The thing with Dylan...I mean, it really is a pastiche of being a woman. It's a grift. So get that bag etc., whatever. But I would guess a fair few trans people just trying to get along aren't too happy about the backlash.
I also think where it starts to piss a lot of people off who would not otherwise bother, is when the pastiche starts to feel like mockery. And the sports bra video really seems like that, whether intended or not. It's the ridiculous prancing around, the rictus grin, the almost falling over. I have a 13 year old neice big into sport, I am constantly ferrying her around for matches and tournaments and training. I love it and she gets a lot out of it. But let me tell you, that age group of girls are so so so conscious of their bodies, of actually needing sports bras, of worrying about having a period accident while playing, etc. Nike really could do girls a solid and you know, pick someone who actually needs a bra and that girls/women can relate to, rather than whatever that video was trying to be.
There's a reason why Dylan pick "girlhood" instead of "womanhood." Calculated pandering to a group highly susceptible to social contagion: young girls. Dylan is an extremely thin male skin walking femininity in front of millions of impressionable eyeballs. By following and supporting Dylan, you get an all in one trans allyship approved update to anorexia & bulimia. Dylan's Tiktok helps herald a new cycle of disordered eating with a deadly body fat percentage for girls.
Male models--impossibly tall and skinny--modeling women's clothes have been a thing on runways for a while. I've always resented them for exactly the reason you cite. I'm glad the less classy stores that I actually frequent have been moving more toward all-size models and mannequins.
You might be surprised at the number of trans women who would be glad to forfeit those attributes. To not tower over other women and be able to fill-out a dress...
I'm a tall woman who would like my pre-motherhood body back (and things diet and exercise can't touch- smaller, perkier breasts; smaller feet, lack of tiger stripe like stretch marks). I would like to be able to buy smaller shoes and not have 95% of women's clothes be too short for me all the time. But there's no transitioning out reality- I am a 42 year old woman who is tall, with man sized hands and feet with a long torso who has given birth multiple times. Self acceptance is the only salve.
No one is surprised that there are trans people who would like to forfeit parts of their body- most people in general have things they don't like about their bodies and would like to change but are unchangeable. I am not without empathy for those with gender dysphoria but don't think anyone is well served by thinking that their mental health is only helped with severe body modification. My sibling who is trans has likely shortened their life with the steps they have taken and they need knee replacement at barely 40 in part due to the loss of bone density from 2 decades of hormones.
I'm probably not likely to persuade you about this, so I'll just talk.
`I'm a tall woman'
Just noting that I'm a taller than the-average-man trans woman.
`smaller, perkier breasts'
I'd prefer at least slightly larger but yes (shape could be better, too)
`smaller feet'
Absolutely, but I wonder how much smaller is too small?
`tiger stripe like stretch marks'
I can accept the ones on my sides, but I don't think I deserved the ones on my thighs or calves!
`I would like to be able to buy smaller shoes'
Yes
`Not have 95% of women's clothes be too short for me all the time.'
Or too wide in one place and narrow in another
`But there's no transitioning out reality'
Not permanently, in a good way, I suppose
`I am a 42 year old woman who is tall, with man sized hands and feet with a long torso'
Pretty much (but 41!).
Please realize that I, and a lot of other people like me, have gone through a tremendous amount in the hope of at least just approximating you.
`Self acceptance is the only salve.' and `most people in general have things they don't like about their bodies'
But it goes a bit beyond that. It's not just things but the entirety, to a greater or lesser degree; and it's not just dislike but a slight discomfort that grows in time into revulsion.
He was mocking women WAY before the Nike video, though, referring to women’s vaginas as “Barbie pouches,” acting like a ditz, running through the forest in his “hiking heels” in his supposed celebration of nature after becoming a “girl” (which is amusing bc he’s the most plastic attention whore in recent memory).
To me this most annoying thing about Dylan Mulvaney is that people are making him out to be some sort of hero/role model, when in reality he is just an actor who’s happened to discover he can dress like a woman and do parody sketches on TikTok and become exponentially more wealthy and famous than he ever would have just being another gay male broadway actor. The persona is so over the top. He’s not a “woman”, he’s a drag queen who’s always in character.
He’s not an “inspiration”, he’s a fucking actor making a name and career for himself. There is nothing exceptionally admirable about Dylan Mulvaney. He’s just another internet celebrity whose only goal is his own pursuit of fame and wealth.
I feel sorry for him though. He's in his late twenties, I think, and has had all that plastic surgery on his face? Despite his joyful exuberance, he probably isn't well.
Yeah. I agree he probably isn’t well. But I do find it interesting that he had work done to his face, but seems to be taking no drugs and still has a completely male body. I would imagine it’s unusual for a man who claims to be ”trans” and allegedly desperately wants to live as and pas for a woman would opt for a nose job and some filler, but not breast augmentation or hormone therapy.
If/when he gets sick of the shtick he can go right back to being the effeminate homosexual male he was for the first 20-something years of his life.
Most MTF keep their "feminine penis". Most FTM get double mastectomies. Weird how there is no movement for "masculine breasts". (It's not weird, it's sad.)
`pas[s] for a woman would opt for a nose job and some filler, but not breast augmentation or hormone therapy.'
Honestly, this is just so frustrating! It's either trans women have breast augmentation just to satisfy an inherently male view/stereotype of women or their lack of augmentation means they're not actually trans women.
What sized breasts are trans women supposed to have?
The comment isn't about what size breasts they're supposed to have, it's about being suspicious of someone who looks like they might be transitioning for money and clout. They're saying they think Dylan is picking interventions that will make it easy to detransition. I agree it's mistaken since Dylan is on estrogen, but it's not a comment about trans women generally. If someone isn't profiting off their transition they won't attract that kind of speculation.
He’s on estrogen. He has small breast buds, like less than an A cup. A lot of natal males can’t get more than an A cup with estrogen alone unless they are heavy set.
There's no way anyone is that happy all the time. It's definitely part of Dylan's persona. If I had to guess, I'd say Dylan has a voracious emptiness inside that he's trying to satiate with attention.
The hiking heels is what did it for me. If that’s what womanhood is to him I can’t pretend to take him seriously as a woman.
Honestly, he comes across as a conservative parody of transgender women or some sort of MRA mocking women in general. Like if you tweaked a few things, his videos wouldn’t really be out of place on the Babylon Bee channel.
If this clown had appeared during the height of second wave feminism 50 years ago he would have been condemned as a tool of the Patriarchy. He would have been kicked in his little balls by Germaine and Gloria for belittling and mocking the ways of girls and women.
Back then it wouldn’t be conservatives ripping him a new one. It would have been feminist women.
But now they are silent and beholden to modern gender ideology and afraid to say anything. This guy is not helping women, he is setting them back decades. But today’s feminist are hiding and silent.
There are plenty of feminists speaking up, Robert. And given the reactions they get, you can hardly blame the rest of us for wanting to keep it under the radar
I'm interested at how you limit your comment to 'young women'. There are plenty of non-young feminists still around, and feeling silenced.
As to 'second wave feminism', Victoria Smith notes in her recent book Hags that according to a 'perfectly normalised idea ... unlike men, [feminists] do not add stones to glorious edifice of human knowledge, but offer waves which crash and recede'
I have to think about your quote more from Victoria Smith’s book( I want to read it) but it seems very pessimistic and very rightfully mocking of men and their pretensions of having solely created human knowledge. But it is a terrible way of thinking for women. Feminism has added many stones to human knowledge by opening the doors to allow women to add stones. If this quote is indicative of today’s feminism then of course it is useless against the edifice of gender ideology and a woman mocking clown on Tick Tock. Just a wave that recedes. That is terrible.
Surely women of all ages are interested in feminist advancement but it seems the young ones have swallowed gender ideology and are becoming waves that that are crashing and receding to use that metaphor. Meanwhile the religious right has snuck in and is taking away reproductive rights from women.
When I first heard about Dylan Mulvaney it was because of criticism over her from within the trans community. Mainly from people who felt like it painted an overly pretty picture of what it’s like to transition overnight, with a pretty stark absence of the struggles many (perhaps even most?) deal with- depression, isolation, confusion, trial and error, etc. I think I learned about her circa day 100 and there were a few reddit threads in trans communities debating the content.
Ah yes the same person who realised and stated, after the fact, that it would have been good to get a woman on to explain how tampons work ... but then doesn't appear to have done anything about it.
I was also thinking that Dylan actually makes the gender critical/radfem point regarding gatekeeping. If any transpeople are mad at Dylan, think she's fake, think she is doing harm to the trans community, then maybe the bar should be set higher. If the only bar to reach is self-declaration, then of course there are going to be bad actors that adopt a trans identity to make some bank. Not saying Dylan is doing that but how do you differentiate between the "real" transpeople and someone who is grifting, if the only benchmark is self ID? This is a part of what gender critical and radical feminsts have been saying - if the measurement is self-declaration alone, there will be people who take advantage of it - in prisons, in changing rooms, in battered women's shelters, etc.
Presumably if they thought it was mockery they wouldn’t be fans? But your choice of mockery or liking ridiculousness misses the whole range of believing Dylan is actually like that (or that being a “girl” is like that), which seems the most likely. Given how many girls call themselves non binary because they’re not super girly, I wouldn’t be surprised if feeling that Dylan is being “real” is the norm. After all, even Katie bought into Dylan being actually happy all the time.
I'm not sure it's a grift. Seems a pretty extreme one with the surgeries and all if it is.
I think what we're seeing is a man's idea of what it is to be a woman. I don't think that's unique to Dylan, it's literally the definition of how all trans women behave. They're "performing" womanhood. And only have their male experience to base that on. Some may get a little closer to the mark than others.
If I had to guess at Dylan's demographic it would be well under 20, mostly girls. Given that I find her incredibly annoying, I'm guessing her fans find her dorky, awkward, and funny (unintentionally or not). Relatable, I think?
Many, many women work out in sports bras because they're fashionable/functional and not because they need support. Nike is also likely marketing for future purchases.
`Nike really could do girls a solid'
They have by sponsoring and supporting more than a few amazing girls!
“Many, many women work out in sports bras because they're fashionable/functional and not because they need support.”
You say Fashionable/functional and not because of a necessity for support. What exactly is that function BESIDES support?
Even for fairly small chested women, intense physical activity is uncomfortable without support.
From the time I started wearing a bra, sports bras were a necessity for me when running or playing sports (softball, wrestling and basketball) yet until I had kids, I had very small breasts.
No one who *hikes in heels* ala Dylan is engaged in enough physical activity to know anything at all about the function of sports bras. That is why many women find Nike’s choice to be nonsensical.
'You say Fashionable/functional and not because of a necessity for support. What exactly is that function BESIDES support?' - exactly what I was going to ask, TessK!
That protection would have only been for some women though. Poor women or women who didn’t fit a certain feminity didn’t get that protection. Plus like it was legal for your husband to rape you (or your boss often) and you couldn’t divorce him even if he beat you senseless or spent all your money on his mistress. If you didn’t have a man (or if he was useless), you couldn’t make a living wage no matter how desperate the situation was.
Ehhh... I gotta disagree with Katie. I don't think Dylan radiates joy or positivity. Every bit feels extremely fake and performative. If I wanted to listen to someone aggressively pretending to be happy I'd call my sister in law.
I kind of disagree. DM's demeanor feels like a performance, but it doesn't mean some people can't be affected by it. Same as with any actor.
Personally, I can see what Katie is saying about the part where DM's projecting positivity is nice. Even if his whole persona is a performance. There are some hits and misses, but it can work. Not everybody is affected by the same thing in the same way.
“The insult for women comes not from the fact that Mulvaney is given vast sums of money or attention, but that he is given it whilst performing an insulting version of what a woman is or how she experiences the world from birth. Mulvaney has avoided the many perils of “being a girl”, because he was safely behind the shield of being a boy — and a wealthy one at that. Mulvaney has a very privileged background of successful financier male ancestors. Nothing says patriarchy more clearly than a man being offered huge sums of money by companies to pretend to be a woman, whilst actual women sit at home fretting how to feed their children during an economic crisis. A man “womanning” is feted, whilst a woman at times barely survives the experience.”
And
“Mulvaney breezes through his videos with a permanent rictus grin. The subconscious irritation women feel at this stems from the very real experience of our female socialisation. From the time we are commanded to smile as toddlers and for the million times afterwards, women are aware that our “smile” is an expectation, a command and a danger. If we forget to smile, men who are complete strangers will remind us. If we refuse, we may regret it. If a woman stops smiling, she can be accused of having “resting bitch face”, and she has failed in her duty to please and humour men. When Mulvaney performs this forced joy apparently emanating from “being a girl”, women feel the lie through to our bones, because we have lived with the reality.
