Dylan Mulvaney praises trans community 500 days on from transitioning: ‘It’s been beautiful’
Dylan Mulvaney says she’s spent the summer dating (Getty/Michael Buckner)
Actress and social media star Dylan Mulvaney has shared a moving update with her fans as she marks 500 days since publicly coming out as a trans woman.
The 26-year-old TikTok sensation began detailing her transition journey back in 2022 through her “365 Days of Girlhood” social media series.
In April this year, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of her public coming out, she received a bespoke can of Bud Light with her face on it. After posting about the can on her Instagram in a 47-second clip, right-wing media and mouthpieces erupted with fury – prompting a furious backlash that still regularly makes headlines months on.
The Bud Light fiasco saw bottles of the beer brand trashed in supermarkets, celebrities shooting at boxes of the product in their gardens, and anti-trans social media trolls pledging to boycott the company.
In response, Mulvaney pledged to take her transition journey away from the internet and began directing her focus into writing a book.
Now, to mark 500 days since she publicly began her transition, Mulvaney has shared an update with fans on all of the things she’s learnt in the 135 days since celebrating her one-year coming out anniversary.
While she detailed some small, frivolous things she’s learnt – such as “blondes have more fun”, and how to adjust her Instagram setting so that only followers can comment on her posts – she also touched on the rabid response to her Bud Light post, and shared a moving message with her younger self.
“On day 398 I learned that misery loves company. I think a lot of people have difficulty seeing others happy and successful, especially when they don’t fit the standard of the patriarchy,” she shared, adding that the “pain” of the last few months felt like being on a school playground. “We spend so much time pointing out our differences that we have not been able to share our similarities.”
Reflecting on the past few months, which have seen shameless right-wing politicians and conservative commentators used her as a stick to beat the trans community with, Mulvaney said that it was the support of her fellow trans and queer siblings that got her through.
“You know who came through for me these last few months? It was trans people and queer people. A lot of [whom] saw all of this coming, because they knew what it was like to be burned and I didn’t,” she said.
“I gave myself and my identity to people who didn’t deserve it. Then the trans and queer community was there to pick me back up without pity. Thank god for that.”
Delving a little more into her journey with her gender identity and her physical transition, Dylan Mulvaney revealed that she began using hormone injections on “day 422” after coming out publicly.
“It’s been really beautiful to watch my body change and not having to talk about it,” she shared. Back in January, Mulavney revealed that she’d had facial feminisation surgery via an elaborate social media reveal, though she has since committed to being more private with her transition, thanks to advice from fellow trans icon Laverne Cox.
She went on to reveal that since the Bud Light backlash, “something really ugly happened”, whereby she felt she had to stop “using her voice” for the trans community, and focus on “being beautiful”. Now, it seems, she’s back in a place where she can use her platform to uplift her trans family.
Mulvaney rounded off the sweet update with a message to her “younger self” – who she said had always known they were trans.
“Today, on [day] 500, is dedicated to my younger self who didn’t get to celebrate so many awesome discoveries because I was just hoping to get by,” she said.
“Today is actually day 9705 of being a woman, because I’ve always been one. My four-year-old self knew that, my 10-year-old self knew that and my 15-year-old self knew that and they deserve to celebrate these wins too.”
The heartwarming post has been liked by more than 80,000 people at the time of writing, with trans changemakers including RuPaul’s Drag Race favourite Kerri Colby and artist Travis Alabanza sharing their love for Mulvaney in the comment section.
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