started feeling like myself in my body." Having gone through adversity and come out the other side, Schafer is an outspoken advocate for others. She was "the youngest plaintiff" to sue North Carolina, demanding the state's "bathroom bill" be repealed.

Despite their success in helping overturn the legislation, Schafer acknowledges there's still a long way to go. "The most vulnerable [victims] aren't even all trans men, women, or non-binary individuals," she wrote in i-D. "They're the people who don't directly fit into our idea of what a man or a woman looks like, whatever their identity may be." Given their support of gender fluidity, fans may be surprised Hunter Schafer added major fuel to the controversy fire with an eyebrow-raising Instagram comment.

Hunter Schafer supports the right for people to identify (or not identify) as any gender. According to Out, in 2021, the actor announced they identify as non-binary "and go by she/her and they/them pronouns." So, it could appear bizarre that Schafer "liked" a post that seemingly railed against the non-binary community.

Per Page Six, Schafer was slammed for liking an Instagram opinion piece and leaving a series of exclamation marks in the comments. Replies included fans telling her: "girl this ain't it" and "it's really no shade when I say this at all, but this is not cool." The post blames the vocalness of the non-binary movement for allowing the passage of conservative legislation labeling specific medical procedures as unnecessary in Florida. Hormone replacement therapy and trans surgery are cited as examples. The message claimed the bill's passage "means more trans people will have to pay for their transitions out of pocket, forcing more of [them] into sex work."

Following the furor, the original poster edited their caption to clarify the original intention. "I just want to be clear that I do not think that [any] people are solely responsible for this anti-trans movement we are seeing in red states and right-wing spaces," they wrote. They believe those in a "cis body" should step away from the microphone and give a voice to those transitioning and requiring access to medical treatment. "Uplift the voices of the people who need to be heard and protected then find some other avenue to get the attention you so desperately seek," they concluded.