It's interesting that Katie emphasizes that complaints about Dylan Mulvaney are coming from conservatives whose views are suspect. In the U.K. there are a lot of feminists who complain about this sort of thing--like the absurdity of Nike marketing sports bras to people without breasts--and they are very eloquent about it. I would love to hear a discussion of these people, who are much more interesting than the people issuing death threats. There's a video of Germaine Greer making the rounds and she is very convincing when she complains that Mulvaney and similar people are adopting gender stereotypes of femininity rather than the true feminine. As she points out, giving birth is the quintessential female act, and it is neither pretty nor feminine. It was a long time ago that I first noticed that drag queens were not at all like women, but were a kind of parody. Some find it inspiring and others find it offensive.
💯 this. The quintessential characteristic of being female is that we are the sex that gives birth. It’s like we have all collectively forgotten that sex is a reproductive act. Getting off in other ways isn’t necessarily, but sex is. The very idea that people think they can become the other gender without embodying the reproductive capacity of that other gender is ridiculous and offensive. It’s offensive bc apart from men being physically stronger than us, the difference in power comes from the fact that the sex act embodies us with the blessing and responsibility of child bearing and rearing
This is the tricky part, though, Ctdcb. As soon as you say 'sex is a reproductive act' you are challenging homosexuality, which I'm sure none of us here wants to do. Yet, this is precisely how the Ts get to align themselves with the LGBs, and ... we all know how messed-up that is
The only way humans are made is through a male gamete joining a female gamete and forming a zygote that ONLY an adult female human is able to carry and birth. We can have orgasms and pair bond in infinite creative ways, but the only sex able to birth without any sort of future trans human interventions are females. This fact of reproduction does not challenge homosexuality, heterosexual sex for pleasure alone, or any non reproductive variation of the sex act. That’s the point. It’s the bearing, or the blue print of the capability to bear children, and all the biological characteristics that go along with that, that makes one female. These transwomen want us to not publicly acknowledge any real difference, when the most quintessential difference remains the same. Anybody can get off, anyone can get plastic surgery, anyone can wear whatever clothes they want, anyone can wear makeup, only natal females have the capacity to bear children. That’s it. That and all the physiological and psychological characteristics that go along with that are what makes a woman.
We have had birth control for 60 years so we live in a world where that hasn’t been the most obvious fact in the world, but it is. Women are the bearers of children.
Acknowledging that *reproductive* differences in sex are real is not an assertion that homosexuality or trans identity are morally right or wrong. Homosexuality exists in objective reality. Trans women are not women in objective reality. Trans men are not men in objective reality. The moral question is whether trans people have the right to demand that others acknowledge their personal beliefs as objective reality and make rules and change the meaning of language to acknowledge their personal beliefs as objective reality. Any pharmaceutical or surgical interventions do not change the reproductive realities of the sex binary. There is no challenge to the reality of homosexuality in the assertion that sexual binary exists.
Yes! Since Katie appears to have some nuance on these issues, it’s jarring to hear her describing it as if everyone else is pro-Dylan-liberal & anti-Dylan-conservative.
I also note the Pod seems to class anyone to the right of AOC as “alt-right”, as though centrist and regular ol’ conservatives don’t exist any more. IIRC in the last pod they referred to Jordan Peterson as “alt-right” — I could be wrong as don’t know a great deal about JP’s actual political positions (he strikes me as much more issues gadfly than party political), but “far-right white nationalist” (Wiki definition of alt-right) seems to me way over the line veering into slanderous.
I think the hosts would benefit immensely from talking to a free market economist or two, and some conservatives who could give them a window into Republican world (which neither Katie or Jesse seem to have spent much if any time in).
I do appreciate the perspectives of other UK feminists, though. In addition to Julie Bindel, who's often referred to in BARPod threads, I've recently become fascinated with women who've started out liberal and backed themselves into traditionalist/conservative opinions. The guests on Maiden Mother Matriarch often fall into that category, and sometimes Sarah Haider and Meghan Daum edge up to it, too.
Sarah Haider annoys me to no end with her tirades against hormonal birth control. I get that it didn't work for her and gave her brain fog, but that particular experience seemed to make her credulous towards every single fantastical claim about it:
"if you chose your husband off the pill, you will no longer appreciate the manly charms that helped drive you to him, making him a less appealing partner overall."
"find the right one as may make your acne worse (or better), increase your shape-rotation abilities (or worsen them)."
"As so much of “who we are” relies on our hormones, when the pill changes them, it necessarily changes us."
"We know what it means to gain more choice. Do we know what it means to lose ourselves?"
I've been on hormonal birth control for years, but it doesn't turn me into some kind of alien. It's just weird to hear her--especially on the podcast--talking about how most women don't exist "as they actually are" anymore. Sure, maybe, if we all had massive amounts of brain fog all the time thanks to it, but most of us don't, and it just seems like by her saying "no" to the pill she's turned it into this big scary thing that she can feel superior about being drug-free and "truly herself" by not taking it.
Yes I agree. I do think it's a good idea for us to be more sceptical of hormonal contraceptives in general and I personally enjoy not being on them anymore. But the pill was and is still a great option for me and many women and it definitely didn't turn me into a different person. It was fine. I do bristle a bit at it being something we just give it to teenage girls as a matter of course.
Lol I'm the dream my childhood evangelical culture wishes were general reality: no sex until I got married, no birth control till a few months before marriage to make sure it was working by then. And ten years + one kid later it all actually worked out for me, no complaints. So I'm a weird mix of pretty traditional and pretty progressive and I have no idea how to give good relationship advice. But yeah I'm pretty far away from just giving it to teenage girls, unless they have really painful periods. And I definitely think we need better birth control options in general.
Nice to hear these privileged academic women can hold their tongues because it might cost them socially, while women in shelters & prisons have to share space with violent, intact men. Gender is such a load of classist bullshit.
I have to find that Greer video. It’s so true: we aren’t allowed to say that anything relating to having female biology is what makes up women, but the things that trans identifying males CAN access (clothes, cosmetic surgery, makeup, head tilt, and a Valley girl affect) ARE. Gee, I wonder why.
And the females escaping womanhood by trying to become men are the useful pawns, since that lets TIMs say “look at that bearded guy who is a pregnant person!” This whole ideology is a cluster fuck that screws women & girls.
“look at that bearded guy who is a pregnant person!” (Though I imagine you’d have to knock it off with the testosterone to maintain a pregnancy... I wonder how long a beard takes to go away. Or does it stay even when you desist?)
But this bullshit is why I get so incensed over the matter.
If the claim is that being trans is integral to a person’s mental health, and it is paramount to one’s well-being that everyone MUST affirm the new identity to assuage dysphoria, then how the hell does that square that with being pregnant and giving birth to a child?
There is literally nothing more female than gestating a child. So if a woman is a “trans man”, then surely being pregnant would trigger the alleged dysphoria to a catastrophic level.
It doesn't make sense. All of this is designed to make us question reality, and as a result recreate society to meet their vision. And from anecdotes I've seen, a female taking T will often have vaginal atrophy, pain, and many need a hysterectomy.
My guess is there really AREN'T many TIFs getting pregnant. TIFs are useful pawns brought up by activists as a way to disassociate women from our reproductive reality. Australia is the only place I’ve seen that has been keeping data on this. In 2018 Pink News reported that 22 trans men & non-binary females gave birth there… out of 304,200 births that year , which comes to 0.007%. This is by no means a % that requires rejiggering language to make them feel "included." And I'm less inclined to care at this point, to be honest, about females who put themselves in exile.
I dont' find it that hard. People are complicated.
They want kids, but realize the only reasonable way they can do that is if they get pregnant and have the kid themselves.. Adoption is not really an option for a lot of trans men, or it's at least a much more difficult option. And surrogacy is an ethical minefield that many people don't support.
So they are willing to experience gender dysphoria long enough to have the kid.
(re: beards, once testosterone has begun the facial hair growing process, it tends not to go away without electrolysis. Ftmtf detransitioners as well as mtf both share this problem. So it's not unreasonable at all that a pregnant trans man would maintain a beard).
These are mentally disturbed people. Changing societal taboos to let them into spaces with my daughters will never be something I'll accept, because so many of these guys are dangerously unstable.
Ella, I do much the same. I'm not "junior" in the sense of young - I'm old and in a teaching-intensive, non-tenurable position (not for lack of ability but because I followed my then-spouse). I'm still far braver than 98% of academics on just about any issue, including this one.
I have a "TERF" reference on RateMyProfessor for having once assigned Rebecca Reilly-Cooper's essay on nonbinary identities, which I paired with one by Robin Dembroff on the same topic. My crime was in saying that students might find something of value from RRC. It's a great essay, btw, and in some ways both authors are envisioning a similar world - one where gender would matter a whole lot less - but see very different paths toward arriving there. And frankly, all these female academics coming out as nonbinary are either just long-time gnc lesbians like Butler, or have glimpsed a way to elevate their stature and insulate themselves against any real criticism.
And so I'm back to planting tiny seeds. I remind myself that poppies and impatiens and many other gorgeous plants grow from seeds so small they're hard to manipulate.
I would *love* to be part of a GC/radfem academic group. If you know of one, please let me know. If one doesn't exist in the U.S., where I'm located, I'm game for trying to establish one - stealthily.
The kicker is that I've been immensely supportive of my gender-creative students for two decades, and the same for LGB people in my life for two decades longer. I've been told by a few of them that my support was life-saving. Even allowing for some hyperbole, this is one of the two biggest reasons why I'm not more open about my beliefs. (The second has to do with a loved one in my family, who knows where I stand, but it would put a lot more pressure on the relationship if I went public.)
This is so hard. I've grown into a GC perspective precisely *because* I saw the same population I'd served faithfully for 15 years be deeply harmed by the evolution in trans politics over the past 5-7 years.
Why not one on Substack? Say, an account for one where you share ideas under pseudonyms? Would there be a way to keep it private? Maybe a membership thing, but have no fee & use that as a way to keep it private to screen members?
The thing is, I think that the more trans people in all their diversity and their good and bad actors increase in numbers and get more visible on the mainstream, the less mystery there is about them and the more people are able to recognize that they are not literally of the gender they wish to be part of (and even less of the sex the gender in question is linked to). The only thing stopping people from saying so is fear of being called transphobic.
However, I fear the only escape this gives people who are fed up with the make-believe is making a hard turn to an exaggerated form of conservatism. I saw the same dynamic you describe in the lesbian woman who was recently interviewed in the Gender A Wider Lens podcast (edit: about her son's transition), who sounded a bit unhinged at the end in the way she described her conception of sex and gender now. I hope I'm wrong and we won't see too severe an overcorrection.
Trans people are people who, for myriad reasons, would prefer others see them as the opposite sex. Many take steps to physically alter themselves towards this end.
Matt Walsh is a prick, but there’s truth in that nasty tirade. Few if any people will ever regard Dylan Mulvaney as a woman in the same way they do, say, Taylor Swift or Kamala Harris. Ditto Lia Thomas. Even most people who say the right things will be pretending to some degree.
Any normal woman with responsibilities of a similar age? If a woman in her late 20s acted or looked like Dylan, she would be a figure of mockery at best. Hell even a teenage girl would be mocked. And no one would get away with her skin looking like that or that level of crows feet until her mid 40s at the earliest.
You really need to spend some time on TikTok - actual female women on there are wayyy more over the top in feminine performance than Dylan. SO much makeup; GIANT fake eyelashes and nails. Etc.
Also Dylan is a comedic act. It’s intended to be camp and silly and it is.
Perhaps he can be right in a blue moon, but it’s RW misogynists like Walsh that would also say that Kamala Harris is probably actually a trans woman because she’s insufficiently attractive to him, and to tell actual women how “unfuckable” they are.
What bothers me about Mulvaney's invitation to the White House, more than the eternal gender war in which Mulvaney is a bit player, is that it's example umpty-seven of how the President is being guided by the sort of staff and/or grandchildren who think that what happens on TikTok is what matters.
We have several very current and recently past examples of US senators being steered by staff long past the senators' ability to make their own decisions. That's bad enough. I don't look forward to the possibility of spending the next presidential term with a POTUS who's either decreasingly capable of or unwilling to do his job. It seems more and more likely that that's what's ahead, though.
As a determined non-viewer of TikTok videos, I appreciated Katie's explaining of the Mulvaney shtick. I can now understand why some women might like Mulvaney's sunny affect.
I think I agreed more with the moderately negative reactions on Feminine Chaos, though. I'm just not into having menstrual products explained to me for comedic purposes by people who don't use them, don't understand them, and don't have any daughters to teach about them in a straightforward, this-is-normal-and-not-weird way.
