Dylan Mulvaney makes wisecrack about the right’s Bud Light freakout in award speech

Dylan Mulvaney called out transphobia and urged fellow influencers to support the trans community in their content on Sunday night while accepting the Streamy Award for “Breakout Creator.”

The 13th annual Streamy Awards, recognizing the best in social media content creation, took place Sunday night in Los Angeles. Taking the stage at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel to accept her award, Mulvaney said that her life has changed for the better since beginning her “Days of Girlhood” series on TikTok over a year ago. The series of videos documenting her transition has brought the 26-year-old performer increased fame—over 12 million followers across both TikTok and Instagram, according to People—as well as making her a target for anti-trans hate, as she noted in her speech.

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“For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse, in my opinion, than not hiring a trans person at all,” she said.

“532 days ago, I made a coming out video that turned into my ‘Days of Girlhood’ series and my life has been changed for the better,” Mulvaney said. “But on the flip side, there’s also been an extreme amount of transphobia and hate, and I know that my community is feeling it and I now know that even our allies are feeling it.”

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“I look around this room and I see so many amazing allies that have platforms, and I think allyship right now needs to look differently. And you need to support trans people publicly and proudly,” she continued. “I think the trans community and the creator community actually have something in common. And it’s that people often underestimate us. But I know that we can stay optimistic about the future of trans-ness in general, because if we can influence people to buy $22 Erewhon smoothies, we can also do this.”

The anti-trans hate directed at Mulvaney reached a fever pitch earlier this year following her partnership with Bud Light. Conservatives blasted the beer’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, for sponsoring a transgender influencer’s content, calling for a boycott.

In June, Mulvaney spoke out about the controversy surrounding the partnership, revealing that the backlash resulted in “more bullying and transphobia than I could have ever imagined” and left her scared to respond or to leave her house. She also called out Anheuser-Busch for not standing by her during the controversy.

At Sunday night’s Streamy Awards, Mulvaney kept it light and optimistic, closing her acceptance speech with a winking reference to the Bud Light brouhaha.

“I love you so much, thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said. “I’m gonna go have a beer!”

Mulvaney later told People that accepting the award was “the best moment of my year so far.”

“It just means a lot to me, but I also think that the fact a trans person can win an award like this in such a scary time of transphobia — it makes me feel like there’s hope,” she added.