Dylan is a trans TikTok influencer with over eight million followers, who documents each day since starting to transition. Starting every video with “Day # of being a girl.” In the videos, Dylan presents sexist stereotypes of what being a girl/woman is. One such video is on day 66 of Dylan's 'girlhood,' when Dylan had a “sleepover” alone; complete with a pillow fight. Another video has Dylan out hiking with high heels on. This is stuff that women would never do, and yet Ulta thinks Dylan is an authority suitable to speak for women and girls.
It’s not just Ulta either, Tampax also sponsored Dylans channel, and not even a year into transition, Dylan was selected by NowThis News to meet with Joe Biden to talk about trans issues. That's barely enough time for the hormones to make any noticeable changes. With the infantilization and appropriation, Dylan and companies like Ulta Beauty (now with the support of the White House) erase what it means to be a woman, and hurt the acceptance of LGBT people as a whole.
Oxford Dictionary defines a girl as “a female child.” Dylan is neither a female nor a child. For Dylan to pretend to know what it's like to be a girl is infuriating. Dylan is an adult male, who began transitioning as an adult just over 220 days ago. It comes across as someone who has Peter Pan syndrome. Much like Michael Jackson, Dylan seems to seek to re-live the childhood that was never had. Wearing clothing that is typically seen in children comes across as a fantasy or a fetish. One that companies which seek to improve their Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) score try to exploit.
For a group of people who insist they are against cultural appropriation and the “erasure” of people, progressives seem to do it a lot. The “trans women are women'' moniker amounts to the erasure of not only women, but of trans women as well. I am a trans woman, and I recognize that it is important to make a distinction between women and trans women. Neither Dylan nor myself will ever know what it’s like to be a woman.
We are both males, we both transitioned as adults. We don’t know what it’s like to get a period, or to go through the awkwardness of female puberty. What we do know is what gender dysphoria feels like. To have such a strong desire to present in society as the opposite sex, we endure the pains of hair removal, surgeries, and accept the unknown risks of taking cross-sex hormones. Why do people like Dylan and progressives want to erase that struggle? Shame. They are so ashamed of their sex they will try to force society into believing there are no differences between the sexes.
Womanhood and manhood are not a feeling, but a similar experience each group has based on their biology. Femininity and masculinity are similarities based on stereotypes. Progressives confuse the two groups. To claim to be overtly feminine is what it is to be a woman, or to be overtly masculine is what it is to be a man. A confusion they once worked to eliminate, they now embrace. Trans women and trans men have their own shared similarities that stem from having dysphoria. It is not right for us to claim we know what it’s like to feel like the opposite sex. It’s also not wrong for an adult to live their life in a way that they see fit, as long as it's not harming others.
Interestingly, they will call me “self-hating” for writing this article. For embracing who I am, and not who I wish I was. In reality, more people would be willing to accept trans people if they embraced their biological reality, and were willing to have nuanced discussions around that reality. Society accepted long ago that all people could enjoy makeup or other things typically associated with the opposite sex. That didn’t make them trans, or the same as the opposite sex.
That progress is being erased by progressives. Trans women are trans women, or males with gender dysphoria who take steps to live and present in society as women. That doesn’t make us the same as women, and it doesn't give us the authority to speak on what it's like to be women. In the end most people would have ignored the Ulta segment if it was labeled “The Beauty of being a trans woman.” It would have been accurate, non-offensive to women, and Ulta Beauty wouldn’t be facing boycotts from their largest customer base.