One might call this a "pivot to video" strategy. Whatever you think of its merit in terms of getting your message out, I can't help feeling manipulated and patronized when my government talks to me through a TikTok starlet with nothing to his fame than a high view count. I also suspect that most of these influencers have large but algorithmically invisible disfavorability ratings, which bleed onto any message they attempt to deliver -- the "if Evtushenko is against it, then I'm for it" effect.
You talking about the same joe Biden who famously won the primary by totally ignoring twitter and the younger generation? The one who just thumbed his nose at unserious activists and supported the Alaska project that was deeply unpopular online? Your priors are doing a lot of work on a random White House invitation here
Yup. There are a lot of ways in which his administration has governed differently from the way he campaigned, one of the dumbest and most obvious examples being the student-debt relief plan, a naked attempt at pandering to young college-goers that flew in the face of what old-school party leaders like Jim Clyburn advocated when they supported him in the primary.
That was an appeal to millennials who got shafted by the Great Recession more than anything... They're hardly in the "young college -goers" demographic at this point...
I am someone who cares about the political representation of the roughly 2/3 of Americans who don't have college degrees, and it troubles me that the Democratic Party is willing to make big promises to working-class voters but then follow the whims of its highly credentialed, younger, less representative operatives once in office.
I agree with your first point. As to your second, I think there's ample evidence that the unelected TikTok-generation staffers are setting the policy positions, too.
If that were the case then the Biden admin wouldn’t have put forth their extremely nuanced guidance on trans kids on sports which satisfied no one on either fringe (No you can’t ban them completely but yes you can in competitive sports).
The Biden administration doesn't need Congress to institute its policies. In 2021 it made self-ID the law of the land by changing Social Security and passport applications to replace sex M/F with gender identity M/F/X, with no documentation or transition required for changing one's legal gender. There's also a proposed rule under Title IX that would make sure trans kids can play on the sports team of their choice, and probably other trans-friendly regulatory changes that I can't remember.
But doing that doesn't cost a dime and fundamentally fails to change the economic underpinnings of the nation... That's the point. Like most woke shit (and quite a lot of rightoid shit) it's performative, not materialist. Next Republican president will just 180 on everything but the economics will stay the same.
Biden’s policy position is to enforce the right of any girl to have her healthy breasts cut off, become sterile and a life-long med-pharma mega consumer. Mulvaney visiting is important PR to make this policy sunny and cheerful.
I’d rather the law leave it to doctors / patients but let’s fix those institutions and bring awareness to the lack of evidence for good outcomes so this happens less.
I am against any law that would punish people for not gender affirming. But also against any law that would bring the power of the state down on families that do affirm. Same way as I’m pro choice.
I think he (Elon) is really mad about his kid becoming trans. And I think if you take that as your starting point everything else makes sense. Even if he would deny that I don’t know that I’d believe him. I’d light $44 billion in fire with no plan to go after the people I interpreted as hurting my kid. Maybe his kid has been trans forever but it’s hard to not pretend there isn’t a weird cult energy in the world that says being a man is bad and the best way to find forgiveness for that sin is to be a woman. That’s not explicit anywhere but if all the pressure is “hey, this is bad” and “we will celebrate you over here” that drives some people to change.
I do get the sense Dylan, for instance, chose being trans more than being trans chose her. In contrast it’s obvious Dylan didn’t choose to be gay. I think this is the thing people get upset about. If you’re trans because you’ve had this irresistible voice inside of you your whole life telling you that you should be the opposite gender, okay. Happy to respect whatever you need me to call you. If you become trans because of what I think as high pressure sales tactics, like you’re getting tricked into buying a timeshare, I don’t think I’m doing right by you to go along with it. I wouldn’t insert myself into that spot unless I knew someone very well, though.
My wife watches some of her content and granted this is based on just vibes… but I don’t really believe her? I believe that she has convinced herself of it maybe since changing your gender is a big step. I would still be respectful to her in real life and if I was interacting with her directly online. Unless I’m someone she would seek genuine emotional counsel from I wouldn’t say anything. I don’t look down on her because I also know that I’m not perfect but I also hope if I ever started to veer slightly off the rails someone would say “dude, you’re being crazy.”
I do know a few trans people decently well and I don’t get the same vibe from them that I get from Dylan. She would never ever say it publicly but the one I know best privately says she’s noticed the same thing about younger people who are transitioning. It seems like more of a trend than something that’s been with them their whole life.
Dylan is totally faking it. I say this because he's the lowest effort transwoman I've seen. At least every transwoman I know or have seen has a large want to be on HRT. He claims he's on HRT but there haven't been any noticeable changes to his body (https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1643068002118561792?s=19). I believe that he knows that hormones will fuck up his body so he just lied about going on it. He prioritized facial feminization surgery (FFS) over top or bottom surgery, which is definitely not standard in the trans community. His FFS surgery was really the equivilant of a nose job, lip lift, and scalp lower: the parts of FFS with the least amount of risk. I don't think he got a jaw shave. Jaw shaves are a big part of FFS because a strong jaw hints towards being male but it's very risky to perform.
He is literally a professional theater actor so he's mastered the art of putting on a convincing performance. He's naturally flamboyant (this can be seen in his old tiktoks) so all he has to do is crank to up to 11 and wear feminine clothing to be seen as trans. The trans community has a culture of never ever doubting someone's transition so he can easily just say whatever the fuck he wants and knows that he'll have a mob of stans behind him. Only getting FFS (and a weak one at that) seems like a way to further convince people of his status while also giving him a way out when the grift goes dry.
`He claims he's on HRT but there haven't been any noticeable changes to his body'
Dylan is quite thin: there's not a lot of fat for the estrogen to redistribute, and she's not adding much, so her chest, hips, thighs, etc. won't see much change. You do see her ribs, right?
Why is prioritizing FFS abnormal? Natalie Wynn (Contrapoints) is a very public example of a trans woman undergoing FFS before either or none of those surgeries. Gender dysphoria differs from person to person but one can hide just about any other aspect of the body from the public/self but not one's face. Why wouldn't a trans woman hope to see the face they see in the mirror every day, and the face that they're judged upon, reflect their gender?
Younger trans women don't seem to care about the size of their chest, which seems like progress to me from a strictly pro-woman perspective.
As the wokes say, whew theres a lot to unpack here!
- Fat doesnt literally "redistribute". The fat cells dont migrating from one area to another. When a man takes estrogen, he loses muscle mass and stores more fat than normal. Dylan doesnt look like to be storing more fat, and not in a female way.
- Prioritizing FFS is abnormal because the majority of transwomen do not start with FFS. The dysphoria is typically centered around a lack of breasts and vaginal organs and the existence of a penis as the penis is undeniably male.
Starting and only focusing on FFS is a hint towards that the transwoman only cares if others view him as a woman or not. Therefore his problem isnt about how his body makes him feel, but rather how other people view his body - in other words, he cares about external validation. Its no different than the Kardashians getting many plastic surgeries. If a transwoman is totally fine with keeping his penis and a lack of breasts, then he doesnt actually believe that hes a woman as the penis is unmistakably male or he believes that the penis is female - either way hes delusional.
The thing with faces is that there are "cis" women out there living their lives with masculine faces and there are no "cis" women with a penis. But transwomen that prioritize FFS probably dont see those women are actual women since their idea of a woman is one with a dainty face. If you know anything about Contra lore, Contra is a definitive example of a transwoman only caring about external validation and how he looks in front of a camera. In fact some people dont believe that Contra is actually trans and that hes in it for the grift like Dylan. So yes, both Dylan and Contra are abnormal.
- Yes, younger trans women dont care about the size of their chest, but they also dont care about keeping their penis or taking HRT. Theyre essentially just taking advantage of the fact that they are men who can say they are women without doing anything and immediately obtain a higher victim status than women. If transwomen not caring about growing boobs is "pro woman" to you, then I ask you do you think that men believing they are women and colonizing womanhood is "pro woman" as well? At the end of the day, theyre not women and have no idea what being a woman is like, so how is anything they do "pro woman"?
Fair point. My understanding of the effects of HRT on trans woman is that they will see the `redistribution' of fat in, at least, the sense that new fatty deposits will appear at the hips, breasts, and thighs. Dylan is already quite thin, appears to be maintaining her weight, and so I wouldn't expect dramatic changes. Marked changes should probably not be expected after only a year on hormones, in any case. I'll ask my endocrinologist about literal movement of fat!
`Prioritizing FFS is abnormal ... the majority of transwomen do not start with FFS.'
I'd really like some data to back this up.
Not speaking for all trans women, but the lack of both primary and secondary female sex characteristics causes dysphoria. This is the reason, for example, that so many of us undergo laser therapy/electrolysis. The mere feeling of stubble, let alone whether it's perceptible to people or not, is a great source of distress for many. Other non-breast and non-vaginal sources of dysphoria, which are relieved by HRT and do not require surgery: rough skin and thick, dense body hair.
I'm not sure how other people spend their day, but I see my face much more often than my bare chest or crotch. So seeing a masculine face in the mirror can and does cause dysphoria, especially when breast forms and padding/shappers can be used to change one's body shape (i.e., what's under the clothing).
In general one should be dysphoric about one's penis if you're a trans woman. The degree and severity of that dysphoria is what's important. The surgery is not without its risks and the results not always satisfactory. I'm also under the impression that HRT does diminish the size/appearance of the penis and testicles.
Undoubtedly trans women care about growing boobs: that's one of the reasons why they're on HRT! I'm merely remarking about what size of breasts such women should be expected to have in order to appear `normal' or cure their dysphoria. I think it's undoubtedly a step forward that one needn't have a sizeable chest to be seen as an attractive, regular, cis woman. It will prevent unnecessary surgeries for them, and it's great that trans women can be part of this larger societal shift and be content with the results of, likely minimal, HRT-induced breasts.
`transwomen that prioritize FFS probably dont see those women [with a masculine face] are actual women since their idea of a woman is one with a dainty face.'
Says who? On average female faces are not masculine; most trans people I know are just attempting to shift from one average (masculine) to another (feminine).
`they also dont care about ... taking HRT'
This is debated within the community. I fall on the side that if you're trans then you need to be on HRT, unless there is a compelling medical/financial reason not to. Others differ.
Every thing you've written about Contrapoints in this post is pure nonsense. See if you can find the videos that she took down: the ones where she's clearly in anguish about her body, or where she attempts to describe gender dysphoria. To think that Natalie is not being sincere implies a clinical level of cynicism or motivated reasoning.
In your post you're making a lot of assumptions and stating them as fact, and you always seem to be looking for the worst interpretation of any action/words spoken by trans women. The parts about transitioning for victim status and trans women colonizing women's spaces are right-wing contrivances.
2 days ago my 5yo told me that she never wanted to have babies because she didn’t want to put her belly on a boy’s butt.
Young children say all kinds of things that don’t necessarily translate into who they will be as adults. Although I fully support my daughter’s decision to keep her stomach always from men’s butts.
Absolutely. A 4 year old who could grow up to be the biggest straightest manly man ever could be found walking around with a blanket as a dress and a pretend purse, and the only thing it means is he loves his mommy and is playing pretend.
I think there's a good point that Jesse made when he interviewed the BBC author of the Tavistock book; it's like the entire world had a stroke and forgot the last 100 years of evidence-based psychology.
Friendly amendment: the stroke also wiped the memory of the last 350 years of philosophy on mind-body dualism. (I doubt he would ever publicly admit it, but I strongly suspect that Matt Yglesias is "trans skeptical" because of his undergrad philosophy education.)
Here’s where the ‘persistent, consistent etc’ criteria comes into play. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dylan thought he was a girl at age 4. Many of the kids who said that in childhood (in prior/olden times, lol) turned out to just be gay! It’s only now that we take it to mean some serious innate personal understanding.
TL:DR Dylan isn’t necessarily lying, but she is retconning her past to bolster her present.
Yep. One of his original batch went trans, changed his name, and cut Elon out of his/her life and publicly trashed him and I think it’s broken his heart and put him into a blue check rage.
He needs to communicate a vision. If he wants to spread birdwatch to the whole internet that’s a vision. But it just seems like he’s drinking the blood of blue checks.
Slightly off topic: while Dylan exudes sweetness, and his shtick as a woman is annoying at best, it’s the insanity of activists ready to rip Riley apart that is so horrifying. This isn’t a conservative-liberal thing. It’s impossible to replace women with men but the mob is ready to stage a revolution over it. Respecting biology is at stake, much as physics in the time of Galileo. This time the church is the trans activist mob.
THIS. I hear TRAs saying that women objecting to Dylan are putting trans lives at risk, and I'm like, "yeah, in the few murders of trans-identified males that occur, while tragic, are done by men -- most often in the context of prostitution or drugs," an using that to emotionally blackmail women into not speaking up when we're being mocked is just wrong.
