As Care Bans Advance, Never Forget How Craven and Stupid Ted Cruz Is
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas wants a federal investigation into Bud Light’s sponsorship of Dylan Mulvaney.
by Evan Urquhart
It is not a good day for the transgender community as laws targeting trans people in Florida and a ban on gender-affirming care in Texas advanced yesterday. Thus continues the march of targeted political persecution by conservative led states determined to deprive transgender Americans and their families of equal rights under the law. These completely unconstitutional and immoral laws are going to be fought in court, but with a Supreme Court dominated by the far right and dogged by corruption scandals, it’s anyone’s guess whether the rights of transgender people in the US will continue to be protected equally. However, we can still point at Ted Cruz and laugh at what a freaking jackass that guy is. And laugh we shall, as the senator from Texas and failed presidential candidate proposed to literally make a federal investigation over Bud Light’s partnership with trans woman and TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, along with fellow lunatic Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Cruz’s (and Blackburn’s) reasons include the argument that, because Mulvaney is best known for a series of daily short videos titled “Days of Girlhood,” the 26-year-old actress’ content is aimed at children.
No, we are not shitting you:
screenshot from the New York Post
Fact check: Adult women routinely refer to themselves as girls in US vernacular English. (And Ted Cruz, who was educated at Harvard Law School, likely knows this.)
Other “evidence” that Mulvaney’s 30 second instagram spot for terrible beer was targeted to underage drinkers includes the fact that Mulvaney made a 12 second TikTok video where she dressed as the titular character from Eloise at the Plaza and lipsynched the character’s most iconic line of dialogue, “I’m Eloise, I’m 6, and I live at the Plaza Hotel,” that Mulvaney has at least some younger fans, and that she once shopped for Barbies in another video.
Bud Light, which is heavily marketed to sports fans, many of whom are young people, and is widely sold and marketed at convenience stores near college campuses, where underage binge drinking is rumored to occur occasionally, is not under fire from conservatives for marketing to underage drinkers any more than it’s under fire for being undrinkable pisswater. It’s under fire from conservatives for working with a trans woman. (Harvard Law School’s Ted Cruz, again, most likely knows this.)
There’s nothing funny about the nationwide effort by conservatives to conflate the state of being a trans woman with child abuse, which Cruz’s statements on Muvaney are attempting to capitalize on. The larger campaign to cast queer people as “groomers” and pedophiles based on nothing but continual repetition of the smear is gravely concerning. It’s an effort which has resulted in escalating violence and threats of violence against queer people, and one that has provided cover for the attempts to strip the LGBTQ+ community of equal rights as citizens, and roll back the relatively recent, relatively meagre steps towards giving members of the queer community full equal rights and dignity.
However, Cruz’s cravenness is such thin gruel it’s impossible not to laugh about it. Investigating Bud Light for marketing to underage drinkers by looking into their partnership with Dylan Mulvaney makes about as much sense as investigating Ted Cruz for being an asshole by looking into the fact that one of his daughters has said she is bisexual.