Wrestling star Kidd Bandit is considering retirement after receiving a series of transphobic-related comments and remarks on social media. You can check out some highlights from Bandit’s official statement below:
On getting support after hateful messages: “First of all, thank you for all the support. It’s overwhelming and I really wanna acknowledge that. From the outside looking in, seeing an entire community come together in defense of someone falling apart was incredibly heartwarming. Being at the center of that, I can’t even describe. I deleted Twitter for a bit and redownloaded to just provide a quick update in case I worried some people and to see all the people who reached out to me, some being my loyal fans, some being people I legit fangirled on TV for years…it’s incredible. I’m exhausted but this was very reinvigorating. I have this tendency to react in extremes when it comes to these things…I wanna blame the hormones but I know that’s only a tiny part of it. Truth is, success in this business came to me way too fast. Like WAAAAY too fast. It’s a weird problem to have. A good problem, but it has its fair share of obstacles I had to overcome…obstacles I struggled with severely. I have no background in performance. I spent my whole life as a wallflower. I have no idea how to conduct myself at the position I was how to conduct myself at the position I was thrusted into. I literally barely learned Twitter a year ago and I only did it so I can grow my brand. Twitter became a refuge and it became a source of income and an important business tool but it also became toxic. I knew it was gonna consume me and managing it is difficult but for someone like me who has a ton of shit to prove because of who I am, I knew I needed to step up to the plate and take on the challenge. I overbooked myself. I can handle it. The wrestling itself wasn’t the difficult part tho, it was realizing that the spiteful haters always get to me despite how everyone is cheering me on. I don’t get it, I’ll never understand why they’re the ones we wanna try to win over. Even self-awareness isn’t stopping me from falling into this trap of trying to please people who already made up their mind to hate me.”
On an incident that happened during Wrestlemania weekend: “To back track real quick…i didn’t tell a lot of people this but during mania weekend this year, as I was traveling in Dallas I was year, as I was traveling in Dallas I was accosted by some dude who spewed some incredibly transphobic stuff to my face as soon as they realized I wasn’t a cis woman. I ended up not taking any other bookings that weekend because I didn’t have any means of travel outside of ubering and also because I was in fear for my safety. Now I was in the military but mind you I’m also super pacifistic when I got out of the service due to certain things I went through while I was serving. While everyone was celebrating how awesome it was to see me in Big Gay Brunch, it was hard to wash out the taste of straight up transphobia being thrown my way literally the day before. I also made a YouTube video out of my experience in mania weekend (where I omitted my entire ordeal with the transphobic group that threatened me) and it literally got bombarded by hateful transphobic comments and I had to spend a whole day just removing them because it was designed to be inspirational for those who need to see it but it would’ve been pointless had they it but it would’ve been pointless had they gone to the comments section and seen all the hate.
On a more recent incident: “Then fast forward to just recently, I need to bring up what I like to call my week of hell. It started with the extremely transphobic views of Gunner who out of nowhere, just posted a wholeass call-to-arms against people like myself under the guise of religious doctrine. Nothing new, I can brush that off easily but then it was immediately followed by tweets of that ringside news fellow. It affected me because I myself am transitioning…but what really hurt my heart was seeing a ton of my fans who are trans feel so unwelcome in this community because a prominent figure in wrestling journalism unashamedly shared their harmful opinion. I too struggle with it as well and seeing a lot of them just vocalize their sadness…it weighs a ton. Now I get hateful messages all the time. Consistently. I see posts criticizing my craft or myself in general and I can easily brush it off 9/10 because I’m getting used to it (not that anybody should ever get used to it mind you) but it hit me harder than most because the tweets made me realize that no matter how progressive our industry got, there will be people that openly reject our existence. Wrestling is an escape for many of us as fans and it extends for us performers as well. To realize that my safe space isn’t as welcoming as I thought made me feel depressed.”
On getting death threats: “I’ve gotten death threats online before (a lot actually). I’ve had friends direct myself to threads detailing anonymous individuals writing extremely disturbing sexual assault fantasies towards me which often culminate in some very gruesome death for me. One would argue it’s easy to brush these off because they’re all in the internet right? Well like I mentioned before, I’ve been accosted and threatened like this in real life. I can’t take these threats lightly. I’m so fucking worried of doing a show somewhere new now ever since I saw someone in one of these threads talk about how they’d like to shoot me and rape my corpse. But a tleast I got wrestling. Wrestling is my escape. The craft is sacred to me and I can forget about all the issues when I’m in the ring. It’s my safe space…and once I did feel like it was becoming like that again…the Jake Atlas story broke.”
On considering retirement: “I don’t know if I have the strength to keep going once my last booking gets through. A ton of days, I’m depressed and suicidal because I can only push back so much of the hate. People have suggested for me to take a break and that’s not a bad idea but even if I take a break, the homophobia and transphobia will still be there. It won’t go away just cause I did. Anyway I owe it to everyone to explain why I’m falling apart. I’m tired of the bullying and the hate. I’m human. I’m scared. I don’t feel safe doing this. Im an Indy wrestler that gets threatened regularly. I don’t want to be a statistic. Not to myself and not as the victim of a hate crime.”
Addressing things.
A thread…if y’all care to hear directly from me.
I owe an explanation for what went down at the very least.
Part 1 (sorry it’s lengthy) pic.twitter.com/oQ4NUkbhIo
— KIDD BANDIT (@kiddbanditpro) June 1, 2022
Part 2 pic.twitter.com/aUAdanome0
— KIDD BANDIT (@kiddbanditpro) June 1, 2022
Part 3 pic.twitter.com/uSzEin3nRg
— KIDD BANDIT (@kiddbanditpro) June 1, 2022
You can keep up with all your wrestling news right here on eWrestlingNews.com. Or, you can follow us over on our Twitter and Facebook pages.
