CNN features trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney as game changer of the week
Mulvaney: “I didn't know what it meant to feel safe anymore. I didn't know how to speak on it.”
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From the March 14, 2025, edition of CNN's CNN News Central
SARA SIDNER (HOST): At a time when transgender rights are being rolled back at lightning speed, we speak to the influencer who exposed 365 days of her transition. But her story brought huge controversy, leading to a massive boycott by conservatives and protests that led her to fear for her life. Now she's back on the public stage, hoping to bring more understanding about a personal issue that has Americans so divided. Dylan Mulvaney is our game changer this week.
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SIDNER (VOICE OVER): There was a Bud Light boycott, even a bomb threat was called into a factory, all because Dylan Mulvaney is openly and unabashedly transgender.
SIDNER: Were you ever afraid?
MULVANEY: So much. I didn't know what it meant to feel safe anymore. I didn't know how to speak on it, if I was allowed to speak on certain things, and I didn't want to make anything worse for the rest of the trans community, because I really saw the trickle down of what was happening based on me having this large platform and speaking on things. People were taking it and using it against them in violent ways as well, over one Instagram video.
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SIDNER (VOICE OVER): She found her place in the world again and decided to take readers on an in-depth journey through 365 days of becoming a girl. As she puts it, a girl that began her journey in a conservative Catholic household.
SIDNER: You said that you came out at four. What did you say to your mom?
MULVANEY: I came to her and I said, I think I — God, made a mistake. He put a girl into a boy's body and she said, God doesn't make mistakes. And in many ways, I still believe that to be true. I don't think I'm a mistake, and I'm still finding a version of a higher power for, you know, my life now. I think a lot of the times queer and trans people feel alienated because they're, we're having religion and faith used against us.