Trans activist Dylan Mulvaney is speaking out after “Beergate” and President Trump’s flurry of executive orders against trans ideology. Joining CNN host Sara Sidner as the show’s “Game Changer of the Week,” Mulvaney stated he had been “afraid” during the conservative-led boycott against Bud Light during his brief stint as the brand’s spokesman. “I didn’t know what it meant to feel safe anymore. I didn’t know how to speak on it, if I was allowed to speak on certain things, and I didn’t want to make anything worse for the rest of the trans community, because I really saw the trickle down of what was happening based on me having this large platform and speaking on things,” he said.

A former Anheuser-Busch executive has criticized the failed partnership. “The problem with the Bud Light-Dylan Mulvaney partnership was they just were not an authentic partnership at all,” said former executive Anson Frericks. “They were catering to a lot of those special interests.” He accused the company of falling into DEI practices, which ultimately hurt the company’s bottom line, with sales down nearly 30 percent. “It was authentically a brand that was about sports and humor and bringing people together. It never got involved in really politicized issues… and Dylan Mulvaney was the face of a lot of these very polarizing topics.”

During the CNN interview, Mulvaney recounted his own transition journey, stating he realized he was a girl at 4 years old, something his conservative Catholic family pushed back against. “I came to [my mother] and I said, ‘I think I, God, made a mistake. He put a girl into a boy’s body. And she said, ’God doesn‘t make mistakes,’” Mulvaney recalled. “And in many ways, I still believe that to be true. I don’t think I‘m a mistake, and I’m still finding a version of a higher power for, you know, my life now. I think a lot of the times, queer and trans people feel alienated because they’re, we’re having religion and faith used against us.” In the past, Mulvaney has addressed his own attempts to reconcile his transgender identity and religion. “I’m going to say something that might make people feel a little bit uncomfortable I’m trying really hard to maintain a relationship with God,” he said during an episode of his “365 Days of Girlhood.” “I don’t think He made a mistake with me, and that maybe one day, I will actually be grateful.”

Sidner also asked Mulvaney about the current political climate, with popular opinion seemingly beginning to turn against transgender policies. “There is a whole government that actually has been very much focused on transgender people in the most negative ways,” said Sidner. She then asked Mulvaney how to deal with Trump’s policies recognizing only two genders and requiring passports to list a person’s biological gender. “Well, I just have to remember that no matter what my passport says or you know what government official is misgendering me, that doesn‘t change who I am and who I see every day, and who my fellow trans folks are,” said Mulvaney. He described trans people as a “common enemy” being used to draw attention from world problems. “We‘re less than 1% and we’re really not harming anyone,” he said. “We‘re not monsters. So I hope that when we look back on this period of time, we’ll be quite ashamed of what this looked like.”