Meanwhile, like you said, Riley Gaines was held hostage for almost 3 hours after fleeing from a mob that assaulted her, all for the crime of pointing out the unfairness of allowing men to compete in women's sports. Kellie-Jay Keen was assaulted in New Zealand by a TIM who threw soup on her (which is not "just soup" because women are all too aware of violence against women & girls where men throw acid on them), and was nearly murdered by a raging mob of trans rights extremists. If the manifesto of the Tennessee shooter is ever released, we may discover it's because she was worked into a frenzy by talk about a "genocide" against trans people, and was out to kill Christians (if she was a far right person they'd have released whatever writings they found already).
But yeah, women pointing out that Dylan Mulvaney is a grifter in womanface are the ones who are wrong.
Another beautiful quote from Victoria Smith (Hags): 'Words are just words unless women are using them, in which case they're actual violence requiring special acts of self-defence.'
I disagree with Katie and Jesse that Matt Walsh is being a bully when he observes that Dylan has removed what’s masculine without adding what’s feminine. I think this is an important point to make-- a feminist point. Physically, femininity is not simply the absence of masculinity; the idea that women are simply neutered men is an ancient and wholly sexist conceptualization of the female body. To the extent that Dylan presents femininity this way, he reinforces this sexist understanding of women’s bodies.
I doubt Walsh specifically intended to make a feminist argument, but he did. It’s an important and principled critique of Dylan’s performance, not “bullying,” IMO.
Matt Walsh is as far from making a feminist point as is possible to be.
To Matt Walsh, anything that is "in the middle" (as Dylan is, and so is Julie Bindel, and Katie and many other people, I'd include myself) is revolting, disgusting, and worthy of ridicule. He is not making a feminist point whatsoever. He is saying that any woman to trends away from the feminine, or any man who trends away from the masculine should be advised that they will be undesirable and unfuckable if they do not conform to gender stereotypes in line with their sex.
This is, of course, garbage. Gender nonconforming people are completely able to find each other and live happy lives. Matt Walsh can take his regressive bullshit elsewhere and feminists should stop listening to him, stat.
I think comparing Katie & Julie Bindel to Dylan freaking Mulvaney as if they have something in common is absurd. Being a lesbian and asking ppl to accept your that is not at all like Dylan Mulvaney putting on a sports bra, or his “hiking heels,” and being accepted as a woman when he is not. Are you othering Katie & Julie from womanhood & putting them in some middle zone with a man who says he has lady feelings? I get that you don’t like him & that’s fine. I don’t agree with him on everything but on this issue he’s right.
I know ppl want to make it sound like he hates gay ppl but I hear him criticizing the “LGBTQ” community, which has allowed the TQ to be a parasite on the larger community. When drag was an adult form of entertainment, which it was before the TQ started running the show -- I doubt this guy was making the alphabet crew a main priority. It’s because the TQ is shoving itself in everyone’s faces & medicalizing kids that conservatives like Matt Walsh got involved. If the LGB community wants to save itself from getting associated with the TQ & being made a focus of the conservatives -- it should divorce the TQ. The pendulum swing on this issue will be a wrecking ball if sensible people don’t start pushing back.
And please spare us the assertion that Matt Walsh’s wife lacks all agency in her life. It’s tiring to hear feminists making conservative women who choose to be SAHMs sound like they’re being chained up. Just because THEY don’t want to be in a traditional family role doesn’t mean all women want what they want. It’s insulting. My guess is Matt’s wife has way more power in that house than you’d expect. He cherishes her & his children.
My point is the Walsh hates butch women and campy gay men just as much as he hates Dylan and for the same reason. He hates anyone who defies gender stereotypes. So fuck Matt Walsh.
And yes, I understand the argument that Dylan by IDing as female is actually supporting gender stereotypes so feminists should be against that. But Matt doesn’t see it that way. To HIM Dylan and Julie and ru Paul are all in the same “disgusting” category.
All of the gender critical people that actually HATE trans people, which there are a lot, are overshadowing the well-intentioned gender critical people that just have understandable concerns for women’s rights and problems related to youth gender medicine.
It's rough to be gender critical and have the trans mob make vile threats and try to destroy you. I mean, that's how Katie and Jesse ended up here on substack. Sometimes, unfortunately, people get tired of how hard the high road is.
Yes- we become our worst selves on social media. I am not to be trusted with it so I stay away. I am becoming bored of the trans topic; I think it’s burnout.
Yes. I can't not care about this, having a woke teenage daughter, and having multiple close friends' kids and multiple students who are caught up in this. It's very real and very close to home.
Exactly. And to hear ppl dismissing those with concerns of being in a moral panic (like my college friend), when many of these young activists don’t have any clue what it’s like to have children. They have nothing at stake other than their political tribe.
I also read about a local gender fair in the local newspaper. I wonder if we’re in the same area. I am aghast. How did we move so quickly from promoting acceptance of, say, Caitlin Jenner to promoting transitioning of children?
I too cannot be flippant regarding Dylan because like you said, it’s so much bigger than Dylan’s ridiculous sexism and silly act. Our children are at real risk.
Please send this suggestion to the TRAs who can't help but threaten the life of JKR any time she says anything about women. Or is this just a man's way of getting women to self-censor while the unhinged TRAs get to carry on using tactics of intimidation not only online, but IN REAL LIFE.
• a woman in Tacoma, WA, having her finger crushed in the grip of a man when she was at a Let Women Speak event last year — wait for it, AND has to refer to him with she/her pronouns in court.
• 9 people were arrested last year in NYC last year at what was supposed to be a Let Women Speak event, but which was canceled because a violent mob of trans activists was breaking past police barricades.
So, yes, if you are a man so concerned with the high road, we can surely trust you to direct trans activists in the direction of the high road, and not just gender critical women.
I do not hate trans-identified people and I do not have “concerns”. The ideology at play is dark age nuts, and I am furious at what they are doing to kids and the most vulnerable women and women sports and the en mass gaslighting.
According to trans rights extremists the "well-intentioned gender critical people that just have understandable concerns for women’s rights and problems related to youth gender medicine" ALL hate trans people. They don't accept that there ARE any good reasons to mention concerns, and dismissively say those people are "just asking questions" in scare quotes. They literally "dEnY tHe eXiSteNcE" of well-intentioned gender critical people.
One of the most crazy-making things about this whole controversy is the readiness of TRAs etc to assume they know what is in the minds and hearts of the people who don't wholeheartedly agree with them. Mostly along the lines of 'You are expressing reservations because you actually HATE trans people', or 'Your alleged "concerns" are just a cover for your bigotry'. Never willing to engage with the actual reservations/concerns/arguments.
I'd suggest that anybody who actually HATEs trans people isn't gender critical at all, but a conservative, or further right
I truly believe there are trans people who feel the same way about TRAs and the effect they're having on the members of the community who just want to stay under the radar and live their lives in peace.
The question is where is the “line”? Because a lot of the time what it’s classified as “hate” is concerns about women’s rights or annoyance or critique with a little bit of cattyness or sarcasm around the edges. People tend to be very self righteous that their exact point is the right one and anyone at all beyond it is somehow evil.
I think it's interesting that Katie and Jessie immediately recognized Ollie London's grift but not Dylan Mulvany's. Those two are two side of the same coin: unstable, disingenuous, celebrity hungry performers who would do ANYTHING to get their 15 minutes (yes, even have surgeries and take hormones if it leads to that influencer lifestyle they so obviously desire). I don't believe Dylan is trans anymore than I ever believed Ollie London was Korean or trans. A cursory Google search brings up Dylan's past attempts to become famous (as an over the top, hyperactive "contestant" on The Price is Right, a silly bit part player on daytime shows like Ellen, etc). Dylan represents a "type" we see in the gay community often and most of us who have been around the block lear to steer clear of them. They are full of drama and are not to be trusted.
The Bud Light controversy is stupid indeed but Mulvany is still gross. I am grossed out by him not because he proclaims to be trans but because he is so clearly got a very lucrative new schtick that is so sexist and full of regressive gender stereotypes that it make Paris Hilton and the Kardashian's look principled. Sorry, Ive got no patience for that nonsense at all. He is free to rake in the cash behaving like and regressive female stereotype until his 15 minutes are up and and I am free to call him out for it.
It makes me barf in my brain. A grown ass man doing this little girl schtick is so off putting to me. I really dislike seeing anyone, but particularly a man, being applauded for parodying a woman.
Exactly, I reserve the right to call bullshit when i see bullshit. And Dylan Mulvany is a bullshitter extraordinaire. Watching people fall all over themselves not to misgender such an obvious grifter just shows how beholden people have become to the gender cult.
My kids did a Peep diorama for the library & chose Eloise... and I had to get over associating that with DM after his video dressed like the character. He’s creepy.
The thing with Dylan...I mean, it really is a pastiche of being a woman. It's a grift. So get that bag etc., whatever. But I would guess a fair few trans people just trying to get along aren't too happy about the backlash.
I also think where it starts to piss a lot of people off who would not otherwise bother, is when the pastiche starts to feel like mockery. And the sports bra video really seems like that, whether intended or not. It's the ridiculous prancing around, the rictus grin, the almost falling over. I have a 13 year old neice big into sport, I am constantly ferrying her around for matches and tournaments and training. I love it and she gets a lot out of it. But let me tell you, that age group of girls are so so so conscious of their bodies, of actually needing sports bras, of worrying about having a period accident while playing, etc. Nike really could do girls a solid and you know, pick someone who actually needs a bra and that girls/women can relate to, rather than whatever that video was trying to be.
If you think teenage girls have body image issues now, what happens when their concept of femininity is being shaped by a late-20s twink?
There's a reason why Dylan pick "girlhood" instead of "womanhood." Calculated pandering to a group highly susceptible to social contagion: young girls. Dylan is an extremely thin male skin walking femininity in front of millions of impressionable eyeballs. By following and supporting Dylan, you get an all in one trans allyship approved update to anorexia & bulimia. Dylan's Tiktok helps herald a new cycle of disordered eating with a deadly body fat percentage for girls.
Yup. When I was 12 my dream was to have the body of a boy. I achieved it with severe anorexia. So yes. I am sure Dylan's body is part of the appeal
I saw a tweet the other day quoting comments in an eating disorder group where girls were expressing rapturous envy of DM's body. It's begun.
Male models--impossibly tall and skinny--modeling women's clothes have been a thing on runways for a while. I've always resented them for exactly the reason you cite. I'm glad the less classy stores that I actually frequent have been moving more toward all-size models and mannequins.
`impossibly tall and skinny'
You might be surprised at the number of trans women who would be glad to forfeit those attributes. To not tower over other women and be able to fill-out a dress...
I'm a tall woman who would like my pre-motherhood body back (and things diet and exercise can't touch- smaller, perkier breasts; smaller feet, lack of tiger stripe like stretch marks). I would like to be able to buy smaller shoes and not have 95% of women's clothes be too short for me all the time. But there's no transitioning out reality- I am a 42 year old woman who is tall, with man sized hands and feet with a long torso who has given birth multiple times. Self acceptance is the only salve.
No one is surprised that there are trans people who would like to forfeit parts of their body- most people in general have things they don't like about their bodies and would like to change but are unchangeable. I am not without empathy for those with gender dysphoria but don't think anyone is well served by thinking that their mental health is only helped with severe body modification. My sibling who is trans has likely shortened their life with the steps they have taken and they need knee replacement at barely 40 in part due to the loss of bone density from 2 decades of hormones.
`My sibling who is trans'
I'm probably not likely to persuade you about this, so I'll just talk.
`I'm a tall woman'
Just noting that I'm a taller than the-average-man trans woman.
`smaller, perkier breasts'
I'd prefer at least slightly larger but yes (shape could be better, too)
`smaller feet'
Absolutely, but I wonder how much smaller is too small?
`tiger stripe like stretch marks'
I can accept the ones on my sides, but I don't think I deserved the ones on my thighs or calves!
`I would like to be able to buy smaller shoes'
Yes
`Not have 95% of women's clothes be too short for me all the time.'
Or too wide in one place and narrow in another
`But there's no transitioning out reality'
Not permanently, in a good way, I suppose
`I am a 42 year old woman who is tall, with man sized hands and feet with a long torso'
Pretty much (but 41!).
Please realize that I, and a lot of other people like me, have gone through a tremendous amount in the hope of at least just approximating you.
`Self acceptance is the only salve.' and `most people in general have things they don't like about their bodies'
But it goes a bit beyond that. It's not just things but the entirety, to a greater or lesser degree; and it's not just dislike but a slight discomfort that grows in time into revulsion.
66% of Americans are obese or overweight, so fit models didn't turn girls anorexic.
