Despite, or maybe because, of the fact that my parents sought to give me a well-rounded education as well as a mature sense of humor, I fell in love with Monty Python at a young age. Thus many a year has passed since I could quote large swaths of their work such as The Holy Hand Grenade or The Death of Mary Queen of Scots.

While reading the news quite recently, an old snippet kept floating around my head, like an annoying fly that won’t land but makes its presence very known. Something about a man saying it was his “right” to carry children, and the discussion of his friends hesitantly agreeing with him. It ended with all but one friend attempting to compromise that they would support him:

“Fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry. It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.”

While the lone and, in my humble opinion, the only true friend mumbles:

“Symbolic of his struggle against reality.”

And yet, our current society is celebrating many a person’s struggle against reality.

First, a disclaimer. It is after much thought, consideration, and discussion that I have decided to write on this topic. Analyzing someone’s mental health struggle, whether it is played out in private or public, is not something I ever thought I would write, let alone snark on. However, the fact that it is not only being celebrated, but those who are concerned are being silenced, is exactly why I feel I must write on this subject.

Let me set the scene: “Days of Girlhood” with Dylan Mulvaney, a twenty-six-year-old with a five o’clock shadow, who indeed should really be a mental health patient, is being celebrated and making millions. How, you ask? What great thing has Dylan done to be so celebrated that he’s now the face of multiple magazines, Olay, Covergirl, Nike’s sports bra line, and has been named a top woman to watch this year? Womanface. And according to Urban Dictionary, womanface is:

Men who deliberately behave stereotypically feminine (a lot of makeup, huge fake breasts, tight clothes and "slutty" behavior) to ridicule it, make a woman's face. It is a form of misogyny (sexism) that reinforces gender stereotypes.

Womanface is like blackface, but instead it's a man pretending to be an exaggerated and stereotypical woman. Well, this true woman is offended. Yet am I allowed to be offended? No! That is transphobic! However, let's break down that word, shall we? According to Merriam-Webster, transphobia is defined as:

1. Irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against transgender people

That very definition doesn’t make sense! The same Merriam-Webster says a phobia is an:

1. Exaggerated fear of

 

2. Intolerance or aversion for

No, I am not transphobic, because I am neither fearful of Dylan nor other gender-confused people.

I am good old-fashioned incensed:

1. To arouse the extreme anger or indignation of

Before I continue clutching my pearls while shrieking and squealing in an exaggerated feminine persona, a quick high-heeled hop off my soapbox for a little history on Dylan is in order. This is Dylan previous to March 2021. A failing wannabe actor:

Dylan decided back in March 2021 that he wanted to be a girl. Yes, a girl, not a woman, and thus the start of a daily TikTok vlog called “Days of Girlhood.” Girlhood. A then twenty-four-year-old man decided he wanted to be a girl. I’m sorry, but can anyone say fetish or at the least parody? We have a twenty-four-year-old male calling himself a girl. And talking about being a girl. And heaven forbid I need to remind anyone, that is not okay!

Merriam-Webster defines girlhood as:

1. A female child from birth to adulthood

 

2. Sometimes offensive: a single or married woman of any age

Since he was not born a female and is beyond the cusp of adulthood, it stands to reason that the second option is his use of the definition.

His opening TikTok starts with him grinning into the camera declaring: “It's day one of being a girl. And I have already cried three times, written a scathing email that I did not send, and when someone asked me how I was, I said ‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’ How’d I do ladies? Good? Girlpower.”

No Dylan, you did not do “good.” You did bad, toddler. I do not know a single mature and sane woman who would be so excited to tell the world she is so fragile that she’s cried three times in a day, written an email she then did not have the courage to even send, and then was too timid to admit today wasn’t grand and say “I’m fine.” No, all the women I know are mature enough to say, “I’m not fine, but I will handle it.”

Day two of girlhood starts with him wearing a horrendous dress that rather resembles my middle school attempt at a quilt while out shopping for “gorg, fem clothes.” All while his five o’clock shadow is out and proud. And it digresses from there.

So that is Dylan. The current sports bra model for Nike, a face for Olay, Covergirl, and so forth.

Dylan has also recently announced he has told his parents he is romantically into women and is now a lesbian, but that it will be his girlfriend getting him pregnant. Cue the sound of my pearl necklace fainting.

So, Dylan is a straight dude who dresses as a grandmother and most definitely flunked Biology 101. 

This isn’t a scene in a parody like Monty Python anymore. This is the world in which I am raising my children.

Does the world think putting on ridiculous clothes and makeup all while dramatically talking about crying is all there is to womanhood? That’s like using Lucy Ricardo as the teaching example of “how to be wife of the year.”

Allow me to ask a question: Why is it that I, a born female, am ridiculed by the world for wanting to dress in a feminine manner and do all things stereotypical of a woman? Yet Dylan can do an exaggerated farce of femininity and he is celebrated far and wide?

Let's talk about another highly celebrated male playing womanface. Lia Thomas, a six-foot-one male. A male who was epically failing at his chosen sport of swimming, as in he was ranked 462 as a male and decides he’s magically a woman and is suddenly first place as a “female.”

I feel so bad for all my female athlete friends. Too bad we can’t snap our fingers and get the enhanced athletic biology of a male!

Recently I heard a pediatrician and sports medicine doctor discussing this topic. He said that if a young woman were to come into his practice asking for testosterone to boost her performance, not only would he be medically prohibited, he would also be required to report her to the board of her sports team. Yet a male with much more testosterone than even the highest-dosed female athlete is allowed to dominate the sports and nothing is said.

But back to Thomas, he has thereby dashed the years of hard work and dreams of his truly female teammates. How is this fair? It isn’t. And now women are being called “transphobic” simply because we want a fair chance. That is why male and female sports are divided. Males have a biological advantage.

We see a lot in the media about “safe spaces” and “appropriation.” Where is our protection? Apparently, women are not allowed to have safe spaces. Yet it is being demanded of us that we share our bathrooms, changing rooms, and now sports teams with men who could dominate us with little effort. And we are called out as hateful.

So, between Mulvaney and Thomas, here we have two failures in their field: men who are now celebrated for squashing women to have a woman's spotlight.

So while the world celebrates the death of true womanhood, and as Monty Python plays out in the world around me, I will continue to fight for my rights to be a woman and raise my sons to respect rather than appropriate the women they encounter.

Thankfully there are a few who are still sane and who refuse to accept the new static quo. Piers Morgan recently discussed the Dylan Mulvaney mockery of women:

“I said that for someone who identified as a gay man until last year to be sporting a women’s sports bra, despite having no breasts, as ‘they’ pranced around like a clueless non-athlete, mimicking how a misogynist would scornfully depict a woman doing sport, struck me as a slap in the face to actual women.”

From Monty Python's Life of Brian:

Francis: Why are you always on about women, Stan?

 

Stan: I want to be one.

 

Reg: What?

 

Stan: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me 'Loretta'.

 

Reg: What?!

 

Loretta: It's my right as a man.

 

Judith: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?

 

Loretta: I want to have babies.

 

Reg: You want to have babies?!

 

Loretta: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.

 

Reg: But you can't have babies.

 

Loretta: Don't you oppress me.

 

Reg: I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb! Where's the fetus going to gestate? You going to keep it in a box?

 

Judith: Here! I've got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans', but that he can have the right to have babies.

 

Francis: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.

 

Reg: What's the point?

 

Francis: What?

 

Reg: What's the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can't have babies?

 

Francis: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.

 

Reg: Symbolic of his struggle against reality.