23, 414 Days of Being a "Girl" Cliff Notes

Men Win (Again) During Women's History Month

Yes, I took out my calculator and added up all the days I have been alive since I was born in July 1957—I feel like Mrs. Methuselah, but I also feel over-qualified to talk about my 23, 414 (give or take a few) days of being a woman, or what Dylan Mulvaney calls, being a “girl.”

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the Tiktok phenom Dylan Mulvaney. A little over a year ago, they began their “365 Days of being a Girl” series on Tiktok, when boy Dylan decided to become girl Dylan.

It seems being a pre-menstrual middle-school girl is what Dylan really wants to be, with a body that is exactly like my 14-year-old grandson’s, and the temperament of my 13-year-old granddaughter: watching Dylan is like watching them play all the parts in one of Jovie’s giggly-volatile sleepovers. There will be all night giggling, or drama, and usually at least one temporary friendship’s end—a lot of us have been there, and done that!

The shilibs all over, including Sloppy Joe Biden celebrate Dylan’s girlhood journey, but cancel any biological woman (or man) who dares criticize any part of Dylan’s path to “womanhood,” or stake a claim to their own path.

Dylan’s recent angst is that they haven’t had their “first kiss” as a girl. Many of us women who count our days with more than three-digits know the terror of being a young girl who was molested, or raped by a teacher, relative, neighbor, or other male authority figure. Of course, it happens to boys, as well, and maybe Dylan has been molested? I don’t know, but, turning oneself into a caricature of a young middle-school girl certainly won’t protect Girl Dylan from that kind of abuse, but, it seems they can’t get a date, even with being wealthy and famous. Forsooth, the troubles of girlhood. Of course, transwomen are also vulnerable to violence. Violence, and vulnerability that we lifelong “girls” certainly do understand and sympathize with, but even transwomen are stronger than biological women, most of the time.

I was first exposed (no pun intended) to Dylan the first day they shaved, put on a dress, too much make-up, and pony-tails and became a “girl.”

Writing an angry letter they didn’t send, going shopping and being unable to make up their mind, and replying “nothing” to being asked if anything was wrong, summed up their first busy day of girlhood. I was certainly annoyed that my five-digit days of womanhood were reduced to trivial middle-school girl shit, but Dylan’s over-the-top cheerful trans joy has made me reflect on what my womanhood has been like.

My first day of being a girl started on July 10, 1957 at 1:41 pm in Inglewood California when I was pulled out of my mother (birthing parent to Dylanites) and the OBGYN exclaimed, “It’s a girl,” probably just to himself, or attending nurses in starched white dresses and pointy hats, because my mom was knocked out and my dad was smoking and pacing in the father’s waiting room. My parents tried two more times, then my dad got what he really wanted: a boy. Said boy was very talented at baseball, so said boy always got new cleats, or a new glove, when my sister and I walked around with holes in our sneakers, but I digress. Needless to say, my first day of being a girl was attended by some family fanfare, and there is a nursery photo of me, but no Tiktok fame, alas, since I still don’t have a Tiktok account on day 23, 414, of being a girl. I am not sure if Dylan is a Tiktok star, or Instagram star. Who cares?

I was a tom boy? Tom girl? Like many children growing up in the 1960s, boy, or girl, alike, our free days were filled with playing any kind of outdoor game or sport with neighborhood friends, climbing trees, swimming in the summer (all topless when we were toddlers), playing Army, or the now discredited “Cowboys and Indians,” but our Indians did win, a lot, and we all wanted to be an Indian. With the advent of Beatlemania, came my first crush on a “boy,” Paul McCartney.

My fun days of tom boyish behavior started to change one evening at the end of my 6th-grade year. I was almost 12, and the family had been at the ballpark for one of my brother’s games (my sister and I were also very into softball and played Bobby Sox). As usual, we were running around, climbing trees, playing tag, and other rambunctiousness. After we returned home, I was getting ready for bed, and when I pulled down my shorts, there was more than a spot of blood on my underwear! My younger sister Dede laughed her ass off, and my mom came in and asked, “Do you know what this is?” Then set me up with my own Kotex pad and garter strap to hold it in place (remember, women of 5-digit days?). After that, I began my transition to womanhood. When I wasn’t babysitting younger baseball siblings, I would keep score and actually chat with my mom and her friends in the stands, instead of doing what I really missed, but somehow, this transition seemed natural to me. Eventually, the cramps that kept me home from school or work sometimes, the breast aches and tenderness, and general feeling of crabby-ness came to visit with predictable regularity.

Jump a decade into the future, and then my woman’s body actually grew another human being inside of it! I was transfixed by the miracle of this natural body function! My body actually gave my growing baby a lifeline with the umbilicus and the productive pain of natural childbirth bore fruit in a lovely baby boy. Even if Dylan’s girl days add up to 5-digit stature, they will never feel the pain, and transformative joy, of giving birth. Of course, many biological women make the choice not to go that route, and that choice is respected and honored by most women. I think most of us would respect and honor most fully-informed, life-affirming choices most ADULTS make, as long as they aren’t hurting other people, or forcing other people to make their same choices, right? Right?

The responsibility of childbearing is sobering (I did it three more times); child-rearing fluctuates between joyful and painful, with every emotion in-between.