He was mocking women WAY before the Nike video, though, referring to women’s vaginas as “Barbie pouches,” acting like a ditz, running through the forest in his “hiking heels” in his supposed celebration of nature after becoming a “girl” (which is amusing bc he’s the most plastic attention whore in recent memory).
To me this most annoying thing about Dylan Mulvaney is that people are making him out to be some sort of hero/role model, when in reality he is just an actor who’s happened to discover he can dress like a woman and do parody sketches on TikTok and become exponentially more wealthy and famous than he ever would have just being another gay male broadway actor. The persona is so over the top. He’s not a “woman”, he’s a drag queen who’s always in character.
He’s not an “inspiration”, he’s a fucking actor making a name and career for himself. There is nothing exceptionally admirable about Dylan Mulvaney. He’s just another internet celebrity whose only goal is his own pursuit of fame and wealth.
I feel sorry for him though. He's in his late twenties, I think, and has had all that plastic surgery on his face? Despite his joyful exuberance, he probably isn't well.
Yeah. I agree he probably isn’t well. But I do find it interesting that he had work done to his face, but seems to be taking no drugs and still has a completely male body. I would imagine it’s unusual for a man who claims to be ”trans” and allegedly desperately wants to live as and pas for a woman would opt for a nose job and some filler, but not breast augmentation or hormone therapy.
If/when he gets sick of the shtick he can go right back to being the effeminate homosexual male he was for the first 20-something years of his life.
Most MTF keep their "feminine penis". Most FTM get double mastectomies. Weird how there is no movement for "masculine breasts". (It's not weird, it's sad.)
At this point, female nonbinaries get mastectomies while male nonbinaries can hardly be bothered to shave their beards.
I have pointed this exact thing out to my kids (older teens).
Most FTMs keep their vaginas, though.
He has probably had occasion to use his penis and is fond of it. I don't blame him! I too am a fan of those things.
`opt for a nose job and some filler'
What about the bone shaving?
`pas[s] for a woman would opt for a nose job and some filler, but not breast augmentation or hormone therapy.'
Honestly, this is just so frustrating! It's either trans women have breast augmentation just to satisfy an inherently male view/stereotype of women or their lack of augmentation means they're not actually trans women.
What sized breasts are trans women supposed to have?
The comment isn't about what size breasts they're supposed to have, it's about being suspicious of someone who looks like they might be transitioning for money and clout. They're saying they think Dylan is picking interventions that will make it easy to detransition. I agree it's mistaken since Dylan is on estrogen, but it's not a comment about trans women generally. If someone isn't profiting off their transition they won't attract that kind of speculation.
He’s on estrogen. He has small breast buds, like less than an A cup. A lot of natal males can’t get more than an A cup with estrogen alone unless they are heavy set.
There's no way anyone is that happy all the time. It's definitely part of Dylan's persona. If I had to guess, I'd say Dylan has a voracious emptiness inside that he's trying to satiate with attention.
I'm not surprised he's not having any luck with a relationship. He gives the impression he's an exhausting person to be around.
The hiking heels is what did it for me. If that’s what womanhood is to him I can’t pretend to take him seriously as a woman.
Honestly, he comes across as a conservative parody of transgender women or some sort of MRA mocking women in general. Like if you tweaked a few things, his videos wouldn’t really be out of place on the Babylon Bee channel.
Except the Babylon Bee is occasionally funny.
If this clown had appeared during the height of second wave feminism 50 years ago he would have been condemned as a tool of the Patriarchy. He would have been kicked in his little balls by Germaine and Gloria for belittling and mocking the ways of girls and women.
Back then it wouldn’t be conservatives ripping him a new one. It would have been feminist women.
But now they are silent and beholden to modern gender ideology and afraid to say anything. This guy is not helping women, he is setting them back decades. But today’s feminist are hiding and silent.
There are plenty of feminists speaking up, Robert. And given the reactions they get, you can hardly blame the rest of us for wanting to keep it under the radar
Petula.
I understand your point. Anyone speaking up is indeed blocked and shouted down. It is dangerous professionally and socially to speak out.
I am sure many young women who identify with second wave feminism are conflicted by the radical gender ideology raging everywhere.
I'm interested at how you limit your comment to 'young women'. There are plenty of non-young feminists still around, and feeling silenced.
As to 'second wave feminism', Victoria Smith notes in her recent book Hags that according to a 'perfectly normalised idea ... unlike men, [feminists] do not add stones to glorious edifice of human knowledge, but offer waves which crash and recede'
I have to think about your quote more from Victoria Smith’s book( I want to read it) but it seems very pessimistic and very rightfully mocking of men and their pretensions of having solely created human knowledge. But it is a terrible way of thinking for women. Feminism has added many stones to human knowledge by opening the doors to allow women to add stones. If this quote is indicative of today’s feminism then of course it is useless against the edifice of gender ideology and a woman mocking clown on Tick Tock. Just a wave that recedes. That is terrible.
Surely women of all ages are interested in feminist advancement but it seems the young ones have swallowed gender ideology and are becoming waves that that are crashing and receding to use that metaphor. Meanwhile the religious right has snuck in and is taking away reproductive rights from women.
When I first heard about Dylan Mulvaney it was because of criticism over her from within the trans community. Mainly from people who felt like it painted an overly pretty picture of what it’s like to transition overnight, with a pretty stark absence of the struggles many (perhaps even most?) deal with- depression, isolation, confusion, trial and error, etc. I think I learned about her circa day 100 and there were a few reddit threads in trans communities debating the content.
Dylan is incredibly ignorant about most trans issues. Thankfully she's honest about this and seems to be trying to do better.
Ah yes the same person who realised and stated, after the fact, that it would have been good to get a woman on to explain how tampons work ... but then doesn't appear to have done anything about it.
No possibility that the video was contrived for humor? Keeping in mind her audience/intention behind the project: just acting naive?
I was also thinking that Dylan actually makes the gender critical/radfem point regarding gatekeeping. If any transpeople are mad at Dylan, think she's fake, think she is doing harm to the trans community, then maybe the bar should be set higher. If the only bar to reach is self-declaration, then of course there are going to be bad actors that adopt a trans identity to make some bank. Not saying Dylan is doing that but how do you differentiate between the "real" transpeople and someone who is grifting, if the only benchmark is self ID? This is a part of what gender critical and radical feminsts have been saying - if the measurement is self-declaration alone, there will be people who take advantage of it - in prisons, in changing rooms, in battered women's shelters, etc.
The interesting thing is that a lot of Dylan's fans are young girls. Maybe they don't think it's mockery but actually revel in how ridiculous it is?
Presumably if they thought it was mockery they wouldn’t be fans? But your choice of mockery or liking ridiculousness misses the whole range of believing Dylan is actually like that (or that being a “girl” is like that), which seems the most likely. Given how many girls call themselves non binary because they’re not super girly, I wouldn’t be surprised if feeling that Dylan is being “real” is the norm. After all, even Katie bought into Dylan being actually happy all the time.
You sound like a terrific aunt. She is lucky.
I'm not sure it's a grift. Seems a pretty extreme one with the surgeries and all if it is.
I think what we're seeing is a man's idea of what it is to be a woman. I don't think that's unique to Dylan, it's literally the definition of how all trans women behave. They're "performing" womanhood. And only have their male experience to base that on. Some may get a little closer to the mark than others.
If I had to guess at Dylan's demographic it would be well under 20, mostly girls. Given that I find her incredibly annoying, I'm guessing her fans find her dorky, awkward, and funny (unintentionally or not). Relatable, I think?
Many, many women work out in sports bras because they're fashionable/functional and not because they need support. Nike is also likely marketing for future purchases.
`Nike really could do girls a solid'
They have by sponsoring and supporting more than a few amazing girls!
https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/04/896/500/Angel-Reese8.jpg?ve=1&tl=1
Hope you show your niece what women are capable of instead of focusing on culture war stuff.
“Many, many women work out in sports bras because they're fashionable/functional and not because they need support.”
You say Fashionable/functional and not because of a necessity for support. What exactly is that function BESIDES support?
Even for fairly small chested women, intense physical activity is uncomfortable without support.
From the time I started wearing a bra, sports bras were a necessity for me when running or playing sports (softball, wrestling and basketball) yet until I had kids, I had very small breasts.
No one who *hikes in heels* ala Dylan is engaged in enough physical activity to know anything at all about the function of sports bras. That is why many women find Nike’s choice to be nonsensical.
'You say Fashionable/functional and not because of a necessity for support. What exactly is that function BESIDES support?' - exactly what I was going to ask, TessK!
That protection would have only been for some women though. Poor women or women who didn’t fit a certain feminity didn’t get that protection. Plus like it was legal for your husband to rape you (or your boss often) and you couldn’t divorce him even if he beat you senseless or spent all your money on his mistress. If you didn’t have a man (or if he was useless), you couldn’t make a living wage no matter how desperate the situation was.
Ehhh... I gotta disagree with Katie. I don't think Dylan radiates joy or positivity. Every bit feels extremely fake and performative. If I wanted to listen to someone aggressively pretending to be happy I'd call my sister in law.
I think Dylan has crazy eyes and that cheery visage is the last thing you will see before he grabs you by the throat.
Stealing this from the fif column. "everyone is theater people now"
I kind of disagree. DM's demeanor feels like a performance, but it doesn't mean some people can't be affected by it. Same as with any actor.
Personally, I can see what Katie is saying about the part where DM's projecting positivity is nice. Even if his whole persona is a performance. There are some hits and misses, but it can work. Not everybody is affected by the same thing in the same way.
Same! "She" seems completely fake to me.
Thank you! Her voice fucking grates
True. Except she wouldn't be an influencer if she were not trans. Or at least no one would pay attention
Absolutely, we can see he had the same kind of affect in his pre transition videos.
This. Some people become so theatrical they forget how to read their own internal desires and instincts.
From an excellent essay on Dylan Mulvaney:
“The insult for women comes not from the fact that Mulvaney is given vast sums of money or attention, but that he is given it whilst performing an insulting version of what a woman is or how she experiences the world from birth. Mulvaney has avoided the many perils of “being a girl”, because he was safely behind the shield of being a boy — and a wealthy one at that. Mulvaney has a very privileged background of successful financier male ancestors. Nothing says patriarchy more clearly than a man being offered huge sums of money by companies to pretend to be a woman, whilst actual women sit at home fretting how to feed their children during an economic crisis. A man “womanning” is feted, whilst a woman at times barely survives the experience.”
And
“Mulvaney breezes through his videos with a permanent rictus grin. The subconscious irritation women feel at this stems from the very real experience of our female socialisation. From the time we are commanded to smile as toddlers and for the million times afterwards, women are aware that our “smile” is an expectation, a command and a danger. If we forget to smile, men who are complete strangers will remind us. If we refuse, we may regret it. If a woman stops smiling, she can be accused of having “resting bitch face”, and she has failed in her duty to please and humour men. When Mulvaney performs this forced joy apparently emanating from “being a girl”, women feel the lie through to our bones, because we have lived with the reality.
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-performance-of-a-lifetime/
That piece articulates exactly how Mulvaney's trans schtick comes across: as a misogynistic minstrel show.
That’s exactly how it comes across to me.
This portrayal of women is more offensive than basically every modern "blackface" scandal I can think of. Deliberate mocking caricature.
DM lost me at 'Barbie pouch'. Actually it was long before that, but still
I do feel the lie to my bones. That Katie and others enjoy the lie amazes and disturbs me.
It's interesting that Katie emphasizes that complaints about Dylan Mulvaney are coming from conservatives whose views are suspect. In the U.K. there are a lot of feminists who complain about this sort of thing--like the absurdity of Nike marketing sports bras to people without breasts--and they are very eloquent about it. I would love to hear a discussion of these people, who are much more interesting than the people issuing death threats. There's a video of Germaine Greer making the rounds and she is very convincing when she complains that Mulvaney and similar people are adopting gender stereotypes of femininity rather than the true feminine. As she points out, giving birth is the quintessential female act, and it is neither pretty nor feminine. It was a long time ago that I first noticed that drag queens were not at all like women, but were a kind of parody. Some find it inspiring and others find it offensive.
