Dylan Mulvaney, who was born male, is being peddled as a perfect example of girlhood.
This charade of men pretending they are really women just because they say they are is sadly becoming commonplace. But Mulvaney’s story is a little different than so many others. For one thing, national brands have gotten on board, pitching Mulvaney as an enthusiastic, bubbly spokesperson for the whole transgender community. They must have expected customers to applaud their progressive hipness with this move. Thankfully, that strategy is backfiring.
Most trans men profess to be women. Fully developed, fully evolved, and of course — fully endowed — adult human females. One high school shop teacher in Canada notably put safety risks and common decency aside to show off comically oversized breasts.
Not Dylan Mulvaney. The social media influencer insists upon being called a girl, not a woman. A whopping 8.3 million TikTok follower follow along to Mulvaney’s “Days of Girlhood” series, which includes so many moments of Mulvaney “discovering” the little-known details of “being a girl.”
Mulvaney is charismatic, upbeat, self-deprecating, and inquisitive, happy to admit to ignorance and look silly. The influencer dresses in short, swinging skirts and colorful matching separates, sometimes with accessories like plastic heart-shaped sunglasses.
Mulvaney prances around — quite literally — squealing like a stereotypical tween from a Hollywood movie. While so many other men who identify as trans go overboard with feminine features, Mulvaney is flat-chested and thin. This isn’t a mimicry of womanhood — it’s an imitation of girlhood.
There’s no denying that “Days of Girlhood” is a TikTok phenomenon. The viral videos have received almost 1 billion views across TikTok and Instagram, leading to Mulvaney earning the TikTok Trailblazer Award in 2022. And the influencer is trained in the fine art of acting. Per IMDb, Mulvaney started with play-acting by portraying Elder White in the “Book of Mormon” on Broadway after graduating from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
The TikTok star began creeping into the mainstream in September when Forbes invited Mulvaney to speak at their Women’s Conference. This move sparked outrage from conservatives and TERFs on the left, but it was nothing compared to the backlash in October following an Ulta Beauty campaign.
The beauty store behemoth released a podcast episode called “The Beauty of Girlhood with Dylan Mulvaney” which included the influencer discussing girlhood and motherhood with host and “gender-fluid” hairdresser David Lopez.
“I can find love, I know I can still be a performer, I know I can have a family — I wanna be a mom one day, and I absolutely can,” Mulvaney said in a clip of the episode promoted by Ulta, as The Daily Wire originally reported. “And that’s why the narrative still has a long way to go, because, when I was grieving ‘Boy Dylan,’ I didn’t even know those things were accessible to me.”
‘There’s much shame, so much stigma. I had this idea of trans-people and it was weird because I knew I was trans yet had transphobia of myself,” Mulvaney continued.
Trans 👏 Girls 👏 Can 👏 Do 👏It 👏 All! Tune into the latest episode of The Beauty Of… where host @DavidLopezzz sits down with guest Dylan Mulvaney to chat all things girlhood 💝 Watch now: https://t.co/tCRfEryYkZ pic.twitter.com/uaXJqEBQI9
— Ulta Beauty (@ultabeauty) October 13, 2022
Ulta probably didn’t expect the clip to be received so negatively despite the fact that the majority of their customers are women. They turned off comments on the YouTube video and issued a blanket reply for naysayers.
“We believe beauty is for everyone,” VP of PR Eileen Ziesemer said in a statement. “And while we recognize some conversations we host will challenge perspectives and opinions, we believe constructive dialogue is one important way to move beauty forward.”
Despite their efforts to escape criticism, the hashtag #boycottulta was trending all day after the video dropped. Irate customers insisted that Mulvaney’s caricatured version of a girl was offensive to them, akin to a white actor wearing blackface.
Ulta hid replies and blocked Twitter users with fervor in the hours following the video drop. But the hits kept coming.
“So you’d have a white man in blackface advertise your products then?” one user shared in a now-hidden reply. “Is that respecting everyone? Because it sure looks like a slap in the face to your primarily female customer base to have this insulting caricature of womanhood represent you. I won’t shop with you again.”
“Dylan seems desperate to monetize sh**. Not sure why Ulta would go on board. He is a doing a mockery of women. Won’t be spending another dime with you,” another wrote.
Conservative author and podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey wrote, “‘I want to be a mother one day, and I absolutely can.’ No, you cannot. You can buy all the eggs, rent all the wombs, and wear all the makeup you want, but you cannot be a mother. And that’s ok. Accept who you are and don’t try to be something you can’t.”
“Silencing and erasing women is a weird flex from a company built because of women,” Chad Prather agreed.
Many users pointed out some of Mulvaney’s more controversial TikTok videos, including one where the influencer referred to a vagina as a “Barbie pouch.”
“Day 75 of being girl – I’ve been carrying around tampons and pads for the past two months but I’ve never actually opened one up, so let’s do it. Woohoo!” Mulvaney gushes in the clip.
“I thought the letters stood for small, medium and large based on the size of your ‘Barbie pouch’ but after Googling I found out it’s actually the level of your flow.”
The influencer was allegedly offered a partnership with Tampax based on that video, which racked up 1.8 million views.
Then there’s Mulvaney’s first video of the series, called “Day one of being a girl.”
“Day one of being a girl and I have already cried three times, I wrote a scathing email that I did not send, I ordered dresses online that I couldn’t afford, and then when someone asked me how I was I said, ‘I’m fine!’ I wasn’t fine. How’d I do ladies? Good? Girl power!”
These are two fine examples of Mulvaney’s surface-level perception of being a girl. Most videos are heavy on stereotypes, with the influencer flaunting “girlhood” as revolving around what Mulvaney is wearing, eating, or freaking out over. In one clip, the TikTok user goes shopping for Barbie dolls. In another, Mulvaney shrieks and runs away from a bug while wearing “hiking heels” and exploring nature.
Many women who were once girls are pushing back against Mulvaney’s overdone girl act, especially now that the former Broadways star is being promoted by Ulta. It’s a tiny glimmer of sanity in a world that appears to have gone mad.
