TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who identifies as a transgender woman, said they felt worn down from being misgendered.
Mulvaney detailed the TikTok influencer’s feelings of being misgendered during an appearance on comedian Chelsea Handler’s podcast Dear Chelsea. The episode, titled “Love Ya with Dylan Mulvaney,” is a play on the TikTok influencer’s tagline “love ya.”
“That’s what I think a lot of these haters don’t realize, is that the mental effects of misgendering in the media— it breaks my heart because you know there are people calling me a man and I don’t right now— I feel like I’m not even processing any of it,’ Mulvaney told Handler. “I’m so scared to do that deep dive and to know what the effects are and I’ll say these haters, they really wore me down for a second.”
“Dysphoria truly— it feels like a darkness that kind of washes over you and it is those moments of being misgendered … that made me so sad.”
Mulvaney, alongside adult beverage brand Bud Light, was subjected to heavy criticism after the company sponsored the TikTok influencer last month.
Customers subsequently boycotted Bud Light as the company reported a weekly sales decline with a 26% decline the week ending on April 22, per Bump Williams Consulting. Bud Light initially saw sales drop 11% along with a subsequent 21% sales decline the following week.
“Larger packages of Bud Light are not being purchased — the 30-pack suitcases, the 20-packs, the 18-packs, the 12-packs — they’re all being impacted,” brand expert Bump Williams told the New York Post. “It’s going to be very, very hard to reverse the decline.”
Last week, Bud Light announced the company would provide a free case of beer to every wholesale employee following the boycott.
“Right now their compass is completely broken,” Williams said of Bud Light, suggesting the brand should apologize for their sponsorship of Mulvaney. “There’s no game plan.”
In Late April, Mulvaney broke a nearly month-long absence from TikTok saying there was “no way of winning over everyone” amidst the Bud Light controversy.
“I was hearing my name and I didn’t even know who they were talking about,” Mulvaney said, referring to criticism of the sponsorship as a “dissociative feeling.”
The TikTok influencer noted Mulvaney was criticized as a child for being “too feminine” and “over the top.”
“Here I am now being called those same things,” Mulvaney said, noting Mulvaney’s personality was that of a “theater person” and “camp.”
“Dehumanization has never fixed anything in history ever,” Mulvaney said, admitting the TikTok influencer was “nervous” supporters would believe claims of critics. “I’m just gonna go ahead and trust that the people who know me and my heart won’t listen to that noise.”
