Hunter Avallone

Hunter Vincent Avallone is an American centrist political commentator, YouTuber, and Twitch streamer. He is best known for his formerly Christian conservative views, his now-deleted video "The Truth About Transgenders[sic]"; and his video-responses to various liberal and left-wing YouTube commentators.

Views on LGBT issues
Avallone initially had a socially conservative approach to LGBT issues; opposing same sex marriage and transgender rights. Avallone now supports LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage and transgender rights.

Evolution of viewpoint
Avallone first gained national recognition in 2016 with his video "The Truth about Transgenders". Several LGBT websites criticized his reputed transphobia. In the video, he quotes professor, a prominent opponent of gender confirmation surgery, despite much of the research McHugh references being outdated or misrepresented. After being called out by anarcho-syndicalist BreadTuber Vaush for incorrectly using "transgenders" as a noun, as well as criticizing a number of his videos, Avallone retitled the video "The Truth About Trans People", but this did not last long as the video is now deleted, and a debate was held between Vaush and Avallone. He has since changed his opinion regarding trans people, now believing gender is different from sex, and supports trans rights. Avallone's video on the Target bathroom boycott has also gained notoriety. Similarly to his cousin Evan Stropes, another YouTuber, Avallone believes that allowing transgender individuals to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity affects the rights of others, and will risk the safety of children. Even so, he claims that he doesn't hate transgender people, and believes that "they should have equality and equal rights just like everyone else".

His views on same-sex marriage evolved as well, most likely due to losing his faith and announcing that he is an atheist. In a podcast, he stated that he initially believed that it was a sin, but changed his mind about it. In a discussion he had with fellow atheist Jaclyn Glenn during 2018, he stated that he was libertarian on the issue and supported equal marriage, so long as the pesky queers "don't try and shove it in my face." Avallone has some affinity for mocking and ridiculing LGBT activists, as seen by his "Dear Gay People" and "Trolling the Pride March" videos. His current stance on these takes is not clear, given he published a video claiming he had "left the right" in 2020 and indicated he held some embarrassment about his earlier videos. He later started debunking some of his own earlier videos.

Political views
Avallone supported Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. He identifies as pro-life (although he believes abortion should be legal), is a vegan, and supports moderate gun control.

On June 25, 2017, Avallone expressed his intention to attend a "Freedom of Speech Rally" being held the next day in Washington DC, which featured alt-right leader and white nationalist Richard Spencer as the headlining speaker.

From at least 2020 onwards, Avallone no longer identified himself as a conservative and instead opted to call himself a centrist "free thinker." He affirmed non-binary identities, claimed to like Bernie Sanders (while unsure of who to vote for), expressed an openness to the consideration of single-payer healthcare, and heavily criticized popular conservative figures such as Joel Patrick, Kaitlin Bennett, Ashley St. Clair, Blaire White, and Steven Crowder. In a video titled "Why I Left the Right", published on April 12, 2020, Avallone confirmed that he no longer identifies himself as a conservative. Avallone recounted that the birth of his child, Rose, and his breakup and marriage, as well as his roasting at the Vaush debate, caused him to go through a low point in life which made him reconsider his political views. Avallone still holds conservative outlooks on topics such as abortion, but is more liberal in terms of topics such as the socioeconomic struggles of African-Americans.

On October 13, 2020, Avallone announced his reluctant support of Joe Biden on Twitter, calling Trump "unhinged and a threat to our countries' founding principles."

Creationism
Back in the day, Avallone used to make creationist videos, which sometimes resulted in Jaclyn Glenn making response videos. However, in a video about fat-shaming, he made an evolutionary argument as to why fat people are overall less attractive, implying that he has dropped his creationist beliefs.

Atheism
Avallone made an Instagram post on June 11, 2017 announcing that he turned to atheism. He began heavily criticizing Christianity and religion in 2022, later posting a video “Why I Left Christianity” detailing his loss of faith and how Christianity negatively affected him. Avallone has also criticized Islam and Muhammad as a pedophile, calling Muslims who worship him pedophile apologists in reference to Muhammad’s alleged child marriage.

Ableism
Avallone has a history of ableist comments. In several now-deleted videos from back when he was a conservative, he ridiculed Antifa, Cenk Uygur and actor Jon Hamm as being autistic and claimed that Patrick Star from Spongebob Squarepants "acts autistic". Although he later retracted many of his conservative views, this is clearly not one of them, as since becoming a centrist he has used the term "sperg", a slur used to refer to people with Asperger's syndrome, against white nationalist Vincent James, mocked fans of gay conservative Christian Walker by calling them "autistic cringelords" , accused Matt Walsh and Michael J. Knowles of being special needs and insulted a particularly stupid conservative he argued with on his stream by calling him disabled. In general, Avallone appears to imply with all these comments that stupid people he responds to must be autistic or otherwise disabled because only someone like that would be so stupid. In fairness though, he has indicated that he regrets using autism as an insult in some of his old videos.

This is especially hypocritical because Avallone acknowledges the harm that edgy humour can do to marginalized groups, refusing to make jokes about gay or trans people anymore because of this. But apparently this doesn't apply to people with disabilities like autism which, like transgenderism, are heavily stigmatized due to people with views being perpetuated by people like Avallone. Almost as if he doesn't actually care about normalization so much as what edgy humour he can still get away with.

Vaccines
Avallone is pro-vaccine and has debated several anti-vaccine activists, having taken the COVID-19 vaccine twice. He has also claimed that he had a strange side effect on his second shot that gave him a “nearly uncontrollable urge to download Microsoft Internet Explorer” and refused to get any boosters afterwards.

Online debates
Avallone has taken part in several online debates against Youtube and other online figures from a variety of political backgrounds, including Destiny, a progressive twitch gaming streamer who has also become known for political debates, Vaush, an anarcho-syndicalist and anti-reactionary Youtuber and Vegan Gains, vegan Youtuber and bodybuilder. Avallone has also debated individuals with little to no online presence from friend groups and individuals he met at public protests.