Do you remember when you first came across Dylan Mulvaney?
Maybe it was when she started making her videos about her gender transition journey, 365 Days of Girlhood. Maybe it was when conservative hosts started complaining about them.
When Mulvaney shared she started keeping some tampons in her bag in case any other women needed them there was outrage. ‘This is why there’s sometimes a shortage of menstrual products – trans women are hogging them all in the hope it’ll led them being saviours in restrooms’ the pundits screamed.
It might have been when Mulvaney was invited to The White House to speak to President Biden about LGBTIQA+ issues, or more likely when the world erupted after she made a sponsored video for Bud Light.
The furor and outrage about the beer brand doing an Instagram colab with the transgender social media influencer was massive. Kid Rock started posting videos of him shooting cans of the beer brand, Mulvaney was sent scores of death threats, TV news hosts turned red with rage, and the stock price of Bud Light nosedived.
I became aware of Dylan Mulvaney long before all of that. Mulvaney got her start in musical theatre appearing in Christmas productions of The Grinch and the touring production of The Book of Mormon. I first came across them when they popped up in an online video of a cabaret performance. I thought they were annoying, smarmy and overly gregarious.
It’s always challenged me when people say Mulvaney is annoying as trans woman. It’s not true, Dylan Mulvaney, to me, has always been annoying. It has nothing to do with their gender journey.
So, I was somewhat surprised when I selected their just released autobiography Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer at my favourite book shop.
It’s an insightful foray not into just Mulvaney’s thoughts and concerns as a person who is transgender, but this so much more than this too. Mulvaney is a child of the social media age, growing up in a world where popularity and social acceptance were measured by likes and comments, it’s a big part of who she is. Everything is potential content for the online world.
She’s also grown up in the world of performing arts, where validation comes from making people laugh, and the show must always go on. Mulvaney is also finding her way as an LGBTIQA+ person, brought up with religion, the associated guilt and pressures.
The book time jumps from her first year of transitioning gender, back to her childhood and high school years, and life as a jobbing actor. Then there are also sections written later, looking back on the madness, mayhem and dark times of beer-gate and the days that followed.
Boldly Dylan Mulvaney shares many experiences, from the effects hormones can have on your libido, to making decisions about surgery, learning how to tuck and buy better underwear, and how important comradery with other transgender people ‘in the trenches’ is.
We also get Dylan’s experience of the events, thoughts and feelings that led to her most controversial moments. When a woman in the next toilet cubicle asks Mulvaney if she has any tampons, Mulvaney’s response is not an explanation that she’s transgender, she just makes sure she has some next time. Then shares the experience in a video.
When a news company is looking for someone to ask questions of President Biden, they approach Mulvaney’s agent. “Firstly, you’ll attract a young audience” her agent explains. “But most importantly you’re already accustomed to the hate from the far right.”
The fallout from the appearance is alongside President Biden is as expected, but behind the scenes Mulvaney is also falling out with her mother who proclaims she doesn’t believe that young people who be allowed to transition and then quotes a whole bunch of erroneous right-wing talking points.
It’s a funny book. It’s a fascinating insight into someone who is trying to forge their way through gender transition, relationships, family, politics, LGBTIQA+ rights, a social media heavy world and celebrity. After zooming through this easy read,
I think I’m quite enamored with Dylan Mulvaney and definitely think the world should give her a break – but she’d probably accept a starring role in a Broadway musical in lieu of that.
Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer is out now from Sphere.
