Dylan Mulvaney and Lilly Tino. Two sides of the same trans coin. One is adored (mostly), the other reviled. In the Wild West of the internet, trans people have often become the targets of hate but the in-fighting for our community can prove just as toxic as the cruel words and violence we receive from cis people. Most of us are just trying to get by.
For research and SEO’s sake: Dylan Mulvaney is an LA based trans influencer who gained notoriety for her viral “Days of Girlhood” series on Tiktok where she currently holds 9.1 million followers. Her fame rose again when she was the target of a hate campaign after she made a video where she received a single commemorative Bud Light with her face on it and conservatives lost their shit, culminating in Kid Rock posting a video of him shooting a case of the beer with a semi-automatic rifle (but we’re the ones who are hysterical and need to calm down with our trans agenda 🙄). Her videos feature a lovely, approachable, giggly, smiley, and attractive young woman whose messages tend to revolve around “we’re more alike than different.” Her Tiktok’s average anywhere from 200k to a few million views. I’ve said this in other Substacks, but she and I started our transitions at roughly the same time. We had a similar following for awhile, and then she sky rocketed shortly after that. I was jealous for a time, but got over it. I have plenty to be proud of. I saw her at the premiere party of A Transparent Musical in LA. She was very pretty and very skinny. We said nothing to each other. Those I know who’ve interacted with her say she is lovely.
Lilly Tino is a trans content creator1 who lives in San Francisco and creates what many deem rage-baity videos. She’s usually on live streams eating at various cafés throughout the city, sometimes she’s correcting servers who mis-gender her or arguing with passersby who are looking for a fight. Recently her name’s been in people’s mouths because she made a video discussing her bottom surgery preparation at the happiest place on Earth, Disneyland. The video itself is full of double entendre and gauche use of a corn dog as a proxy for a penis. It’s awkward, but relatively harmless. Though try telling that to her commenters who grew infuriated that she would have the audacity to post something so “adult” at a place for children. As of this posting she also made a video taking selfies in Disneyworld women’s bathrooms. It’s uncomfortable, but nothing outright offensive. Considering I knew teenagers who did molly at Disneyland and gay guys who’ve had sex in the bathrooms, a trans woman talking about bottom surgery doesn’t phase me. But the comments are heinous. Though her following is 5% of Mulvaney’s at 419k, she is talked about amongst the community and our enemies a lot. Her videos average out millions of views, far more than Mulvaney. And people aren’t happy about it.
Though I’ve spend a lot of time on this essay let me be clear: I don’t give a fuck about Lilly Tino. You know who does, though? Almost everyone else on the internet who knows her, it seems. Many people say she’s a predator to other trans creators. “She needs to be de-platformed” “she makes us look bad” “[she’s] unbelievably harmful to the trans community.” These are all things I’ve heard from allies. Haters comment “check his hard drive,” and “sometimes bullying is okay” and “why a son needs a father.” Ugh, it’s rough.
And to all those people I ask, “don’t you people have anything better to do than to shit on this strange woman?” Stop talking about her. Does your armchair activism actually change anything?2 To quote TS Madison: Get a job!
Possibly the very same allies who champion Mulvaney say Tino is bad for the community. What I took from her very tone-deaf video is that Tino is a weird girl with poor social skills. It’s not like she ran up to children at Disney and said “hey kid, wanna see my wiener?” though that’s what conservatives fear trans people do, with names like “groomer.” Let me be clear: she did not do that. Tino’s a provocateur and with a very inflammatory video style. She posts so people talk about her more, thus raising her engagement score with the ever omnipotent algorithm. I have more than an inkling she’s on the spectrum (though whether that’s true or not doesn’t really matter because I know plenty of autistic people who don’t behave the way she does). I say this for context that maybe she doesn’t realize the supposed harm she’s causing her own community. Her intent is educational and quirky but her impact is detrimental.
I’m reminded that in the beginning of Mulvaney’s transition the now semi-adoring public were cruel to her as well. Hell, they’re still cruel in the comments. But she’s the people’s trans princess, our Glinda. If we can’t handle her, do we really think we can handle the outspoken Tino? The people’s Elphaba? From what I can tell, Tino’s seems like a sad lonely woman who only learned how to connect with people through getting attention by any means necessary. I predict in a few years she may very well become a conservative. If you hate her now, oh baby, just wait for that to happen.
