Opinion: Right-Wingers Hate Dylan Mulvaney’s Joy

It’s hard to understand why anyone would hate Dylan Mulvaney, but we had better try.

For those not in the know, Mulvaney is a trans actress who documented her gender transition on TikTok starting in 2022. An attractive, bubbly presence who never seemed to have a bad day, she gained a huge following and was even invited to speak with President Joe Biden at the White House. During Pride Month, Bud Light sent her cans of beer with rainbows on them, and she drank some on camera.

That’s it. While definitely an activist, she’s not an angry presence dedicated to destroying gender as we know it. She doesn’t do diss tracks or many reaction vids. The adjective that best describes her at any given moment is “nice.” She’s just eternally and easily nice, on camera and to every person she meets. A more inoffensive human can hardly be imagined.

And I think that’s what drives the right-wing crazy about her. Joe Rogan called her a “mentally ill attention [slur]” who had ruined a brand of beer for “blue-collar” Americans. Ben Shapiro said she was an “attention-seeking narcissist who wants everyone to give [misgender] money.” Candace Owens just accused Mulvaney of making up the death threats she had received after the partnership with Bud Light.

Part of this is the run of the mill transphobia that has obsessed the right for years now. As I’ve said before, targeting gender minorities is an old fascist trick. Mulvaney just happens to be the current, most-prominent target.

The majority of the hate, though, I think comes from the fact that Mulvaney is the living embodiment of trans joy. For years, trans people and allies have sought to win hearts through empathy. We’ve pointed out the terrible effects of untreated gender dysphoria and social discrimination, often harping on the increased rate of substance abuse, poverty, and suicide.

This unfortunately led to a framing of the trans narrative as one of misery. Well-meaning allies and even some trans people themselves painted trans people as a desperately struggling group trying to claw basic humanity from an unjust world.

What that narrative fails to capture is the sheer euphoria of finding your place on the gender spectrum. Mulvaney is ecstatic about who she is and what it means. Transitioning has made her life immeasurably better. I remember when she got her facial feminization surgery, watching her smile even when it clearly hurt to do so. The sheer sparkle coming off that woman was like a sea of fireflies. I haven’t seen a strut like that since Nicole Kidman got divorced.

Mulvaney is an avatar of the next phase of trans acceptance: happiness. Transitioning isn’t just something that prevents misery; it actively makes lives better. Anyone with a gender minority loved one can attest to the cautious wonder that permeates their lives as they become who they want to be. They crawl out of a cave and into the light, finding worth in existence and eagerness to join the great throng of humanity.

Mulvaney is hardly the first person trans person to do this, but she’s very good at it at a time when trans people are particularly under attack. The dirtbag right, dedicated to painting trans existence as a kind of Hell that is coming for your kids, have a vested interest in dimming her light. Any day they can make her dread getting up and being a public trans figure is a good day for them.

Because that joy she blasts effortless out into the world? It’s a danger to everything people like Rogan, Shapiro, and Owens stand for. She cannot be different and happy about it. That’s why they hate her.