💯 this. The quintessential characteristic of being female is that we are the sex that gives birth. It’s like we have all collectively forgotten that sex is a reproductive act. Getting off in other ways isn’t necessarily, but sex is. The very idea that people think they can become the other gender without embodying the reproductive capacity of that other gender is ridiculous and offensive. It’s offensive bc apart from men being physically stronger than us, the difference in power comes from the fact that the sex act embodies us with the blessing and responsibility of child bearing and rearing
This is the tricky part, though, Ctdcb. As soon as you say 'sex is a reproductive act' you are challenging homosexuality, which I'm sure none of us here wants to do. Yet, this is precisely how the Ts get to align themselves with the LGBs, and ... we all know how messed-up that is
The only way humans are made is through a male gamete joining a female gamete and forming a zygote that ONLY an adult female human is able to carry and birth. We can have orgasms and pair bond in infinite creative ways, but the only sex able to birth without any sort of future trans human interventions are females. This fact of reproduction does not challenge homosexuality, heterosexual sex for pleasure alone, or any non reproductive variation of the sex act. That’s the point. It’s the bearing, or the blue print of the capability to bear children, and all the biological characteristics that go along with that, that makes one female. These transwomen want us to not publicly acknowledge any real difference, when the most quintessential difference remains the same. Anybody can get off, anyone can get plastic surgery, anyone can wear whatever clothes they want, anyone can wear makeup, only natal females have the capacity to bear children. That’s it. That and all the physiological and psychological characteristics that go along with that are what makes a woman.
We have had birth control for 60 years so we live in a world where that hasn’t been the most obvious fact in the world, but it is. Women are the bearers of children.
Acknowledging that *reproductive* differences in sex are real is not an assertion that homosexuality or trans identity are morally right or wrong. Homosexuality exists in objective reality. Trans women are not women in objective reality. Trans men are not men in objective reality. The moral question is whether trans people have the right to demand that others acknowledge their personal beliefs as objective reality and make rules and change the meaning of language to acknowledge their personal beliefs as objective reality. Any pharmaceutical or surgical interventions do not change the reproductive realities of the sex binary. There is no challenge to the reality of homosexuality in the assertion that sexual binary exists.
Yes! Since Katie appears to have some nuance on these issues, it’s jarring to hear her describing it as if everyone else is pro-Dylan-liberal & anti-Dylan-conservative.
I also note the Pod seems to class anyone to the right of AOC as “alt-right”, as though centrist and regular ol’ conservatives don’t exist any more. IIRC in the last pod they referred to Jordan Peterson as “alt-right” — I could be wrong as don’t know a great deal about JP’s actual political positions (he strikes me as much more issues gadfly than party political), but “far-right white nationalist” (Wiki definition of alt-right) seems to me way over the line veering into slanderous.
I think the hosts would benefit immensely from talking to a free market economist or two, and some conservatives who could give them a window into Republican world (which neither Katie or Jesse seem to have spent much if any time in).
They do much better discussing weird internet shit through a cultural lens rather than a political one.
They specifically agreed that it was not fair to call Jordan Peterson alt-right.
Katie: "I would not call Peterson 'alt-right.'"
I am not at all eager to hear from Germaine Greer, author of The Beautiful Boy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beautiful_Boy), on masculinity, femininity, or beauty.
I do appreciate the perspectives of other UK feminists, though. In addition to Julie Bindel, who's often referred to in BARPod threads, I've recently become fascinated with women who've started out liberal and backed themselves into traditionalist/conservative opinions. The guests on Maiden Mother Matriarch often fall into that category, and sometimes Sarah Haider and Meghan Daum edge up to it, too.
Sarah Haider annoys me to no end with her tirades against hormonal birth control. I get that it didn't work for her and gave her brain fog, but that particular experience seemed to make her credulous towards every single fantastical claim about it:
"if you chose your husband off the pill, you will no longer appreciate the manly charms that helped drive you to him, making him a less appealing partner overall."
"find the right one as may make your acne worse (or better), increase your shape-rotation abilities (or worsen them)."
"As so much of “who we are” relies on our hormones, when the pill changes them, it necessarily changes us."
"We know what it means to gain more choice. Do we know what it means to lose ourselves?"
https://sarahhaider.substack.com/p/reduced-to-ourselves?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
I've been on hormonal birth control for years, but it doesn't turn me into some kind of alien. It's just weird to hear her--especially on the podcast--talking about how most women don't exist "as they actually are" anymore. Sure, maybe, if we all had massive amounts of brain fog all the time thanks to it, but most of us don't, and it just seems like by her saying "no" to the pill she's turned it into this big scary thing that she can feel superior about being drug-free and "truly herself" by not taking it.
Yes I agree. I do think it's a good idea for us to be more sceptical of hormonal contraceptives in general and I personally enjoy not being on them anymore. But the pill was and is still a great option for me and many women and it definitely didn't turn me into a different person. It was fine. I do bristle a bit at it being something we just give it to teenage girls as a matter of course.
Lol I'm the dream my childhood evangelical culture wishes were general reality: no sex until I got married, no birth control till a few months before marriage to make sure it was working by then. And ten years + one kid later it all actually worked out for me, no complaints. So I'm a weird mix of pretty traditional and pretty progressive and I have no idea how to give good relationship advice. But yeah I'm pretty far away from just giving it to teenage girls, unless they have really painful periods. And I definitely think we need better birth control options in general.
So is Sharron Davies right wing?
Nice to hear these privileged academic women can hold their tongues because it might cost them socially, while women in shelters & prisons have to share space with violent, intact men. Gender is such a load of classist bullshit.
I have to find that Greer video. It’s so true: we aren’t allowed to say that anything relating to having female biology is what makes up women, but the things that trans identifying males CAN access (clothes, cosmetic surgery, makeup, head tilt, and a Valley girl affect) ARE. Gee, I wonder why.
And the females escaping womanhood by trying to become men are the useful pawns, since that lets TIMs say “look at that bearded guy who is a pregnant person!” This whole ideology is a cluster fuck that screws women & girls.
“look at that bearded guy who is a pregnant person!” (Though I imagine you’d have to knock it off with the testosterone to maintain a pregnancy... I wonder how long a beard takes to go away. Or does it stay even when you desist?)
But this bullshit is why I get so incensed over the matter.
If the claim is that being trans is integral to a person’s mental health, and it is paramount to one’s well-being that everyone MUST affirm the new identity to assuage dysphoria, then how the hell does that square that with being pregnant and giving birth to a child?
There is literally nothing more female than gestating a child. So if a woman is a “trans man”, then surely being pregnant would trigger the alleged dysphoria to a catastrophic level.
Someone make it make sense!
It doesn't make sense. All of this is designed to make us question reality, and as a result recreate society to meet their vision. And from anecdotes I've seen, a female taking T will often have vaginal atrophy, pain, and many need a hysterectomy.
My guess is there really AREN'T many TIFs getting pregnant. TIFs are useful pawns brought up by activists as a way to disassociate women from our reproductive reality. Australia is the only place I’ve seen that has been keeping data on this. In 2018 Pink News reported that 22 trans men & non-binary females gave birth there… out of 304,200 births that year , which comes to 0.007%. This is by no means a % that requires rejiggering language to make them feel "included." And I'm less inclined to care at this point, to be honest, about females who put themselves in exile.
I dont' find it that hard. People are complicated.
They want kids, but realize the only reasonable way they can do that is if they get pregnant and have the kid themselves.. Adoption is not really an option for a lot of trans men, or it's at least a much more difficult option. And surrogacy is an ethical minefield that many people don't support.
So they are willing to experience gender dysphoria long enough to have the kid.
(re: beards, once testosterone has begun the facial hair growing process, it tends not to go away without electrolysis. Ftmtf detransitioners as well as mtf both share this problem. So it's not unreasonable at all that a pregnant trans man would maintain a beard).
These are mentally disturbed people. Changing societal taboos to let them into spaces with my daughters will never be something I'll accept, because so many of these guys are dangerously unstable.
Ella, I do much the same. I'm not "junior" in the sense of young - I'm old and in a teaching-intensive, non-tenurable position (not for lack of ability but because I followed my then-spouse). I'm still far braver than 98% of academics on just about any issue, including this one.
I have a "TERF" reference on RateMyProfessor for having once assigned Rebecca Reilly-Cooper's essay on nonbinary identities, which I paired with one by Robin Dembroff on the same topic. My crime was in saying that students might find something of value from RRC. It's a great essay, btw, and in some ways both authors are envisioning a similar world - one where gender would matter a whole lot less - but see very different paths toward arriving there. And frankly, all these female academics coming out as nonbinary are either just long-time gnc lesbians like Butler, or have glimpsed a way to elevate their stature and insulate themselves against any real criticism.
And so I'm back to planting tiny seeds. I remind myself that poppies and impatiens and many other gorgeous plants grow from seeds so small they're hard to manipulate.
I would *love* to be part of a GC/radfem academic group. If you know of one, please let me know. If one doesn't exist in the U.S., where I'm located, I'm game for trying to establish one - stealthily.
The kicker is that I've been immensely supportive of my gender-creative students for two decades, and the same for LGB people in my life for two decades longer. I've been told by a few of them that my support was life-saving. Even allowing for some hyperbole, this is one of the two biggest reasons why I'm not more open about my beliefs. (The second has to do with a loved one in my family, who knows where I stand, but it would put a lot more pressure on the relationship if I went public.)
This is so hard. I've grown into a GC perspective precisely *because* I saw the same population I'd served faithfully for 15 years be deeply harmed by the evolution in trans politics over the past 5-7 years.
This is a wonderful comment. Your students are lucky to have you.
Why not one on Substack? Say, an account for one where you share ideas under pseudonyms? Would there be a way to keep it private? Maybe a membership thing, but have no fee & use that as a way to keep it private to screen members?
The thing is, I think that the more trans people in all their diversity and their good and bad actors increase in numbers and get more visible on the mainstream, the less mystery there is about them and the more people are able to recognize that they are not literally of the gender they wish to be part of (and even less of the sex the gender in question is linked to). The only thing stopping people from saying so is fear of being called transphobic.
However, I fear the only escape this gives people who are fed up with the make-believe is making a hard turn to an exaggerated form of conservatism. I saw the same dynamic you describe in the lesbian woman who was recently interviewed in the Gender A Wider Lens podcast (edit: about her son's transition), who sounded a bit unhinged at the end in the way she described her conception of sex and gender now. I hope I'm wrong and we won't see too severe an overcorrection.
Which interview was that?
Episode 109.
I liked that interview and don't remember her sounding unhinged at all, I'll have to listen again.
shouty activists like Chase Strangio? no. but trans people at large? Absolutely.
those 2 statements aren’t connected in any way.
Trans people are people who, for myriad reasons, would prefer others see them as the opposite sex. Many take steps to physically alter themselves towards this end.
Matt Walsh is a prick, but there’s truth in that nasty tirade. Few if any people will ever regard Dylan Mulvaney as a woman in the same way they do, say, Taylor Swift or Kamala Harris. Ditto Lia Thomas. Even most people who say the right things will be pretending to some degree.
Matt Walsh is squarely in the not usually wrong but always an asshole crowd
Tragic, worst person you know makes good point
`Taylor Swift or Kamala Harris'
Something of an absurd standard for almost all women? What's the equivalent for men?
I picked the first two famous natal females who came to mind.
Since most women do not approach/resemble Taylor Swift or Kamala Harris, please provide a more realistic standard that trans women should meet.
Still waiting about the standard for men.
My comment was not about realistic standards. It was about people born female. Replace Swift and Harris with any females you like. Have a nice week.
So is your statement meant to generalize to all trans women, not just Dylan and Lia? Because if so that seems like it's a matter of passing.
Any normal woman with responsibilities of a similar age? If a woman in her late 20s acted or looked like Dylan, she would be a figure of mockery at best. Hell even a teenage girl would be mocked. And no one would get away with her skin looking like that or that level of crows feet until her mid 40s at the earliest.
You really need to spend some time on TikTok - actual female women on there are wayyy more over the top in feminine performance than Dylan. SO much makeup; GIANT fake eyelashes and nails. Etc.
Also Dylan is a comedic act. It’s intended to be camp and silly and it is.
And yet people take and treat Dylan seriously and you’re not allowed to call it an act, ask him about the act, or critique the “art” in any way.
I’ve also heard of bimbotok, but I don’t know anyone who takes that all seriously; you’re certainly allowed to call it out as stupid kid shit.
Mid 20s?
`her skin looking like that or that level of crows feet'.
Maybe people understand that her skin looks like that because she's only been on estrogen a relatively short time, and the crows feet are due to FFS?
Pretty sure the only "standard" implied is that they are female in genotype and phenotype.
Perhaps he can be right in a blue moon, but it’s RW misogynists like Walsh that would also say that Kamala Harris is probably actually a trans woman because she’s insufficiently attractive to him, and to tell actual women how “unfuckable” they are.
"an 8 month old baby girl has been at this longer than Dylan mulvaney" 💀💀💀
Katie was absolutely on fire in this episode.
Cheap.
What bothers me about Mulvaney's invitation to the White House, more than the eternal gender war in which Mulvaney is a bit player, is that it's example umpty-seven of how the President is being guided by the sort of staff and/or grandchildren who think that what happens on TikTok is what matters.
