Dylan Mulvaney Won‘t Be Silenced by the Right-Wing Freakout Over Her and Bud Light
What do Kid Rock, conservative tears, and a bullet-ridden case of Bud Light have to do with transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney? The answer should be absolutely nothing. Yet somehow, Mulvaney found herself the target of right-wing attacks due to a recently announced Bud Light collab with the trans TikTok star.
Last week, popular beer brand Bud Light celebrated Mulvaney’s first full year of girlhood by sending the creator a decorative can with her face on it. While the fun collab moment should have and could have just ended there, several key conservative influencers used Mulvaney’s post about the gift to spark a right-wing firestorm. Sebastian Gorka, YouTuber Vince Dao, and Candace Owens all lambasted Bud Light parent company Anheuser-Busch for supporting Mulvaney, an apparent coded message for their real problem: the unapologetic existence of trans individuals — especially when those people are connected to what’s seen as a “red state” cultural signifier. (In a viral video, Kid Rock even shot cans of the beer.)
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A spokesperson for the beverage company tried to minimize the controversy in a statement to Rolling Stone: “Anheuser-Busch works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics. From time to time we produce unique commemorative cans for fans and for brand influencers, like Dylan Mulvaney. This commemorative can was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public.”
Best known for her popular Days of Girlhood series, Mulvaney has been a constant target of right-wing attacks since she began posting videos documenting her transition. Last year, Senator Marsha Blackburn and transgender Olympian Caitlyn Jenner called Mulvaney’s videos about normalizing body differences “absurdity.” And she’s been a popular fixture in the mouths of conservative figures like Ben Shapiro and Daily Wire host Matt Walsh. On Tuesday night, Mulvaney seemingly flicked at the recent backlash, posting a TikTok simply saying “there’s been a lot going on” and acknowledging that she was feeling “a little down.” But while she hasn’t outright addressed the ridiculous Bud Light controversy, she’s perfectly aware that right-wing overreactions like it exist.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone leading up to Mulvaney’s 365th day of being a girl last month, the popular content creator discussed how a major part of her journey to womanhood involved changing how she interacted and responded to bad faith critiques.
“At first, I really took it as, ‘Oh, these people are giving me constructive criticism. Let me listen to them. Let me plead with them. Let me over explain myself. Let me see if we can find some common ground,'” Mulvaney told Rolling Stone. “And I’ve now realized that those things are not constructive. They’re pure hatred.”
A self-proclaimed people-pleaser by nature, Mulvaney said she had to make a conscious effort to stop trying to make everyone happy and instead start thinking about her own well-being — which meant focusing on the people who support her and tuning out the rest.
“I’ve now made a little bit of peace with the fact that people have a problem with my transness or with my joy,” Mulvaney said. “And that’s on them. That has nothing to do with me, and I have to think about the people that I look up to that celebrate this version of myself. Those are the people I should be listening to.”
Mulvaney also addressed conservative pushback in her Live Day 365 show at the Rainbow Room in March, showing a compilation video of pundits misgendering her and attacking her content. But as the audience booed, Mulvaney said that, over time, she’s grown a thicker skin.
“I think we’ve established that I really like to talk,” she said to a cheering crowd (and a live stream of 20,000 viewers). “So I don’t think they’re gonna have the best luck silencing me.”
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