A trans big sister of mine told me once that there will always be one trans girl the world talks about. One they adore and scorn. That’s what it is to be a woman. She told me this while Dylan Mulvaney was gaining traction on the internet and I felt a twinge of envy that my meagre 130k followers on Tiktok wasn’t stacking up against her millions. She shared many examples of this throughout history. In the 50’s Christine Jorgensen was the first American trans woman to undergo gender confirmation surgery and her story bumped Queen Elizabeth’s coronation off the front page. In the 70’s Renee Richard’s stormed women’s tennis. In the early oughts Alexis Arquette started making a stir amongst her famous siblings. Laverne Cox in 2014 (the third time I’ve mentioned that Time magazine cover). The ladies of Transparent and Pose after that. Caitlyn Jenner after that. The public remains ravenous for a story about a trans woman, be they alive or dead.
Even in literature this is the case. I’ve been making headway through my to-be-read pile of books for the last couple months. Most of the books have been written by and center trans women. In this research I’ve come across a few common themes:
1) Trans women are never quite happy. All these stories center women who live in a system that doesn’t allow them to thrive.
2) Many trans women resent passable beauties. The dolls who started hormones in high school. Though these comments are fleeting in these stories they’ve popped up in enough disparate books to take notice.
3) Most trans women get in their own heads and tend to stay there. This is understandable since we had so many thoughts telling us that we were girls growing up, but couldn’t act on it until we had language, agency, mentorship, healthcare, money, and safety. Logic can feel like an enemy when the world didn’t make sense to us, so we make space in our minds to sort things out.
4) I’ve yet to meet, whether in book form or real life, a trans woman free of trauma. Though these words are overused these days as therapy speak permeates quotidian life, almost all trans people overcome incredible set-backs.
5) Money does not equal safety, though it helps. Look at Zaya Wade, daughter of actress Gabrielle Union and former NBA player Dwayne Wade or Vivian Wilson, estranged daughter of Elon Musk. Both were born into the aristocracy but are not free from public backlash.
I write all of these to say the obvious: being trans is hard. And yet, even our allies, the people marching in the street or donating to the Trevor Project or reporting transphobic comments on livestreams, even those people are policing their idea of what it means to be trans. And now they’re doing it through Lilly Tino.
I like to bitch and moan as much as the next girl. It’s part of coping. Men have podcasts dedicated to avoiding this human nature. Women “gossip” as a means of communication and also to vent. But I don’t go on TikTok and make videos about how Tino’s bad for the cause and should kill herself. I do the much more mature and not at all ironic activity of writing a Substack about her haters 😌.
Tino seems to be getting it from all sides. Even though I could not care less about her, I feel like I need to protect her. I dislike damn near everything she posts, but here I am “both sides-ing” her behavior, sheesh. I worry I’ll run into her on the streets of San Francisco getting into fights with wait staff instead of getting over it like every other trans person. Or that she’ll be live streaming from a cafe I’m reading a book at. Or that she’ll DM me and ask to “make content for her Only Fans” as apparently, she did with @colliebean_ a trans content creator who was far from interested. The woman leaves a wake of controversy everywhere she goes, but part of me wonders, is she really that harmful to us? Or worse, is it a good thing she’s the scape goat dujour because it gives conservatives, TERFs, and armchair activists an easier target? Trump and the far Right have done more harm to trans people than she has, so like… is she really setting us back? 😬
Suffice it to say, she’s not perfect, she’s participated in plenty of cancellable behaviors. She’s annoying, awkward, and radically unaware. And I ask myself and the internet and the void again: WHO CARES?
Leave her alone. Stop engaging with her. Block her, you don’t need to interact. Are rage watchers really that underdeveloped mentally that you can’t shut off your phone when you see her? Or that invested in someone you’ve never met? Didn’t we learn from Chappell Roan and John Mulaney that parasocial relationships never end well? Anytime I even open her comments it’s filled with trolls calling her a man, writing her deadname, mis-gendering her, posting 4chan-esque cartoons of her, or saying she faked her facial feminization surgery, aka FFS.
Let her be problematic in peace. I can’t believe I’m defending a woman I don’t even care about. When did I suddenly become Henry IV marching into battle for this girl?3 She doesn’t have the opportunities Dylan has, and yet I feel for her. All three of us transitioned around the same time and Dylan was kissed by the gods of fame and fortune and skinniness and familial wealth. Lilly doesn’t seem to be. I mean, she may be wealthy, I don’t know how she affords so many meals or trips to Disney Parks. But again, my refrain from my women’s sports piece and my refrain regarding almost all trans issues: who cares?
