Pride Month spotlight: meet Loulou

Loulousoupu is a 19-year-old trans content creator who now has over a million TikTok followers! Loulou started creating content on social media three and a half years ago and lives in London.

We chatted about education, transitioning, content creation and more.

Please can you tell us about your journey to drama school?

“I did GCSE drama and thought, ‘Oh I actually really like this!’, so I did drama and film studies at A-level with a real focus on how acting works through film and theatre.

I ended up doing really well in my A-levels, I think it's because I just enjoyed it so much and liked what I was learning. In the second year, everyone was thinking about uni and my drama teacher, love her, said I should apply for drama schools.

I did all my applications and auditions, and fun fact—getting into drama schools is almost as hard as getting into Oxford or Cambridge with the amount of applicants vs the spaces available!

I was lucky to get into two different schools: LAMDA and then The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, which is the one I currently attend. I do Writing and Acting for Performance and I’ve just finished my second year.”

What do you enjoy most about your course?

“What I enjoy the most is actually being surrounded by people who have the same appreciation as you. Don't get me wrong drama school can be *messy* but I mean it's got it in a name: drama!

It’s a great place to meet people on the same wavelength and appreciate the same things as you because we will have this massive love for theatre. It's an incredible queer community as well, which makes it a safe place and probably what I love the most. I'm so grateful when it comes to my specific place of education, as I know it's not always the same for other people.”

What advice would you give to other trans students, and how do you think student communities can be better allies?

“My advice would be: don’t let anyone dull your light. Trans people in general have this vibrancy and radiate this aura which is beautiful and incredible. As a minority, that light can be dulled down so much by other people. Remember that you’re just as deserving to be there as anyone else. For so long I kind of felt a little bit singled out especially when I was in college and senior school and didn't I didn't feel respected for so long. Then I kind of realised that I was pushing my own confidence down to fit, and that’s really detrimental to your mental health in my opinion.”

“At my drama school, we have a Trans Society, so there’s a group of people who gather together to speak about political issues or how we feel. It’s just about having a safe space. I think one of the great things about a lot of uni’s these days is that they make it known when they're trying to support a cause. My uni has an Instagram and they always make sure it’s known that they are supporting these causes, and I think that is an excellent way to make queer people feel safe in these environments.”

Please can you tell us how coming out and transitioning was for you?

“Ooh, this is the tea! I came out as trans when I was 15—I knew for a very long time, however, I was equally as terrified for how long I knew. COVID was just beginning and we were about to go into a lockdown and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna use this time.

So I told my parents and my parents were very supportive. Growing up, I was always very feminine I think I also looked like a girl my whole life which I’m grateful for now. I feel like I always had this deep-rooted knowledge of who I actually was.

I came out and then just before I turned 16, I started going on hormones and that really did change my life because my mind started to match who I was on the outside. I decided to grow my hair and remember going to school on the first day of sixth form and I had transitioned over the summer. Not many people knew people knew, and I remember wearing a dress and feeling genuinely terrified. A random teacher walked past me and said ‘You look fabulous’. I didn't know that teacher, but that kind of saved my day, and ever since then, it kind of changed everything. I was really experimenting with who I was throughout college, especially with fashion and makeup to see how I could match it to how I felt inside.”

You touched on makeup there, what are your beauty favourites?

“I like a very smooth base but with glowy cheeks. A good blush gives me a blushy bronzeness and I can't live a day without lip gloss!”

“Also a little tip for feminisation for trans girls that want to experiment with makeup: use white eyeliner under the eye for a more doe-eyed appearance that comes off as more feminine.”

Looking back, is there anything you wish you'd known earlier in your transition?

“Wow, so many things! That I don't have to stick to a hyper-feminine stereotype to be accepted as a woman—that's possibly my biggest thing. When I first started my transition I thought that for people to call me she/her, I had to wear a mini skirt and a crop top and have a full face of makeup on and perfect hair.

Nowadays I relax when it comes to that, I am not wearing a mini skirt and crop top every day. I literally dive way more into my masculine side these days.

