Comment by n4r9
4 days ago
I wouldn't describe it as a "lie" so much as challenging the socially prescribed link between sex and gender. Trans people know they're biologically male, and they know you probably know it. But they're challenging the social expectations that get associated with that.
The same analogy can again be drawn with homosexuality. 100 years ago, many people believed that it was a biological fact that men preferred women and vice versa. To hear a man proclaiming that he prefers men, or a women proclaiming she prefers women, sounded to them like a lie. But as society progresses, social norms tend to relax. In fact there are people to this day who cannot quite accept the idea that homosexuals might genuinely exist. To such people, seeing a gay couple kissing feels like being expected to ignore a biological fact.
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One difference is that dressing up with blackface and watermelon are historically ways in which white people have humiliated and oppressed black people. I don't think you can say the same for cross-dressing.
Another difference is that Dylan Mulvaney is actually living as a woman in their everyday life.
The stereotypes of women that Mulvaney is acting out have been used to belittle and disparage women both now and historically.
How exactly is he "living as a woman"? He's a man calling himself a woman. This is not the same at all.