Dylan Mulvaney says ‘going blonde saved my life’ on second anniversary of publicly transitioning
It’s Dylan Mulvaney’s second anniversary of publicly transitioning, and the trans activist has explained that “going blonde saved my life”.
“It’s day 730 of being a girl,” the Days of Girlhood creator began on 12 March, recalling the “painful” lessons she learned in her second year of being in the public eye whilst transitioning.
“This past year, honey, it was a long one. You might comment, ‘Dylan, day one [of Girlhood] feels like yesterday’. But to me, these have felt like two long dog years.
“I think the theme of this past year was pain, and it’s not a bad thing,” she explained. “But it was so contrasting to the joy and ecstasy that I experienced in those early days, that it was almost comical, but also heartbreaking at times.
“Other times, I owned my pain, and I grew a thousand times stronger. The most beautiful part has been releasing from the pain and returning to innocence over and over again.”
With the backlash from the likes of the Bud Light fallout, and even recently after appearing in a photoshoot with Lady Gaga, Mulvaney explained that she has lost a lot of her “optimism”.
But the activist also explained that drastically changing her hair colour from an Audrey Hepburn classic brunette look to Marilyn Monroe blonde “saved her life”. While she acknowledged that on the surface it might seem superficial, she needed a makeover to practice bodily autonomy.
“Going blonde sort of saved my life. I was disassociating so much, and I needed to do something that made me feel like I had power over my body.” She went on to explain that had she not made a change with her hair colour, she might have ended up “spirling in the deepest, darkest depression” or doing “hard drugs”.
“Making lists have been a constant for me, because when I feel lost or out of control of my narrative, I look at all my options to prove to myself there isn’t just one way, and I pick the one that feels the least toxic,” she added.
Mulvaney also added that they feel passionate about promoting trans talent in marketing and in theatre, and supporting the industries to be able to support trans folk in those spaces adequately.
“Happiness is something that I will wait for again, even if I’ve lost it for a little while because I know it’s coming. What I haven’t lost is the hope, I still have it, and isn’t that a beautiful thing,” she concluded.
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