Transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney has once again sparked backlash, this time with a social media post celebrating International Women’s Day.
The social media influencer, aged 28, documented moments from her tour promoting her memoir called ‘Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer.’ The book reflects on her journey to stardom and delves into some of the controversies she has faced.
‘Happy International Women’s Day,’ read the video Mulvaney posted to Instagram over the weekend.
‘One of the best days of my life,’ she captioned it. ‘I loved meeting you all and can’t wait to see more of you on the book tour.
‘I am so thankful for the women that surround me and especially Drew Afualo.’
But as the video spread online, many accused Mulvaney of simply pretending to be a woman for clout.
User Sara Rose criticized Dylan Mulvaney, referring to him as “this POS with a penis,” as he marked International Women’s Day by promoting his book on femininity, which sparked outrage.
‘How in the f**k would he know?’ she asked, rhetorically. ‘These people are mentally insane.’
Jacob Ball, another X user, concurred, saying Mulvaney ‘doesn’t know a single thing about being a woman… HE’S A MAN.
‘This is an insult to sane women everywhere,’ he suggested.
‘Dylan Mulvaney mocking International Women’s Day with his “girl” book is peak delusion,’ a third X user posted.
‘Real women don’t play dress-up for clout, they live it,’ he continued.
‘This dude’s a fraud, not a female, and the left’s obsession with him proves they’ve lost the plot.’
Others also suggested Mulvaney’s post was insulting to biological women.
‘His entire “personality” is basically mockery of females,’ an X user wrote. ‘It’s insulting.’
‘This feels like cultural appropriation,’ another added.
‘This isn’t what they meant when they said men should support women,’ a third X user quipped.
Mulvaney gained notoriety through her ‘Days of Girlhood’ TikTok series in 2022, where she documented her gender transition for millions of viewers.
Her collaboration with Bud Light in 2023 triggered what experts at Harvard Business School termed as ‘one of the most significant boycotts in U.S. history.’
The backlash was swift and furious with customers staging a boycott and Kid Rock posting videos online of him shooting cases of Bud Light with a rifle.
The decision to hire Mulvaney is estimated to have cost Anheuser-Busch more than $1 billion in lost sales and knocked it off the number one best-selling beer spot in the US.
While promoting the new book, Mulvaney told The New York Times she is asking for privacy from others while continuing to share the intimate details of her life to millions online.
‘I’m trying this new thing where I keep certain things to myself,’ Mulvaney wrote in the book. ‘Little yummy womanly moments just for me.’
However, the book notably discusses private moments including sexual intimacies and she told the NYT her fans may find the book ‘a little raunchier than expected.’
It details how Mulvaney grew up in what she described as a conservative Catholic family in the San Diego area.
She started her career as a stage actor, appearing in several musicals – including a touring production of The Book of Mormon – before finding herself out of work when COVID shut down the show in 2020.
That’s when she started making video diaries of her transition from male to female.
Her memoir also describes her reckoning with female features of her body and tell-all details of her various hookups.
Eventually her Days of Girlhood series gleaned more than 10 million followers worldwide, leading her to appear on an Ulta Beauty podcast that drew transphobic comments and prompted a social media campaign seeking to boycott that company.
Conservatives slammed the beauty chain for using a person who wasn’t born biologically female to represent the experience of being a woman.
Mulvaney didn’t demur and used her fame to advocate for trans rights such as her conversation with then-president Joe Biden in 2022 when he told her that Republican attempts to outlaw gender-affirming care for trans youth in some states were ‘immoral’.
A sponsored post, in which Mulvaney promoted a Nike sports bra and a video of her applying Maybelline cosmetics, prompted further hateful posts and calls to boycott both companies.
But by far her biggest controversy came in 2023 when Mulvaney, a beer lover, posted a video during March Madness endorsing Bud Light.
The spot reportedly led to bomb threats at several Budweiser factories and inspired right-winger Kid Rock to post a video of himself shooting up several cases.
In the years since, Mulvaney has written and spoken publicly about her role as a lightning rod in recent culture wars, detailing her experiences of being stalked and harassed on a daily basis.
