Transphobic YouTuber Doubles Down on Bigotry

The South African YouTuber who has been reported to the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) for transphobic hate speech has responded by intensifying his tirade against transgender people.

In a new video posted on Tuesday, Colyn Serfontein, who runs the “Skidmarks aka Briekmerke” YouTube channel, informed his viewers that OUT LGBT Well-being had filed a complaint against him concerning his 22 April video.

The Mpumalanga man also acknowledged efforts by MambaOnline to contact him for comment on the matter. “They sent me an email and asked me to comment on that article, which I’m not going to do. I’m not going to engage them,” Serfontein said.

He claimed that “they misunderstood some of my statements,” but reaffirmed his stance against transgender people.

“If I have to take into consideration the mental state of some of these people, it is not a surprise that they cannot be logical about it. The fact of the matter is that this gender confusion nonsense is being pushed onto our children,” Serfontein insisted.

He also described transgender athletes as “a guy pretending to be a woman” and claimed they suffer from “a mental problem”. He ranted that “the big drive behind this whole gender confusion nonsense is to destroy the family… because they know if they destroy the family, what is left in that society can be easily manipulated.”

Serfontein further asserted that “these confused people” are demanding “special rights” and not human rights, raising the question, “if they are so desperate to have these special rights, is that not by definition an admission that they are not human?”

The comments are similar to those he made in the first video, which is the subject of the SAHRC complaint. In it, he denigrated, dehumanised, and attacked the dignity of transgender people, suggesting that they need to be “cleansed” from the human race.

Sibonelo Ncanana, OUT’s Civil Society Engagement Officer, said that Serfontein’s statements are “dangerous and harmful hate speech narratives that have historically been used to persecute and justify violence against individuals and minorities.”

He added: “Free speech cannot be an excuse to strip people of their humanity and advocate for their removal from society simply for being themselves.”

OUT is calling for the YouTuber to issue a written and video apology for his comments, to undergo sensitisation training, and to pay a sum of R250,000 to OUT’s hate crimes programme.

When he’s not peddling global conspiracy theories, racist tropes and queerphobic outrage, Serfontein also runs a cooking blog titled “Colyn Maak Man Kos” (Colyn Makes Man Food).