Trans Joy: A Guest Post by Dylan Mulvaney
Honest, hilarious and full of heart, this genuine account of a fascinating life is great for fans and newcomers alike. Read on for an exclusive essay from Dylan Mulvaney on how her viral Days of Girlhood social media series led to writing Paper Doll.
Hardcover
$25.00
$28.00
Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer
Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer
In Stock Online
Hardcover
$25.00
$28.00
Actress and content creator Dylan Mulvaney’s honest account of her journey through girlhood
Actress and content creator Dylan Mulvaney’s honest account of her journey through girlhood
“I think this might be a good phone call. Record a video if you can,” I say to my best friend, Keesh, on a very steep San Francisco street where we sit eating bagels on a late-summer day in 2022. I pick up the phone and it’s my book agents calling to tell me that the bid for my book has ended, Abrams won, and I am going to be a published author!
When I stepped into my authentic gender identity and started my series Days of Girlhood on social media, it led to some major wins for me. And this win on Day 173 was the biggest win yet. Not only would I get to write and publish my first book, but I was in the driver’s seat of its contents. The initial concept was a collection of journal entries from my first year of girlhood, and I had every intention of making them the funniest, silliest, most joyous journal entries the world had ever seen.
I was due to turn in the book shortly after my 365th day of transitioning, with a neatly tied bow. What neither I nor my publishers could have forecasted was the conservative media firestorm that erupted shortly after. As my polished cookie cutter life seemed to crumble around me, so did my willingness to submit my first draft. The transphobia I was experiencing was a wake-up call, and I knew that whatever or however I was going to address it, it could not be met with strictly positivity. I asked for an extension.
I fell into a depression, I dissociated, I dyed my hair blonde, I did ayahuasca, I got kissed, I smoked cigarettes, and I ran away from being anything anyone wanted me to be. A full year after that first draft was due (and a quarter-life crisis later), I was ready to try this again. I knew the book would not be what I initially imagined. Thankfully, my iconic editor, Sarah Robbins at Abrams, gave me permission and time to figure out what this book needed to be.
I channeled all of my pain into multiple essays. I now had a collection of journal entries from two years prior and a stack of essays tackling my mental health crisis, which was brought on by transphobic media. While some might have looked at the two piles and seen two separate books, I saw them as equally valuable in representing this past chapter of my life. While I think memoirs from the perspective of a twentysomething can be a bit eye-roll-inducing, I was proud of the words on the page and the stories I could share from my brief time on Earth. I hope the right people find this book and that they too might be entertained by its messy musings, and get to experience some trans joy.
Photo Credit: David Brandon Geeting