Tino also just seems so cringe. She’s radically unaware of how she comes off to people. There’s a time in every trans woman’s life where she hypes herself up despite the five o’clock shadow, slaps on some drug store foundation, spends fifteen minutes on her winged eyeliner and steps out the door in a too short dress. And she thinks she’s the most feminine thing on the block. I’ve done it, all dolls have. Can’t nobody touch her. We must walk through that fire to get to the places we want to go (and where I feel I am today). Where we simply are feminine.
It does always come back to misogyny and capitalism doesn’t it? If you’re rich enough no one cares what you look like. Or you can pay to look like whatever you want. Or put enough effort into looking like our current standards of beauty. Tina Fey writes in her oft quoted Bossy Pants passage:
“Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.”
One of Tino’s latest video series, as with many trans women, is her recovery process after FFS.4 The main goal of these surgeries is to alleviate dysphoria. The added effect may be cosmetic, but the journey to get to those cosmetic effects go through the town of gender affirming care. The surgical plan differs with each patient as every person’s face and transition goals are different. Some girls have very thick hair but feel their jaw is too masculine so they’ll opt out of hairline advancement. Or their nose reminds them of their father’s so they’ll opt for rhinoplasty but they love their full lips. Suffice it to say, each procedure is incredibly personal and the journey to get there is far from easy or quick.
Someone commented on an old post of mine where I made a joke about my FFS hairline scar, asking who did my surgery. The only other post they had on their page was about Lilly Tino. I was worried they’d tell me I looked like her. I blocked the commenter.
This whole tangent is to say: FFS is the start of a journey, and it’s personal. Dylan Mulvaney had the privilege of seeing Dr. Harrison Lee, who famously did Caitlyn Jenner’s FFS.5 All these women got these done to feel more aligned with who they are, and people think their opinions are deserving of the world stage like these ladies. I don’t enjoy Tino’s content or think she’s a good ambassador for the trans community, but seeing the comments on her post like “you put the sir in surgery” is a disgusting display of transphobia and misogyny. These comments are probably coming from a majority of people who know nothing of how that journey goes. Or what it takes. Perhaps it’s trans trolls just farming data and sewing discord, but I have to believe it’s cis people spewing hate. I know anyone reading this will probably agree with me, but still, I have to say, it’s gross to see people tearing down a trans woman for her looks when she’s doing something to make herself look more feminine and adhere to current beauty norms and standards of women, regardless of cis or trans.
I don’t see Tino as any more harmful than Blair White or Caitlyn Jenner, two trans women the news cycle and zeitgeist like to remind the populous about when Fox News needs a sound bite. I wouldn’t say any of these women have clout in the community. Their fan bases are probably cis people and self hating chasers. Arguably TS Madison is more powerful, and she’s a tv personality and former sex worker. Blair White has 1.5 million followers on YouTube. Caitlyn Jenner (who hit and killed a man with her car) is nowhere to be seen and rarely mentioned on the Kardashian’s anymore. So who’s to say who’s more harmful?
We love to tear down a woman as soon as she doesn’t conform to our ideas of femininity. Whether that be looks wise or politics. Dylan Mulvaney’s videos asking “is now a good time” come off as performative to me, but to each their own. We have mutual friends who tell me she’s lovely and aware of how she comes off to people, so hey, what do I know? Can’t women be complex and problematic? Can’t you choose who to listen to and not demand they be silenced? Or if you agree with their message but loathe the ship it sails in on, as with Tino, can’t you just, I don’t know, get over it?
Also, I must acknowledge that Tino and Mulvaney are, say it with me: WHITE. All the privileges and strengths that come along with that identity are not lost on me. I doubt creators like Jools Lebron, famous for “very demure, very mindful” and Essence who coined the phrase “paint the dl trade” receive the same opportunities as Mulvaney. But the way to get noticed is to provoke outrage. The way Mulvaney has done and Tino is doing. Is that the only way for trans women to get ahead in this world? I hope not.
