Dear Sir,
Before I get into this, let me just clarify my feelings on Dylan Mulvaney. I don’t begrudge him his sponsorship deals; there’s nothing wrong with him being offered legitimate money and taking it. But yes, I said ‘he.’ Dylan Mulvaney is a lot of things, but he is not a woman.
I know transgender women in real life; they don’t act like over-the-top caricatures. No one does except drag queens, and with them, it’s a performance, often intended to be comedic. Dylan is also a performer in the sense that his overly flamboyant personality, both pre- and post- “girlhood,” is affected. Nobody acts that way naturally; it’s a way to get attention. Dylan clearly wasn’t getting enough attention as an actor, so he decided to try getting attention by being a woman.
Why do I care? Well, I don’t love that, on his first day of “girlhood,” he said (paraphrased) “So far, I’ve cried three times, I wrote two letters that I didn’t send, and I bought several dresses that I can’t afford. How am I doing, ladies?,” among the other constant, stereotypical ways he mocks women. But I probably wouldn’t care if he was just some random person on TikTok that people found amusing. Instead, he’s being taken seriously: invitations to the White House, sponsorship deals with women’s products, and Drew Barrymore kneeling before him on her talk show.
Ladies, please understand that you don’t have to be against the trans community to have a problem with Dylan Mulvaney. It’s okay to exercise a certain amount of common sense when it comes to this movement, and to not be cowed into shutting up for fear of a backlash.
The Bud Light boycott has been somewhat successful, prompting new marketing strategies and staff firings. Will this boycott put the company out of business? I doubt it; Anheuser-Busch will be just fine. However, consumers sent a powerful message in just one month. We could do the same with Maybelline. Like Bud Light, it’s an easy brand to boycott since there are many drug-store makeup brands that are just as good or better. Yes, the fashion industry has a much higher LGBT influence than the beer industry, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Frankly, I wouldn’t even be writing this article if Maybelline had used some other transgender person for their ads. I don’t see eye-to-eye with everything the LGBT community promotes these days, but I know what’s offensive, and Dylan Mulvaney is offensive to women.
The last tube of Maybelline Great Lash mascara that I bought will be the last ever. Do the same, ladies, and we can make our voices heard.
Emily Kirkman has a substack you can follow here. She can also be found on Twitter.
