RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 queen Amethyst has come out as trans in an emotional social media post chronicling her gender journey.

The 29-year-old Connecticut native announced her transition to fans in a handwritten note on Saturday, thanking them for supporting her upcoming album, Amy, and explaining its title’s significance to her identity.

“I’ve been struggling severely with my gender dysphoria more than ever in recent months,” Amethyst wrote in the Instagram post. “It’s something that I’ve always concealed in the back of my mind, and through the years has slowly crept its way to the front.”

“Last year was when things really started to hit me hard, and this mental warfare has really just escalated since then,” she continued, adding that holding her feelings inside was “eating away” at her and impacting her “sense of self” in the process.

“I wanted to let you know that I’m trans, and began HRT [hormone replacement therapy] a little over a month ago,” she wrote. “Even in this short amount of time, the comparison to how I felt just a few months ago is night and day. It’s a different sense of happiness that is slowly but surely bringing back my self-assurance, and every day it gets easier to look in the mirror.”

Amethyst added that she’s going by the name Amy when out of drag, which she credits to her season 15 sister, eventual Miss Congeniality winner Malaysia Babydoll Foxx, who gave it to her during production of the Emmy-winning 2023 season.

“I feel a lot of pressure to pick the perfect name, but in the meantime, this is a comfy placeholder for me,” she wrote.

Amethyst also told her followers that her insurance won’t fully cover some of her desired procedures, so she has started a fundraiser for donations to help her with facial feminization surgery — also known as FFS — with an end goal of $10,000.

When reached for comment, Amethyst told Entertainment Weekly that she’s happy with the response to her post, which has been “overwhelmingly beautiful” for the entertainer. “I’m so happy I made the decision to be open with everyone,” she said.

During her time on RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15, Amethyst survived two lip-syncs before performing well on the episode 4 Snatch Game celebrity impersonation challenge, in which she portrayed Patricia “Tan Mom” Krentcil. Amethyst was later eliminated on episode 5 after a lip-sync performance against Salina EsTitties to “Q.U.E.E.N.” by Janelle Monáe and Erykah Badu.

“I’m going to be honest; I didn’t have good intentions going into it. I wasn’t expecting a positive outcome,” Amethyst told EW after her elimination. “I went into it wanting to have fun, because it might’ve been my last time on that stage, and it was, and I’m glad that I did what I did.”

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Amethyst’s upcoming album, Amy, features collaborations with fellow season 15 competitor Loosey LaDuca as well as Aja, who previously competed on season 9 and All Stars 3 before coming out as trans herself.

Read Amethyst’s coming-out post above.