The most meta and fucked part of all of this: I’m part of the problem. In even writing this post I’m adding to the discourse. The most powerful tool humans have nowadays is our attention. Tech disrupters learned how to capture our focus and content creators/influencers have ridden the wave. So now virality is the key to success. There are many ways to go viral: enraging people like Lilly, endearing them like Dylan, entertaining them like Jools, or confusing them like many others. Trans people are less than one percent of the population, each of us has to endure a crucible to find ourselves, and once we’re there there’s another mountain to climb, be it FFS, bottom surgery, the internet, or discriminatory policy/law. What I leave you with is this: be kind. My mother taught me when my sisters were being mean to me, “You don’t need to engage.” And neither do you.
I was gonna end the story there with an anecdote of Rupaul-esque words about being nice to oneself, but then I saw this targeted ad from Art Basel. Art Basel is an international art fair held in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Miami. I first heard about it in Mean Boys by Geoffrey Mak, because I’m not hip enough to go to the actual event. In the clip, a twinky go-go dances in a reflective silver Speedo with headphones on to unheard music atop of small platform around 10 ft square. The comments read something like “this is ridiculous, who cares?” But also, “this is a seminal work by a significantly quiet artist.” I later learned the piece is by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, who has created such experiential contemporary masterpieces as “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.). The work appears to be a pile of candy in a corner that viewers take a piece of. The weight of the pile is equal to that of the artists’ lover who died of complications from AIDS. So there’s more to this go-go dancer than meets the eye. The silence is intentional. The speedo is intentional. The observing public is intentional. It’s quite profound when you think about it.
And it got me thinking, are these trans content creators just doing their version of Gonzalez-Torres’ work? Something as absurd as watching a handsome semi-nude young man dance around to silent music? Or two clocks clicking in synchronicity, another of the artist’s seminal works. And honestly, I think these trans celebrities kind of are.
There’s something deeper going on here. But people lack the awareness, social understanding, and context clues to get to a deeper level. Mulvaney and Tino are doing the same thing and represent the same miasmic trans woman the public fears and desires. But we have to vastly different reactions to their journeys. Why, oh, why are we so cruel to some and kind to others? We should be lifting all of us up. Isn’t that what every protest is chanting about? The wrath of the few to tear down the powerful. The chance to make wrongs right? But instead we destroy those whom we disagree with and try our best to forget about them. So why are we angry when Lilly Tino harnessed that hatred and made money from it? Dylan is a celebutaunt who socializes with Kathy Hilton and Chelsea Handler. We’ve stopped being cruel to her... mostly. I think it’s because she now looks like the girls we idolize. But Tino doesn’t, and maybe never will.
My dearly departed, oft infuriating, and always feared acting teacher Melissa Smith once yelled at our graduate cohort “the theater is not a house of comfort, it’s a house of provocation,” which I immediately wrote down. First, because like, how cunty is that? And second, she was correct. Aren’t these little anxiety boxes in our hands a kind of miniature theater? Also a town square? A speaker’s corner? And a showtime performance on the train? A health tracker and a detective? So doesn’t it make sense that Lilly Tino would provoke with her ill themed videos? And rich white girl Dylan Mulvaney shows up as the other side of the coin? And Jools LeBron was lucky enough to ride the wave of her success out of poverty? There’s example after example of art being made for passive observation. You can hate it, you can love it, but you’re still talking about it. Even in loathing, as Elphaba and Glinda sing about, there’s still a sense of love between them. So go ahead, poke the bear, but be sure you got your trainers on and legs stretched because you’re gonna be running away from an apex predator known as the trolling public as soon as you post it.
I’ve learned the terms are not interchangeable. According to Google AI “A content creator focuses on producing high-quality, engaging content, while an influencer leverages their audience reach to promote brands and products”
Irony of all ironies, the discourse has achieved an even more meta level because now I’m talking about people who talk about Lilly Tino. I’m the Serial Serial podcast of trans influencers.
Jesus, is that the fourth time I’ve mentioned that play? I should really read it if I’m gonna keep referencing it.
This series of surgeries are a choose your own adventure in gender affirming care. The main goals are to adjust masculine features made more prominent during testosterone induced puberty. The usual procedures are hair line advancement, brow shave, brow lift (aka blepharoplasty or a bleph), upper lip lift, chin shave/ jaw contour, rhinoplasty (aka a nose job), Adam’s Apple shave, cheek implants, and I’m sure there are others I’m not even aware of.
A small aside about Miss Jenner: imagine being a trans woman living with that family. Your wife and daughters are the most beautiful women in the world and do every single procedure available to conform to those standards they uphold. What an exquisite torture she endured. I almost feel bad for her. Too bad she’s a monster
So good