AMELIA STRICKLER: Trans TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney’s offensive parody makes a total mockery of female athletes like me
It Is so offensive, it reminds me of a routine by a chauvinist male comedian from the 1970s. Dylan Mulvaney, a TikTok influencer and performer, leaps around wearing Nike leggings and a sports bra. Their exaggerated movements seem to me to parody a woman’s exercise routine.
Mulvaney, a biological male who first openly identified as ‘transgender’ in March last year, has been signed by the world’s biggest sports company to promote women’s clothing. I am a GB shot putter who has won the British title twice and competed in the Commonwealth Games. I am a European finalist and world championship finalist.
I know how many years of training it takes, often at great personal cost, to reach the top levels of sport.
And I know what it is to be a woman.
Mulvaney, a biological male who first openly identified as ‘transgender’ in March last year, has been signed by the world’s biggest sports company to promote women’s clothing
I am a GB shot putter who has won the British title twice and competed in the Commonwealth Games (pictured: Amelia Strickler competing at The World Athletics Indoor Championships)
In the video advert, Mulvaney frankly appears to be laughing in the face of female athletes like me – and any other woman or girl who wants to better themselves physically.
I’ve been a shot putter since I was ten. Life in professional athletics requires grit and determination. It doesn’t involve dancing around, grinning inanely.
It means getting up at the crack of dawn to train, keeping going when every muscle in your body is screaming at you to stop, forgoing time with friends and family and being utterly single-minded. And because so few female athletes attract sponsorship from giants like Nike, we often have to fit training and competing around other paid work.
For many years, I had two jobs to support my shot putting career. Recently I found a private sponsor through my athletics club Thames Valley Harriers, which enables me to keep competing.
But most female athletes don’t have that advantage. Women get 1 per cent of all sports sponsorship money – and yet to see Nike willing to shell out however many thousands it is to Mulvaney – who, remember, has not fully ‘transitioned’ to female – is utterly demoralising.
Nike likes to harp on about how it champions women: last year it announced an ‘Athletes Think Tank’ to help ‘serve today’s women athletes’, while a 2021 campaign praised mums for being ‘the toughest athletes’.
All well and good – but contrast these warm words with Nike’s actions towards the female athletes it actually sponsored. Women such as Olympic runner Alysia Montano were subject to ‘performance-based reductions’ – amounting to a 70 per cent pay cut – when they were unable to race due to being pregnant or having just given birth. In other words, penalised for being a woman.
Following a public outcry, Nike amended its policy to allow women 18 months off around pregnancy, but this latest publicity stunt reveals just how little the company really cares about women in sport.
In the video advert, Mulvaney frankly appears to be laughing in the face of female athletes
Women such as Olympic runner Alysia Montano were subject to a 70 per cent pay cut when they were unable to race due to being pregnant or having just given birth
It would be better to invest some of the money given to attention-seeking influencers such as Mulvaney to develop better sportswear for biological women.
In nearly a decade of competing at the top level, I have yet to find a decent sports bra: I have to wear two at once.
Modelling a bra on someone who has a male torso is an insult to those of us with female bodies.
At the track yesterday, many fellow female athletes were deeply upset by Nike’s apparent contempt for our sport. As one said – and I agree – ‘I’m glad Nike isn’t my sponsor.’
Women are still fighting for true equality in sport – we’ve made progress, but there’s a long way to go. We don’t need a big brand such as Nike to bring it down with crass campaigns. I agree with Sharron Davies – women should boycott Nike. If they refuse to support women in sport, then why should we support them?
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