We have several very current and recently past examples of US senators being steered by staff long past the senators' ability to make their own decisions. That's bad enough. I don't look forward to the possibility of spending the next presidential term with a POTUS who's either decreasingly capable of or unwilling to do his job. It seems more and more likely that that's what's ahead, though.
As a determined non-viewer of TikTok videos, I appreciated Katie's explaining of the Mulvaney shtick. I can now understand why some women might like Mulvaney's sunny affect.
I think I agreed more with the moderately negative reactions on Feminine Chaos, though. I'm just not into having menstrual products explained to me for comedic purposes by people who don't use them, don't understand them, and don't have any daughters to teach about them in a straightforward, this-is-normal-and-not-weird way.
The Feminine Chaos commenters on substack haven’t peaked yet. Full of Mulvaney supporters !
Yes, and it hasn't just started. Apparently, inviting TikTokkers to the White House is a yearly thing under Biden:
2021 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9878073/Psaki-uses-Gen-Z-TikTok-influencer-Benny-Drama-push-shots-arms.html
2022 https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/white-house-pre-screened-questions-tiktok-briefing
2023 https://www.axios.com/2023/04/09/bidens-digital-strategy-an-army-of-influencers
One might call this a "pivot to video" strategy. Whatever you think of its merit in terms of getting your message out, I can't help feeling manipulated and patronized when my government talks to me through a TikTok starlet with nothing to his fame than a high view count. I also suspect that most of these influencers have large but algorithmically invisible disfavorability ratings, which bleed onto any message they attempt to deliver -- the "if Evtushenko is against it, then I'm for it" effect.
You talking about the same joe Biden who famously won the primary by totally ignoring twitter and the younger generation? The one who just thumbed his nose at unserious activists and supported the Alaska project that was deeply unpopular online? Your priors are doing a lot of work on a random White House invitation here
Yup. There are a lot of ways in which his administration has governed differently from the way he campaigned, one of the dumbest and most obvious examples being the student-debt relief plan, a naked attempt at pandering to young college-goers that flew in the face of what old-school party leaders like Jim Clyburn advocated when they supported him in the primary.
That was an appeal to millennials who got shafted by the Great Recession more than anything... They're hardly in the "young college -goers" demographic at this point...
I think this is the not best forum for popping off on random political takes. maybe /r/conservative would serve you better
I'm not a conservative. :-)
I am someone who cares about the political representation of the roughly 2/3 of Americans who don't have college degrees, and it troubles me that the Democratic Party is willing to make big promises to working-class voters but then follow the whims of its highly credentialed, younger, less representative operatives once in office.
People really don’t want to admit that (general) college loan relief benefits the privileged over the less privileged.
There’s still arguments for it, but it’s really not progressive on the whole.
Like I said this is probably not the best forum for a random political soapbox
I agree with your first point. As to your second, I think there's ample evidence that the unelected TikTok-generation staffers are setting the policy positions, too.
If that were the case then the Biden admin wouldn’t have put forth their extremely nuanced guidance on trans kids on sports which satisfied no one on either fringe (No you can’t ban them completely but yes you can in competitive sports).
The Biden administration doesn't need Congress to institute its policies. In 2021 it made self-ID the law of the land by changing Social Security and passport applications to replace sex M/F with gender identity M/F/X, with no documentation or transition required for changing one's legal gender. There's also a proposed rule under Title IX that would make sure trans kids can play on the sports team of their choice, and probably other trans-friendly regulatory changes that I can't remember.
But doing that doesn't cost a dime and fundamentally fails to change the economic underpinnings of the nation... That's the point. Like most woke shit (and quite a lot of rightoid shit) it's performative, not materialist. Next Republican president will just 180 on everything but the economics will stay the same.
Biden’s policy position is to enforce the right of any girl to have her healthy breasts cut off, become sterile and a life-long med-pharma mega consumer. Mulvaney visiting is important PR to make this policy sunny and cheerful.
I’d rather the law leave it to doctors / patients but let’s fix those institutions and bring awareness to the lack of evidence for good outcomes so this happens less.
I am against any law that would punish people for not gender affirming. But also against any law that would bring the power of the state down on families that do affirm. Same way as I’m pro choice.
“We’re not normally so focused on diapers” is quickly becoming a lie
I think he (Elon) is really mad about his kid becoming trans. And I think if you take that as your starting point everything else makes sense. Even if he would deny that I don’t know that I’d believe him. I’d light $44 billion in fire with no plan to go after the people I interpreted as hurting my kid. Maybe his kid has been trans forever but it’s hard to not pretend there isn’t a weird cult energy in the world that says being a man is bad and the best way to find forgiveness for that sin is to be a woman. That’s not explicit anywhere but if all the pressure is “hey, this is bad” and “we will celebrate you over here” that drives some people to change.
I do get the sense Dylan, for instance, chose being trans more than being trans chose her. In contrast it’s obvious Dylan didn’t choose to be gay. I think this is the thing people get upset about. If you’re trans because you’ve had this irresistible voice inside of you your whole life telling you that you should be the opposite gender, okay. Happy to respect whatever you need me to call you. If you become trans because of what I think as high pressure sales tactics, like you’re getting tricked into buying a timeshare, I don’t think I’m doing right by you to go along with it. I wouldn’t insert myself into that spot unless I knew someone very well, though.
Dylan did say that when he was 4 he announced that he was a girl. Which until recently I guess he interpreted to mean that he was gay.
My wife watches some of her content and granted this is based on just vibes… but I don’t really believe her? I believe that she has convinced herself of it maybe since changing your gender is a big step. I would still be respectful to her in real life and if I was interacting with her directly online. Unless I’m someone she would seek genuine emotional counsel from I wouldn’t say anything. I don’t look down on her because I also know that I’m not perfect but I also hope if I ever started to veer slightly off the rails someone would say “dude, you’re being crazy.”
I do know a few trans people decently well and I don’t get the same vibe from them that I get from Dylan. She would never ever say it publicly but the one I know best privately says she’s noticed the same thing about younger people who are transitioning. It seems like more of a trend than something that’s been with them their whole life.
Dylan is totally faking it. I say this because he's the lowest effort transwoman I've seen. At least every transwoman I know or have seen has a large want to be on HRT. He claims he's on HRT but there haven't been any noticeable changes to his body (https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1643068002118561792?s=19). I believe that he knows that hormones will fuck up his body so he just lied about going on it. He prioritized facial feminization surgery (FFS) over top or bottom surgery, which is definitely not standard in the trans community. His FFS surgery was really the equivilant of a nose job, lip lift, and scalp lower: the parts of FFS with the least amount of risk. I don't think he got a jaw shave. Jaw shaves are a big part of FFS because a strong jaw hints towards being male but it's very risky to perform.
He is literally a professional theater actor so he's mastered the art of putting on a convincing performance. He's naturally flamboyant (this can be seen in his old tiktoks) so all he has to do is crank to up to 11 and wear feminine clothing to be seen as trans. The trans community has a culture of never ever doubting someone's transition so he can easily just say whatever the fuck he wants and knows that he'll have a mob of stans behind him. Only getting FFS (and a weak one at that) seems like a way to further convince people of his status while also giving him a way out when the grift goes dry.
`He claims he's on HRT but there haven't been any noticeable changes to his body'
Dylan is quite thin: there's not a lot of fat for the estrogen to redistribute, and she's not adding much, so her chest, hips, thighs, etc. won't see much change. You do see her ribs, right?
Why is prioritizing FFS abnormal? Natalie Wynn (Contrapoints) is a very public example of a trans woman undergoing FFS before either or none of those surgeries. Gender dysphoria differs from person to person but one can hide just about any other aspect of the body from the public/self but not one's face. Why wouldn't a trans woman hope to see the face they see in the mirror every day, and the face that they're judged upon, reflect their gender?
Younger trans women don't seem to care about the size of their chest, which seems like progress to me from a strictly pro-woman perspective.
As the wokes say, whew theres a lot to unpack here!
- Fat doesnt literally "redistribute". The fat cells dont migrating from one area to another. When a man takes estrogen, he loses muscle mass and stores more fat than normal. Dylan doesnt look like to be storing more fat, and not in a female way.
- Prioritizing FFS is abnormal because the majority of transwomen do not start with FFS. The dysphoria is typically centered around a lack of breasts and vaginal organs and the existence of a penis as the penis is undeniably male.
Starting and only focusing on FFS is a hint towards that the transwoman only cares if others view him as a woman or not. Therefore his problem isnt about how his body makes him feel, but rather how other people view his body - in other words, he cares about external validation. Its no different than the Kardashians getting many plastic surgeries. If a transwoman is totally fine with keeping his penis and a lack of breasts, then he doesnt actually believe that hes a woman as the penis is unmistakably male or he believes that the penis is female - either way hes delusional.
The thing with faces is that there are "cis" women out there living their lives with masculine faces and there are no "cis" women with a penis. But transwomen that prioritize FFS probably dont see those women are actual women since their idea of a woman is one with a dainty face. If you know anything about Contra lore, Contra is a definitive example of a transwoman only caring about external validation and how he looks in front of a camera. In fact some people dont believe that Contra is actually trans and that hes in it for the grift like Dylan. So yes, both Dylan and Contra are abnormal.
- Yes, younger trans women dont care about the size of their chest, but they also dont care about keeping their penis or taking HRT. Theyre essentially just taking advantage of the fact that they are men who can say they are women without doing anything and immediately obtain a higher victim status than women. If transwomen not caring about growing boobs is "pro woman" to you, then I ask you do you think that men believing they are women and colonizing womanhood is "pro woman" as well? At the end of the day, theyre not women and have no idea what being a woman is like, so how is anything they do "pro woman"?
`Fat doesnt literally "redistribute".'
Fair point. My understanding of the effects of HRT on trans woman is that they will see the `redistribution' of fat in, at least, the sense that new fatty deposits will appear at the hips, breasts, and thighs. Dylan is already quite thin, appears to be maintaining her weight, and so I wouldn't expect dramatic changes. Marked changes should probably not be expected after only a year on hormones, in any case. I'll ask my endocrinologist about literal movement of fat!
`Prioritizing FFS is abnormal ... the majority of transwomen do not start with FFS.'
I'd really like some data to back this up.
Not speaking for all trans women, but the lack of both primary and secondary female sex characteristics causes dysphoria. This is the reason, for example, that so many of us undergo laser therapy/electrolysis. The mere feeling of stubble, let alone whether it's perceptible to people or not, is a great source of distress for many. Other non-breast and non-vaginal sources of dysphoria, which are relieved by HRT and do not require surgery: rough skin and thick, dense body hair.
I'm not sure how other people spend their day, but I see my face much more often than my bare chest or crotch. So seeing a masculine face in the mirror can and does cause dysphoria, especially when breast forms and padding/shappers can be used to change one's body shape (i.e., what's under the clothing).
In general one should be dysphoric about one's penis if you're a trans woman. The degree and severity of that dysphoria is what's important. The surgery is not without its risks and the results not always satisfactory. I'm also under the impression that HRT does diminish the size/appearance of the penis and testicles.
Undoubtedly trans women care about growing boobs: that's one of the reasons why they're on HRT! I'm merely remarking about what size of breasts such women should be expected to have in order to appear `normal' or cure their dysphoria. I think it's undoubtedly a step forward that one needn't have a sizeable chest to be seen as an attractive, regular, cis woman. It will prevent unnecessary surgeries for them, and it's great that trans women can be part of this larger societal shift and be content with the results of, likely minimal, HRT-induced breasts.
`transwomen that prioritize FFS probably dont see those women [with a masculine face] are actual women since their idea of a woman is one with a dainty face.'
Says who? On average female faces are not masculine; most trans people I know are just attempting to shift from one average (masculine) to another (feminine).
`they also dont care about ... taking HRT'
This is debated within the community. I fall on the side that if you're trans then you need to be on HRT, unless there is a compelling medical/financial reason not to. Others differ.
Every thing you've written about Contrapoints in this post is pure nonsense. See if you can find the videos that she took down: the ones where she's clearly in anguish about her body, or where she attempts to describe gender dysphoria. To think that Natalie is not being sincere implies a clinical level of cynicism or motivated reasoning.
In your post you're making a lot of assumptions and stating them as fact, and you always seem to be looking for the worst interpretation of any action/words spoken by trans women. The parts about transitioning for victim status and trans women colonizing women's spaces are right-wing contrivances.
I wish more people would say it publicly. The trans landscape is much more complicated than it looks to casual "just be kind" allies like Joe Biden.
She would never ever admit it publicly. I get it too. Instant loss of your social group.
2 days ago my 5yo told me that she never wanted to have babies because she didn’t want to put her belly on a boy’s butt.
Young children say all kinds of things that don’t necessarily translate into who they will be as adults. Although I fully support my daughter’s decision to keep her stomach always from men’s butts.
