Harvey Jeans, known online as @harvjeans, he has built his audience through fashion and lifestyle content while also talking openly about mental health and LGBTQIA+ issues.
Today he presents himself unapologetically to a huge online audience, but behind that confidence is a very different experience of growing up in Swindon.
Harvey says he was around 13 when he began being subjected to homophobic slurs at school.
“I was in school at around 13 when I started getting called nasty homophobic slurs and they stuck with me for a long time, till I never wanted to go into school,” he said.
Harvey later left school in Year 8, which he says was because of his mental health and unrelated to the homophobia.
He said he had always been flamboyant and feminine, but remembers people around him dismissing it as something he would grow out of.
“I was always told by my ‘friends’ and teachers in school it’s just a stage,” he said.
“When I left school in Year 8 due to mental health I was able to fully love myself and understand that who I am is fine and it isn’t a problem.”
Throughout those difficulties, Harvey says one person in particular remained firmly alongside him, his mum.
“I have a very open relationship with my mum and I tell her everything, even now,” he said.
“She is always there to help me and is by my side no matter what.”
Harvey is now followed by 1.8 million people on Instagram:
“I’ve built my page over the last years doing fashion and lifestyle content but also interpreting mental health and LGBTQIA+ on the way,” he said.
He remembers reaching 100,000 followers as the point at which the numbers on a screen began translating into something very real.
“I think when I hit 100,000 followers and people started noticing me out in public and were having full conversations on how I helped them is when I realised,” he said.
“I’m so lucky to now have over a million people on my journey.”
That influence was visible much closer to home during Swindon & Wiltshire Pride, when Harvey says young people approached him and told him that seeing him openly embracing who he is had helped them become more comfortable with themselves. He said:
“I had many young people come up to me and say that seeing me being open and out with my friends and family, embracing myself, helped them feel comfortable in themselves with how they feel.
“I am so honoured to say I do have a responsibility to keep it real and honest with my followers because we’re all in this together.”
But there is a striking contradiction between the confidence required to share his life with 1.8 million followers and how Harvey says he can sometimes feel simply walking out of his front door in his hometown.
“When I wear a vest and shorts, even the smallest things like that, I always feel I’ll get judged because of if I’m too feminine or too skinny,” he said.
“Whereas in the major cities I feel I can wear whatever and nobody even bats an eyelid.
“I am learning to overcome the everyday looks in Swindon now though and will soon have no anxiety of leaving the house in a crazy fashionable outfit.”
Travelling to London and Manchester helped Harvey see a different experience of LGBTQ+ visibility.
“But when I started travelling more to the big cities like London and Manchester that embrace the community so much, I thought Swindon could be more like this.
“So I’m hoping now people see myself and others being themselves, we can become more diverse as a town and a community.”
Harvey believes Swindon has become more inclusive, but says there remains more work to do, particularly around the town’s nightlife.
“I definitely feel myself I can’t always be myself in Swindon because of how much of a minority there is of open people,” he said.
“I think the nightlife could definitely embrace the LGBTQIA+ more and make us feel safe on nights out.”
Asked whether there had ever been a point when he wished he was not gay because he thought his life might be easier, Harvey’s answer was unequivocal.
“Oh 100%, and still to this day I do get the odd thought of, would it be easier?” he said.
One area he continues to find difficult is friendships with straight men.
“I struggle having male straight friends because of how their friends view them for hanging out with a gay guy,” he said.
“I hate, hate, hate how the stigma around a straight and gay friend duo must mean that they like each other.
“I appreciate every straight person who is friends with a gay person and supports them because you help us feel safe.”
Harvey’s comments come after Swindon & Wiltshire Pride brought a huge crowd into GWR Park for its 2026 celebration, with Girls Aloud star Nadine Coyle and *RuPaul’s Drag Race UK* performer Baga Chipz among the headline attractions.
The event has grown significantly since Swindon’s first Pride festival was held in 2008.
For Harvey, however, the contrast between thousands of LGBTQ+ people and their supporters gathering together at Pride and what happens when people return to everyday life is important.
He said the Pride celebration was
“the safest we all felt because we were all together”.
“But when it’s individually just us out, we don’t have the support network or someone to talk to,” he said.
Harvey also pointed to negative comments posted online following coverage of Pride featuring a photograph of him and a friend.
“Even reading comments on the article of myself and my friend as the cover just shows how nasty people can be,” Harvey said.
“The Pride community is so supportive, but knowing lots of people still threaten us is scary.”
It is perhaps that contradiction which explains why Harvey believes being publicly visible matters.
The teenager who says homophobic insults once left him not wanting to go to school is now sharing his life with 1.8 million Instagram followers, while young LGBTQ+ people in the town where he grew up are approaching him to say that seeing him be himself has helped them do the same.
Harvey said:
“Swindon has definitely become a more inclusive place but there is always more to be done.
“We are as normal as everybody else. Our preferences don’t define us as a person.
“We just want to live every day like you do.”
