On February 4th, former WWE star Gabbi Tuft came out on as a transgender woman on her Instagram with a photo of herself from her time on WWE. A press release earlier that day announced her journey into transition.
The photo shows her in the past at the height of her fame in the WWE under the stage name "Tyler Reks" and her now, four months into the transition according to her in an interview with Wrestling Inc.
“This is me. Unashamed, unabashedly me."
Tuft went on to explain in the interview that she had felt this way for a while when she was a child, recalling how she would stuff toys under her shirt to pretend to be pregnant and try on her mother’s clothes when no one was home when she was 10-14, and then those feelings resurfacing full force around three years ago.
“I realized that Gabe and Gabbi weren’t two people they were one, that this was a part of me, and it wasn’t going away, and I hadn’t killed that part of me, and it was at that moment that I knew I needed to live as Gabbi, or I didn’t want to live anymore.”
Gabbi admitted that her wife, Priscilla Victoria, had noticed her declining mental health, and had even asked her previously about her dressing as a woman at night but still presenting as a male during the day. When Tuft finally admitted to her wife that “if she couldn’t live her life as a woman she didn’t want to live anymore,” Priscilla answered with full support saying, “(Baby), I know, it’s okay, I love you. Things are going to change, but we’ll figure it out”.
In an interview with Extra, Gabbi shares how Priscilla and her have been working through challenges that her transition has caused.
It’s been a very interesting progression,” Gabbi said in the interview. “Our intimate life has changed quite a bit. … And what we’ve discovered is a whole different part of our relationship. … There was a lot of very difficult, traumatic emotion in trying to figure out how I was going to present myself to the world. Having Priscilla by my side as a huge support has changed that. And she has been such a rock for me.”
This past Valentines Day, Gabbi took to Instagram to share a warm, heartfelt message about the love her and Priscilla share.
The couple then started a podcast called “Her”, which chronicles Gabbi’s transition and the changes into their relationship. The episodes are available on the platform “Podbean”, the first episode having been recorded in October of last year.
In the first episode they chronicle their relationship, how Gabbi and Priscilla didn't share a kiss until their wedding day. In the second, they dive into the "Why" of Gabbi coming out, and in the third they discuss whether or not Gabbi identifies as a homosexual or still sees herself as straight, (in which Gabbi states she does identify as straight).
In the interview with Wrestling Inc., she explains that she hopes her sharing her journey will help those who don't have the same access to allies as she does.
"I’m trying to be as transparent as possible in this journey, if everyone is going to know about it, I need to be as transparent as humanly possible. Because I know there’s other people going through the same thing that I went through, but they don’t have anyone to support them."