The People Mad About Dylan Mulvaney Never Cared About “Six”

by Chris Peterson

So Dylan Mulvaney is joining Six on Broadway, and suddenly a whole lot of people who have never bought a ticket, never streamed the cast album, and couldn’t name a single queen without Googling are absolutely furious.

Furious.

So furious, in fact, that the show’s X account had to go private because the comments became a dumpster fire of bigotry and bad-faith outrage. Which, honestly, tells you everything you need to know.

Because let’s not pretend these people care about Six. They didn’t care yesterday. They didn’t care last week. They didn’t care when the show opened, or toured, or cast understudies, or swapped queens. They were nowhere to be found when women of color led the cast. They weren’t losing sleep over historical accuracy when Anne Boleyn was singing like a Spice Girl.

But the second Mulvaney, a trans woman, gets cast? Oh now Broadway is sacred ground. Now casting “matters.” Now they’re suddenly defenders of art, womanhood, tradition, and whatever other concept they found on a meme that morning.

Give me a break.

This isn’t concern. This isn’t critique. This is the same group of cowardly bigots who only show up when they smell a chance to punch down. They don’t love theatre. They don’t love women. They don’t love history. They love outrage. They love feeling like someone else’s existence is an attack on them personally.

And it’s always the same script. “Women’s roles.” “Biological reality.” “This is political.” As if Six hasn’t been political since day one. As if Broadway hasn’t been queer forever. As if trans people existing loudly on a stage is some new radical invention and not the most theater-kid thing imaginable.

What kills me is how fake the investment is. These people didn’t “lose” something. Nothing was taken from them. They weren’t longtime fans suddenly betrayed. They were completely uninterested until a trans woman showed up, and then suddenly they had opinions. That’s not fandom. That’s surveillance.

And for the record, Dylan Mulvaney didn’t just wander onto a Broadway stage because the internet handed her a golden ticket. She has a musical theatre background. She’s trained. She’s performed. She’s earned this.

But even if she hadn’t, here’s the truth they don’t want to say out loud: Broadway has always cast people based on energy, presence, and the story they want to tell. Always. This fake purity test only shows up when trans people do.

Broadway has never belonged to the small-minded. It was built by outsiders. Queer people. Immigrants. Artists who didn’t fit anywhere else. If that makes you uncomfortable, the problem isn’t the casting. It’s that you’ve misunderstood the assignment from the start.

So no, this isn’t “ruining theater.” This isn’t “going too far.” This is a pop musical about six women reclaiming their stories welcoming another woman into the spotlight. If that feels threatening to you, maybe theater just isn’t for you.

And that’s okay. Not everything is. But stop pretending this is about Six. It never was.