Toby James and Tyson James Transphobic Rap Songs / "Still 2 Genders"

Submission 5,184

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About

Toby James and Tyson James Transphobic Rap Songs refers to viral hip-hop songs by 11-year-old Toby James and his father Tyson James, like one called "Still 2 Genders" (leading with the lyrics "Toby James comin' in hot"). The music videos went viral and received backlash for being perceived by many as transphobic and anti-LGBTQ+. Tyson James promoted the songs on Twitter / X, TikTok and YouTube in 2023, predominantly inspiring backlash and memes in December 2023. The songs were perceived as cringe and right-wing evident in reactions and memes made by others. Many reacted to Tyson James being in a room filled with Pride flags, using it to ridicule him.

Origin

On June 3rd, 2023, Tyson James posted a video to his YouTube^[1] channel that was the music video for a song he made with his son, Toby James, called "Still 2 Genders." Over six months, the video received roughly 134,100 views and 9,800 likes (shown below).

Sometime after the aforementioned video's upload, Tyson James posted a short-form video of his son, Toby James, to the since-deleted TikTok account @nottysonjames, showing him rapping his verse at the top of a parking garage. The video, along with the TikTok account, has since been deleted or suspended.

The first notable repost of the video, which predominantly started the discourse and memes about the song, was posted by X^[2] user @ChristnNitemare on October 5th, 2023, who wrote, "This is what indoctrination looks like…" gaining over 8.1 million views and 24,000 likes in two months (shown below).

Spread

@ChristnNitemare's tweet inspired a slew of quotes and replies in the days that followed its upload. For instance, on October 5th, 2023, X^[3] user @RealYouTubeKids quoted, writing, "Kids should be making pop song parodies about Minecraft and Fortnite, wtf is this shit," gaining roughly 5,300 likes in two months (shown below, left).

On October 6th, X^[4] user @joinmolten quoted, joking, "this Guy is in the Skibidi toilet map," gaining roughly 1,100 likes in two months (shown below, right).

Discourse surrounding the video went largely dormant until December 6th, when Tyson James posted a music video to X^[5] with the caption, "Ain’t with the LGBQ!" gaining roughly 6.4 million views and 1,400 likes in two days. Many reacted to the video with jokes, like X^[6] user who said "idk nigga u made a mf pride flag room," gaining roughly 24,000 likes in a day (shown below).

On December 7th, 2023, Tyson James posted his son's video to X,^[7] writing, "That little transphobic rapper yall talking about? Yea that’s my son! Proud father right here!💪🏻," receiving roughly 1.4 million views and 3,900 likes in a day. Similar reactions to the video surfaced, like a quote posted by X^[8] user @bluefolf on December 8th that received roughly 2,500 likes in less than a day (shown below).