I think it's a canon event for every single trans person growing up—thinking they have to present in a certain way, but how you want to be seen is up to you. It's not about how others perceive you.”

Who would you say has been your biggest ally or supporter?

“I would actually say my agency is my biggest supporter when it comes to my transition. I finally feel that I've found a place for myself that isn't jeopardised because of my sexual orientation. So, I would say that my brother and the agency that I belong to.”

Are there any trans figures who have inspired you?

“Oh 100%!

Hunter Schafer - I remember watching the first episode of Euphoria and thinking no way, she is incredible. She is truly such an amazing actress and promotes such an amazing message for the trans community.

Fashion icon Alex Consani - I take a lot of inspiration from the fact that she is such a hard worker but also the funniest person I have ever seen. I love her representation for the trans community.

Munroe Bergdorf - she does a lot of trans activism, which is so special and she’s a real inspiration.”

Please explain how you got into Content Creation, and when you started

“I was in my room and kept seeing this little challenge everywhere on TikTok called the British accent challenge and I was like ‘Oh I could do this!’

So, I pretended to be American and do the British like roadman slang. I posted that video and the next day, it had like 20 million views, like overnight! It was posted on every single meme page on Instagram and KSI reacted to me in a video - this was all in the space of a week.

In that week, I must have gained something like a hundred thousand followers and my brother suggested I do something about it! I just continued posting, my agency reached out to me and then everything just kind of flourished from there. It really changed my life. When I first started posting, I really did not expect this at all!”

What do you enjoy most about being a trans content creator?

“It’s the DMs and messages from other trans people, saying ‘Oh you’ve helped me so much’ or ‘You’ve really helped me to understand who I want to be and how I want to present’.”

“I used to struggle with believing that I’m representing a good thing on social media and I guess those messages are the ones that make me realise that I am.”

How would you describe your style?

“Okay, my style fluctuates like every month so I have like a mini evolution all the time. So I'd say right now I'm very much in a sporty 90s, 2000's Y2K aesthetic, with a bit of Sporty Spice going on.

I take huge inspiration from K-pop, it’s a massive influence on my life. I mean it's saved my life basically. I take inspiration from styling K-pop and mix it with what I already know. I love to have a feminine look, but at the moment I've actually been way more into my kind of masculine era and I kind of like the baggy t-shirt bloke-core vibe, so I'm switching between all of that right now.”

Where is your favourite place to shop?

“I would say Urban Outfitters as I feel like I can just find everything I need there! There's this place in Soho that’s Korean-owned but they ship a lot of Korean fashion into the UK. Some Korean designers are just incredible for the most unique pieces.

I also love END. as it’s great for shoes and when I want to be more masculine.”

How do you balance being a content creator with your studies?

“It is hard! As the workload kind of builds up in education, it can be difficult to manage both! It fluctuates, but when I spent so much time creating for my education and then needed to film some original content for my TikTok, it felt like I'd spent all my creativity already!

Now, I tend to film videos before I go to uni, take 15 minutes in the morning and then go to uni and then maybe I'll film something at uni. I've tried to kind of create a symbiotic relationship between both which helps.

The hardest bit about it is deciding where to spend your creative energy because there is such a reward for both. It’s the mental toll of spending the creative energy at uni for good grades, or spending the creative energy on social media that could result in a brand deal or working with the most amazing people!”

What do you love about UNiDAYS?

“I love that I'll be shopping online and I'll say to myself ‘I wonder if I can get a discount on this?’ So I'll go on the app, type in the name and THAT feeling when the brand pops up is possibly the best feeling. Lemme grab that 10%, lemme grab that 15%, I’ll take it.

Also, just the fact that it's helped me express my style and not feel that guilty about it as I sometimes have quite an expensive style.”

Do you have a final message that you’d like to share?

“My main advice for trans youth in particular is:

Please be who you are for as much as you can in your life. Don't suffer on the cause of other people, suffer on the cause of wanting to be your best self, not for someone else's gratification, as I wish I knew that and it's like everyone else deserves to know that too.”

Follow Loulousoupu on socials

You can follow Loulou on TikTok and Instagram.