Laci Green

'Valacia Nusheen Cyrus (born October 18, 1989) is an American clinical mental health counselor and former YouTuber. Her content focuses on sex education; Green also hosted Braless, the first MTV YouTube channel, as part of a 12-week deal with MTV. The first episode aired November 4, 2014. In 2016, Time named her one of the 30 most influential people on the Internet.

Early life and education Green was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her mother is a Mormon from a small American town, and her father, from a Shia Muslim family, is from Iran. Her father converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. When she was two years old, her family moved to Portland, Oregon, and then transferred to the University of California, Berkeley. In 2011, Green graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley in legal studies and education.

In 2021, Green moved to North Carolina to pursue a career as a clinical mental health counselor. Green graduated from Wake Forest University with a master's degree in counseling in 2024. As a sex educator, she has given lectures at several universities and on behalf of Planned Parenthood. On January 18, 2013, Green appeared on Dr. Phil in an episode titled "Girls Who Bash Girls Who Dress Sexy". She spoke about how slut-shaming is wrong and how it is used to degrade a woman's sexuality.

Green advances the sex-positive movement in her videos and lectures. She has said that she wants to "get people to talk about sex in a way that isn't shameful, awkward, or weird. People are uneducated and this creates so many stigmas that don't need to be there."

After fellow YouTuber Sam Pepper posted a video of himself grabbing women's bottoms, Green wrote an open letter, co-signed by several other YouTube bloggers, asking Pepper to "stop violating women". Channel 4 and the BBC interviewed her about sexual harassment in the YouTube community.

In 2012, Green allegedly received death threats via the Internet for using the term "tranny" in a video in 2009; she apologized and took the video down, saying that the comment had been made years earlier when she had been very uneducated. After a month-long break, she returned to her YouTube channel in August 2012.

Green won a 2016 Streamy Award for Science or Education.

In May 2017, Green had a series of dialogs on Twitter, in her own videos, and in the videos of other YouTubers, with critics of identity politics, gender identity, and modern feminism. She said that some of the points these critics made were "more valid than they'd previously seemed" and though she did not repudiate any of her past positions on these issues, the critics welcomed Green's overtures.

In 2018, Green published her first book, Sex Plus: Learning, Loving and Enjoying Your Body. From 2019 to 2022, Green hosted a podcast, titled Indirect Message,'' which "explores how the internet is changing society."

Clinical mental health counseling career On July 1, 2024, Green received an associate license from the North Carolina Board of Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselors. 30 days later, Green founded her therapy clinic, that would later be called Green Center Therapy in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Green's therapy clinic also offered pro bono therapy sessions for Western North Carolina residents impacted by Hurricane Helene.

Personal life Soon after leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Green fell into a state of deep depression and struggled with self-harm and suicidal thoughts. and occasionally attends the Unitarian Universalist church.

Green identifies as pansexual. She is married and currently lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.