Dylan Mulvaney explains why she’s ready to take her transition journey away from the internet
Dylan Mulvaney is done with her Days of Girlhood era. (Getty/Emma McIntyre)
Trans icon and social media star Dylan Mulvaney has revealed her desire to take her transitioning journey offline following the furore around her Bud Light partnership.
In early 2022, Dylan Mulvaney, 26, began documenting her experiences as a young trans woman via TikTok, under a project titled ‘Days of Girlhood’. She even took the series live in a one-night-only performance back in March.
Her profile grew swiftly and she became a recognisable face on and offline, eventually reaching around one billion views on social media. Yet her visibility erupted to unthinkable heights earlier this year after she collaborated with beer brand Bud Light to celebrate the one-year anniversary of her coming out as trans.
The sight of Mulvaney sipping from a beer can with her face on it during a 47-second Instagram video sent right-wing politicians, trolls and bigots into the biggest frenzy of their lives.
Bud Light and other companies Mulvaney worked with, including Maybelline and Nike, faced intense, violent backlash, with Budweiser facilities even receiving bomb threats.
Musician Kid Rock purchased Bud Light just to shoot at it in his garden, while one poor soul even created a “100 per cent woke-free beer” for those sent spiralling by Mulvaney’s very existence.
In a new interview with Them, Mulvaney has expressed her desire to distance herself from the Days of Girlhood project, and take some time to go through her transition journey without sharing it for the masses online.
While she knows that her video series has brought joy to hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ+ people worldwide and given her a newfound level of fame, she wishes she had taken a moment to think before sharing the first clip.
“There’s a level of me that knows I wanted success … but I didn’t know it was going to be for my transness,” she explained.
“And I just kind of wish I could tap myself on the shoulder, right before I made that video, the first one, and just be like, ‘Hey, let’s not … let’s make sure you’re in a good place and you are safe and that you’ve had the conversations with the people that you need to talk to before you talk to everyone’.”
Mulvaney, whose very first public presence was gained through her role as Elder White in the touring musical The Book of Mormon in the US, is keen to be known more for acting than being a social media sensation.
“I don’t regret any of the things that I’ve posted, but I want to make sure that my transition is for me now,” she said. “It’s kind of like redefining a relationship – when it gets too personal, or too hands-on, it can be hard to scale back.
“I’m hoping that the people that do love me will be ready when I start doing things that aren’t just me trauma-unloading onto a camera.”
Before the Bud Light fiasco became one of the most disproportionately scandalous stories of the year, fellow trans superstar Laverne Cox advised Mulvaney – while she filmed their conversation – to “keep things for yourself” as “everything cannot be for the public”.
Cox was referring to Mulvaney’s facial feminisation surgery (FFS), which she said had been “all over TikTok“. Mulvaney has now revealed that she took Cox’s advice to heart.
“When we met, I’d already made a video talking about the physical experience of getting FFS, and I was planning on making another about the mental side … But I never did it, because what I took from meeting Laverne was that once I described that euphoria in a video and put it online, a piece of it goes away.”
As Mulvaney teases an upcoming secret book and attempts to move back into acting, it appears she could soon be ready for the next phase of her career. A quick look at her social media comments shows that her fans will be there, ready to support her wherever she ends up.