Absolutely. A 4 year old who could grow up to be the biggest straightest manly man ever could be found walking around with a blanket as a dress and a pretend purse, and the only thing it means is he loves his mommy and is playing pretend.
I think there's a good point that Jesse made when he interviewed the BBC author of the Tavistock book; it's like the entire world had a stroke and forgot the last 100 years of evidence-based psychology.
Friendly amendment: the stroke also wiped the memory of the last 350 years of philosophy on mind-body dualism. (I doubt he would ever publicly admit it, but I strongly suspect that Matt Yglesias is "trans skeptical" because of his undergrad philosophy education.)
Here’s where the ‘persistent, consistent etc’ criteria comes into play. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dylan thought he was a girl at age 4. Many of the kids who said that in childhood (in prior/olden times, lol) turned out to just be gay! It’s only now that we take it to mean some serious innate personal understanding.
TL:DR Dylan isn’t necessarily lying, but she is retconning her past to bolster her present.
Yep. One of his original batch went trans, changed his name, and cut Elon out of his/her life and publicly trashed him and I think it’s broken his heart and put him into a blue check rage.
Not a ton of info on it but it appears to be a contributing factor.
He needs to communicate a vision. If he wants to spread birdwatch to the whole internet that’s a vision. But it just seems like he’s drinking the blood of blue checks.
Slightly off topic: while Dylan exudes sweetness, and his shtick as a woman is annoying at best, it’s the insanity of activists ready to rip Riley apart that is so horrifying. This isn’t a conservative-liberal thing. It’s impossible to replace women with men but the mob is ready to stage a revolution over it. Respecting biology is at stake, much as physics in the time of Galileo. This time the church is the trans activist mob.
THIS. I hear TRAs saying that women objecting to Dylan are putting trans lives at risk, and I'm like, "yeah, in the few murders of trans-identified males that occur, while tragic, are done by men -- most often in the context of prostitution or drugs," an using that to emotionally blackmail women into not speaking up when we're being mocked is just wrong.
Meanwhile, like you said, Riley Gaines was held hostage for almost 3 hours after fleeing from a mob that assaulted her, all for the crime of pointing out the unfairness of allowing men to compete in women's sports. Kellie-Jay Keen was assaulted in New Zealand by a TIM who threw soup on her (which is not "just soup" because women are all too aware of violence against women & girls where men throw acid on them), and was nearly murdered by a raging mob of trans rights extremists. If the manifesto of the Tennessee shooter is ever released, we may discover it's because she was worked into a frenzy by talk about a "genocide" against trans people, and was out to kill Christians (if she was a far right person they'd have released whatever writings they found already).
But yeah, women pointing out that Dylan Mulvaney is a grifter in womanface are the ones who are wrong.
Another beautiful quote from Victoria Smith (Hags): 'Words are just words unless women are using them, in which case they're actual violence requiring special acts of self-defence.'
I disagree with Katie and Jesse that Matt Walsh is being a bully when he observes that Dylan has removed what’s masculine without adding what’s feminine. I think this is an important point to make-- a feminist point. Physically, femininity is not simply the absence of masculinity; the idea that women are simply neutered men is an ancient and wholly sexist conceptualization of the female body. To the extent that Dylan presents femininity this way, he reinforces this sexist understanding of women’s bodies.
I doubt Walsh specifically intended to make a feminist argument, but he did. It’s an important and principled critique of Dylan’s performance, not “bullying,” IMO.
Matt Walsh is as far from making a feminist point as is possible to be.
To Matt Walsh, anything that is "in the middle" (as Dylan is, and so is Julie Bindel, and Katie and many other people, I'd include myself) is revolting, disgusting, and worthy of ridicule. He is not making a feminist point whatsoever. He is saying that any woman to trends away from the feminine, or any man who trends away from the masculine should be advised that they will be undesirable and unfuckable if they do not conform to gender stereotypes in line with their sex.
This is, of course, garbage. Gender nonconforming people are completely able to find each other and live happy lives. Matt Walsh can take his regressive bullshit elsewhere and feminists should stop listening to him, stat.
I think comparing Katie & Julie Bindel to Dylan freaking Mulvaney as if they have something in common is absurd. Being a lesbian and asking ppl to accept your that is not at all like Dylan Mulvaney putting on a sports bra, or his “hiking heels,” and being accepted as a woman when he is not. Are you othering Katie & Julie from womanhood & putting them in some middle zone with a man who says he has lady feelings? I get that you don’t like him & that’s fine. I don’t agree with him on everything but on this issue he’s right.
I know ppl want to make it sound like he hates gay ppl but I hear him criticizing the “LGBTQ” community, which has allowed the TQ to be a parasite on the larger community. When drag was an adult form of entertainment, which it was before the TQ started running the show -- I doubt this guy was making the alphabet crew a main priority. It’s because the TQ is shoving itself in everyone’s faces & medicalizing kids that conservatives like Matt Walsh got involved. If the LGB community wants to save itself from getting associated with the TQ & being made a focus of the conservatives -- it should divorce the TQ. The pendulum swing on this issue will be a wrecking ball if sensible people don’t start pushing back.
And please spare us the assertion that Matt Walsh’s wife lacks all agency in her life. It’s tiring to hear feminists making conservative women who choose to be SAHMs sound like they’re being chained up. Just because THEY don’t want to be in a traditional family role doesn’t mean all women want what they want. It’s insulting. My guess is Matt’s wife has way more power in that house than you’d expect. He cherishes her & his children.
My point is the Walsh hates butch women and campy gay men just as much as he hates Dylan and for the same reason. He hates anyone who defies gender stereotypes. So fuck Matt Walsh.
And yes, I understand the argument that Dylan by IDing as female is actually supporting gender stereotypes so feminists should be against that. But Matt doesn’t see it that way. To HIM Dylan and Julie and ru Paul are all in the same “disgusting” category.
I'm not sure there's a topic I've grown fatigued of as quickly as this Dylan Mulvaney controversy.
I can't believe I'm going to say this .. I think I'd rather hear more about the diaper lovers.
Send help.
If they talk about diapers in a context not involving babies one more time, I'm out.
All of the gender critical people that actually HATE trans people, which there are a lot, are overshadowing the well-intentioned gender critical people that just have understandable concerns for women’s rights and problems related to youth gender medicine.
It's rough to be gender critical and have the trans mob make vile threats and try to destroy you. I mean, that's how Katie and Jesse ended up here on substack. Sometimes, unfortunately, people get tired of how hard the high road is.
The high road is worth it and can’t say I’m the best at it. The solution seems to be logging tf off!
Yes- we become our worst selves on social media. I am not to be trusted with it so I stay away. I am becoming bored of the trans topic; I think it’s burnout.
Yes. I can't not care about this, having a woke teenage daughter, and having multiple close friends' kids and multiple students who are caught up in this. It's very real and very close to home.
Exactly. And to hear ppl dismissing those with concerns of being in a moral panic (like my college friend), when many of these young activists don’t have any clue what it’s like to have children. They have nothing at stake other than their political tribe.
Agreed. I have a barely adult daughter caught up in this, and I have no idea where it's going. I wish I could just move on to something else.
I also read about a local gender fair in the local newspaper. I wonder if we’re in the same area. I am aghast. How did we move so quickly from promoting acceptance of, say, Caitlin Jenner to promoting transitioning of children?
I too cannot be flippant regarding Dylan because like you said, it’s so much bigger than Dylan’s ridiculous sexism and silly act. Our children are at real risk.
They should have detransitioners come & talk about their ongoing health issues from medicalization. (So glad I homeschool.)
Please send this suggestion to the TRAs who can't help but threaten the life of JKR any time she says anything about women. Or is this just a man's way of getting women to self-censor while the unhinged TRAs get to carry on using tactics of intimidation not only online, but IN REAL LIFE.
Examples:
• Riley Gaines being held hostage at SFSU
https://www.newsweek.com/moment-swimmer-riley-gaines-abused-trans-activists-viewed-450000-times-1793155
• Kellie-Jay Keen being nearly murdered in New Zealand
http://archive.today/ASh46
• a woman in her 70s being repeatedly punched by a man with a closed fist at the New Zealand event
https://twitter.com/Sorelle_Arduino/status/1639988067900481536?s=20
• gay rights icon Fred Sergeant being physically assaulted last year while peacefully protesting in Burlington, VT https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1571854465312890882?s=20
• a woman in Tacoma, WA, having her finger crushed in the grip of a man when she was at a Let Women Speak event last year — wait for it, AND has to refer to him with she/her pronouns in court.
https://reduxx.info/woman-assaulted-by-trans-identified-male-told-to-refer-to-him-as-female-in-court/
• 9 people were arrested last year in NYC last year at what was supposed to be a Let Women Speak event, but which was canceled because a violent mob of trans activists was breaking past police barricades.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/transgender-activists-clash-nypd-during-let-women-speak-event-arrested
So, yes, if you are a man so concerned with the high road, we can surely trust you to direct trans activists in the direction of the high road, and not just gender critical women.
No response. As expected.
I do not hate trans-identified people and I do not have “concerns”. The ideology at play is dark age nuts, and I am furious at what they are doing to kids and the most vulnerable women and women sports and the en mass gaslighting.
According to trans rights extremists the "well-intentioned gender critical people that just have understandable concerns for women’s rights and problems related to youth gender medicine" ALL hate trans people. They don't accept that there ARE any good reasons to mention concerns, and dismissively say those people are "just asking questions" in scare quotes. They literally "dEnY tHe eXiSteNcE" of well-intentioned gender critical people.
One of the most crazy-making things about this whole controversy is the readiness of TRAs etc to assume they know what is in the minds and hearts of the people who don't wholeheartedly agree with them. Mostly along the lines of 'You are expressing reservations because you actually HATE trans people', or 'Your alleged "concerns" are just a cover for your bigotry'. Never willing to engage with the actual reservations/concerns/arguments.
I'd suggest that anybody who actually HATEs trans people isn't gender critical at all, but a conservative, or further right
I truly believe there are trans people who feel the same way about TRAs and the effect they're having on the members of the community who just want to stay under the radar and live their lives in peace.
Incorrect.
Fretting over the feelings over trans people is the issue, not whether or not they're supposedly hated.
The question is where is the “line”? Because a lot of the time what it’s classified as “hate” is concerns about women’s rights or annoyance or critique with a little bit of cattyness or sarcasm around the edges. People tend to be very self righteous that their exact point is the right one and anyone at all beyond it is somehow evil.
Exactly. Anything other than 100% support is considered hate to them.
Forget Dylan Mulvaney.
Jesse has planted the seeds of the destruction of our little group.
Now that we know we have diaper fetishists among us, how can things ever be the same?
Are you uncomfortable? Do you need a change? (Couldn't resist).
I just need some Desitin. Badly.
Sorry if that was oversharing...
FYI: I have made a spreadsheet of who liked this comment. Anyone who didn't is on the Dipe List.
I'm sorry, I can't be arsed.
“It was one of those titties and beard situations.”
I've had several weekends in my 20s that perfectly fits that description.
I think it's interesting that Katie and Jessie immediately recognized Ollie London's grift but not Dylan Mulvany's. Those two are two side of the same coin: unstable, disingenuous, celebrity hungry performers who would do ANYTHING to get their 15 minutes (yes, even have surgeries and take hormones if it leads to that influencer lifestyle they so obviously desire). I don't believe Dylan is trans anymore than I ever believed Ollie London was Korean or trans. A cursory Google search brings up Dylan's past attempts to become famous (as an over the top, hyperactive "contestant" on The Price is Right, a silly bit part player on daytime shows like Ellen, etc). Dylan represents a "type" we see in the gay community often and most of us who have been around the block lear to steer clear of them. They are full of drama and are not to be trusted.
The Bud Light controversy is stupid indeed but Mulvany is still gross. I am grossed out by him not because he proclaims to be trans but because he is so clearly got a very lucrative new schtick that is so sexist and full of regressive gender stereotypes that it make Paris Hilton and the Kardashian's look principled. Sorry, Ive got no patience for that nonsense at all. He is free to rake in the cash behaving like and regressive female stereotype until his 15 minutes are up and and I am free to call him out for it.
It makes me barf in my brain. A grown ass man doing this little girl schtick is so off putting to me. I really dislike seeing anyone, but particularly a man, being applauded for parodying a woman.
Exactly, I reserve the right to call bullshit when i see bullshit. And Dylan Mulvany is a bullshitter extraordinaire. Watching people fall all over themselves not to misgender such an obvious grifter just shows how beholden people have become to the gender cult.
My kids did a Peep diorama for the library & chose Eloise... and I had to get over associating that with DM after his video dressed like the character. He’s creepy.