Almost two and a half decades after Casey’s birth, I experienced the heartrending, and soul-crushing woman’s pain of child death. Not that Dylan will never experience the pain of loss, and perhaps they have already, but any mother who has buried a child can think with envy, and relief, that Dylan won’t ever have to experience that. Burying a child is something that I don’t even wish on my worst enemy, it is that terrible, that unnatural, that abhorrent. However, almost 19-years later, I can look back and give my overwhelming grief the sacred space it deserves. I have slowly come to realize that I joined a tragic sisterhood of women that were forced to don life everyday and pretend to be in it (like Dylan pretends to be a girl),to struggle to be fully alive with the flow of life, loss, birth, and death.

Ironically, Dylan can still father a child and seriously wants us all to “normalize the bulge” and I am not minimizing the father’s side of losing a child, but we mothers have an essential connection to our children: our bodies grow and feed them, our (my 5-digit days, now saggy) breasts hopefully nourish them: we spend many sleepless nights worrying about their health or safety, even when they are adults.

Maybe being a girl is about shopping, manicures, margaritas at lunch, make-up, and watching the “struggles” of the Kardashian clan, but being a woman also consists of so much more than that, and, sorry, only women can know about most of it. Sometimes I like the trappings of being a girl, myself, but women got some shit to do.

International Women’s Day this year seemed to be all about honoring men in woman face—even Hershey’s got into the “fun” of honoring transwomen, over biological women. Men who can’t even keep their manhood fully concealed in their swimsuits are beating the crap (literally and in competition) out of biological women and being awarded for their efforts with sponsorships (Tampax even offered Mulvaney one), trophies, and winning court cases to participate in women’s sports.

Not only are cocks and balls allowed in former safe spaces like women’s locker-rooms, but fully-intact men are even being, in some cases, allowed to invade spaces like women’s prisons to make the experience even more harrowing for the trapped females.

I am not a transphobe, or bigot, or TERF. I am a woman. I am a mother. I am a grandmother. I am human.

I desperately want Dylan to feel safe as a “girl,” but I also want myself and my girls/women to be safe. I don’t want the wide-breadth of womanhood to be reduced to the universe of Barbie’s younger sister, Skipper: skipping around in dangerously high heels, and being given accolades for being so “brave.” As an actor, I often wonder if Dylan is not just capitalizing on shitlib trans-worship, evidenced by the actor Drew Barrymore getting down on her knees to Dylan on her talk show? Dylan is definitely a talented performer who was doing well even before he became Girl Dylan, but, now they are Greta Thunberg-like adored.

I truly hope Dylan gets his first kiss as a girl, but I also hope my sisters in war zones, and inner-cities find some comfort and safety for their children. I wish I didn’t have to live in a world where I, my granddaughters/daughters still have to be fearful of abuse and rape—no matter how a male dresses, or acts, they are usually stronger/bigger than most girls, or women.

I reject Dylan’s efforts to “normalize the bulge,” as I reject normalizing fully-intact, hairy men invading women’s prisons, locker-rooms, and restrooms. If my gym allows men to start using the women’s locker room, I will take my 23, 414 day-old boobs, my body that never, ever fully got back into shape after childbirth, and my dusty vagina into their locker room and see how they like that!

Look at me! Love me! Adore me! Worship me! Give me more likes!

Today, on my 23, 414th day of being a “girl,” I will pick up grandchildren from school, do some light housework, figure out how to feed myself with $11.11 in my bank account, maybe go to the gym? I will prep my videocast with my gay young friend, Dakotah Lilly, about the horrors of the aftermath of the US invasion/occupation/destruction of Iraq almost 20 years to the day; but I won’t be giving myself a huge narcissistic party at the Rainbow Room in NYC, like girl Dylan.

Dylan is extremely likable. I’d like to grab an afternoon cocktail with them. Hanging with Dyl would be a fun change from the life of being a 23, 414th day-old girl, but, I am extremely into my 23, 414th day of being a girl, not so likable, and I have transitioned into the “crone” phase of girlhood, for sure. At least I am not bleeding out of my girl parts anymore, and neither is Dylan.

I have also found by 23, 414 days of being a “girl,” that we slowly start to become invisible, and few people listen, or care what we say—so there is also that liberating force!

Happy 365 days of being a girl, Dylan. May the goddess of girly-ness bless you with many blessings. I truly hope your life turns out the way you want, but, sorry, Girl Dylan, life rarely does unless you are a Disney princess, and that’s not real life (oh, wait).

Carry on, Cindy, onto day 23, 415, if the goddess wills it.

The Three Ages of Woman by Gustav Klimpt

Maiden, Mother, Crone

(I’m the one on the left)

(I do realize that there exists a condition known as acute gender dysphoria, and I hope that, like the people deemed vulnerable to Covid, they get the full-help and any medical/emotional intervention that they need. This piece was about dressing up to be a girl and expecting all of the benefits with none of the distress).

Paypal: CindySheehansSoapbox@gmail.com

MAKE A TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION

SEND CHECK/MONEY ORDER/CASH/DARK CHOCOLATE:

CINDY SHEEHAN’S SOAPBOX, LLC

PO BOX 6264

VACAVILLE CA 95696

or become a paid subscriber