TikTok influencer and transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, who identifies as a "woman," won an award for Breakout Creator during the 2023 Streamy Awards on Sunday.
Mulvaney gained notoriety after releasing a "Days of Girlhood" series documenting the activist's life after coming out as a transgender woman in 2022.
"You know, I'm really shocked because I thought the only award I would ever maybe win was maybe a Tony award," Mulvaney said, accepting the Streamy Award. "But now, I'm a musical theater gal with a Streamy!"
The social media influencer said "theater TikTok" had become mainstream.
"532 days ago, I made a coming out video that turned into my days of girlhood series," Mulvaney said adding the TikTok influencer's life had changed for the better, though added there's been an "extreme amount of transphobia and hate."
"I know that my community is feeling it," the transgender activist continued. "And I now know that even our allies are feeling it."
Mulvaney said there were a lot of allies in the audience with platforms saying, "I think allyship right now needs to look differently."
"You need to support trans people publicly," Mulvaney said as the crowd erupted in applause. "I think the trans community and the creator community actually have something in common, and it's that people often underestimate us."
Mulvaney said the audience should stay positive about the future of "transness in general."
"If we can influence people to buy $22 Erewhon smoothies, we can also do this."
The TikTok influencer thanked the crowd and appeared to reference the controversial sponsorship by adult beverage brand Bud Light, saying, "I'm gonna go have a beer."
Bud Light has experienced a roughly 30% decline in sales since their April sponsorship of Mulvaney, though recent sales showed a slight improvement of sales being down 26.7%, per CNN.
“I took a brand deal with a company that I loved and I posted a sponsored video to my page,” Mulvaney said of the now infamous Bud Light advertisement in a June statement. “It must have been a slow news week because the way that this ad got blown up, you would have thought I was like on a billboard or on a TV commercial or something major, but no, it was just an Instagram video.”
"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, because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want," Mulvaney said of Bud Light. “It has serious and grave consequences for the rest of our community.”
“There should be nothing controversial or divisive about working with us.”
