Dylan Mulvaney’s Broadway Debut Rattles Bigots
Dylan Mulvaney has been cast as Anne Boleyn in the musical SIX for her Broadway debut next month, shocking hateful losers everywhere.
by Aly Gibbs
I regret to inform you all that Dylan Mulvaney is making headlines once more for, like before, the unforgivable crime of being transgender and existing. Please, if you need to take a moment to process her sins in your heart and mind, I understand… I’ll be waiting for you when you return.
Okay. All better? Let’s proceed.
SIX is a musical about the lives of Henry VIII’s six wives. If you’re unfamiliar, Henry was a brutish dweeb who embraced the Church of England because the pope wouldn’t let him divorce his wives for failing to provide for him a son who could inherit the throne, leading to a spate of annulments and two whole ass beheadings. Now, far be it from me to critique a foreign nation’s domestic policy, but I have to say that seems like an extreme punishment to me!
Well, if you aren’t sent into an apoplectic rage by the existence of Dylan Mulvaney, you’ll be excited to hear that she’s making her Broadway debut as Anne Boleyn in SIX. If you fall into the other camp of apoplectically enraged twerps, I have bad news for you… not only is Mulvaney scheduled to continue existing, she seems to be daring to thrive.
Mulvaney posted to TikTok about her new role on Monday, reviving her Days of Girlhood video blog series, which has followed the general arc that most trans women experience of ceaselessly yapping about their transition for a couple years then getting sick of it because everybody’s being a big fucking weirdo. She explains in this video that her debut will be in February, that estrogen has made her feet smaller, and that most people have been very kind about her taking the job.
There are, of course, the wolves. Mulvaney admits that, because some people have come around to be hateful losers, her impulse was to make a video defending her talent as a performer. “Then I realized, I shouldn’t waste my breath on that,” she says, “because this is a miracle. It’s a miracle for anyone to make it to Broadway … but being a trans person in 2026, when this world is working against us in what feels like every way, for me to be able to step out onto a Broadway stage as Anne Boleyn and perform an iconic historical character’s role in a show that is so rooted in celebrating femininity, I think that’s a miracle.”
It’s a beautiful, stirring message, but again… the wolves. Conservative internet trolls on X harassed the production’s social media account so doggedly that it had to go on lockdown for a period of time, and their Instagram post announcing Mulvaney’s casting had its comments disabled to prevent a deluge of hateful chumps from flooding the announcement with bigotry. Mulvaney is no stranger to online controversy; you’ll probably recall the backlash against Bud Light, bread in a can that impairs your judgment, for gifting her a custom sixer. This debacle led to Kid “Bawitdaba” Rock, writer of such inspired lyrics as, “My name is Kid Rock,” mowing down a case of Bud with an assault rifle, a normal and measured response to nothing important happening.
Listen, I’m not a musical nerd or theater kid. I went a different direction when I was in school (to my detriment, I suspect), and as an adult I’ve only fallen in love with a handful of productions.
My favorite musical is probably Elisabeth, a story sung in a language I don’t even speak, if that tells you anything about me. That said, I agree with Mulvaney when she says this sort of thing is a miracle, and I’m so happy for her and proud of her. She has every right to pursue her joy, and so do all trans people, despite what the powers that be want us to believe. To that end, I’ll leave you with her parting words from the TikTok announcement, a sentiment I have long held and will always echo:
“If there are any queer or trans kids watching, I just want you to know that you can literally do anything. Maybe that’s theater, maybe it’s something different, but do not let anyone take away what brings you joy. You might have to fight really hard for it or go around the long way, but it is so worth it. It might not feel like it, but there are so many people cheering you on, and I am one of them.”
Aly Gibbs (She/They) is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
