Jeffrey Marsh, a Buddhist gender-bending life-coach who identifies as non-binary, has made a career of encouraging LGBT social media users to go “no-contact” with parents.
Marsh has been making videos on Vine and other social media sites since at least 2014 as a “time machine” so he can speak to his “10-year-old self back in Pennsylvania on the farm.” Marsh’s brand of LGBT activism has its roots in Zen Buddhism, which he says he adopted after struggling with his self-identity as both gay and Christian.
“Which, as I’ve come to find out, there are a lot of 10-year-old ‘me’s’ around. They are a way to bring healing to everybody, including me,” he told Digg in 2014.
Marsh’s videos came under fire after some circulated of the influencer urging LGBT viewers to go “no-contact” with their parents.
“Your parents screwed up. It’s okay to say so,” Marsh says in one video. “That’s why I made a Patreon, so that we could talk about it, so that we could connect in a way that has more privacy, so that we could talk to each other in a way that’s more open, stuff that we wouldn’t share in the comments of a video like this.”
As of this writing, Marsh’s Patreon and life-coaching services are only available to individuals 18-years-old and older. But Marsh’s videos have routinely been addressed to children, with the influencer beginning many of his videos with “hey, kids!” After the controversy, Marsh’s videos are not as clearly addressed to children specifically, but he still harps on the theme of going “no-contact with non-affirming parents.
“Going no-contact will feel worse, I can’t lie to you,” Marsh said in a recent video. “If you go no-contact the rules change, you’re unmoored, there’s no sense of safety and sense of place because the rules change.”
In another video, Marsh asks parents to “hand over” the phone to the kids, so he can discuss his non-binary identity with them.
“Sometimes humans are more than boy or girl,” he tells the kids. “Sometimes we’re something else, sometimes we kind of float and sometimes we’re a boy, sometimes we’re a girl. Because human beings are creatures, and we’re wild and exciting.”
TikTok creator Shumirun Nessa, who goes by the username “The Real Overload Comedy,” went viral in March for her videos blasting Marsh.
“Stop telling kids to go on your Patreon and chat to you privately without their parents knowing!” Nessa said in a video.
After being doxxed, threatened and harassed for her views, Nessa defended herself by posting more videos from Marsh’s Patreon. In one, he announces that he is going to tell a story about “Jeff and I having sex.”
“Hi, beautiful, if you do not have a family that loves you, I’m going to be your family,” he says in another.
Similar to controversial transgender social media celebrity Dylan Mulvaney, Marsh has come under fire for accepting a brand deal from a company typically marketed to women. Marsh, a biological man, took on a brand deal with a menstrual product company in 2020.
“Trans men have periods. 💛 Women and nonbinary people have periods. 💛 *Periods are for people*,” Marsh wrote in a caption to an Instagram post. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: District’s LGBTQ Lesson Plans For Kindergarteners Include Resources From Pro-Sex Change Organization)
After the advertisement resurfaced, Marsh addressed the controversy in December 2022.
“I made the video….so that people who menstruate would feel less stigmatized because to cis men, let’s face it, menstruation is seen as gross, disgusting, a joke,” Marsh said in the video. “And as someone who does not menstruate — I’m nonbinary, I don’t menstruate — I wanted to help end that stigma if I could.”
Radical LGBTQ activist Jeffrey Marsh is once again convincing kids on TikTok to cut off contact with their families. 🚩🚨 pic.twitter.com/Pj7z7beGg5
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 13, 2023
For speaking events, Marsh can be booked live for as much as $20,000 and virtually for as much as $10,000. Individuals can sign up for Marsh’s “life coaching” for $49 for a 15 minute “tea time” session. One Substack user said he was swindled out of $1,000 after signing up for Marsh’s services and never actually receiving life coaching from the influencer.
“Frankly, I trusted Jeffrey Marsh just because of their sweet personality, and the fact that they had been endorsed by Oprah Winfrey herself,” the Substack writer says.