Drew Afualo (Getty Images)

Influencer and podcaster Drew Afualo has responded after a past video garnered backlash due to its discussion of trans womanhood.

On 24 July, Afualo shared a video of her The Comment Section podcast featuring non-binary Grey’s Anatomy star ER Fightmaster. It was originally posted on 2 April, 2025, as she explained in the description.

At one point in the episode, Fightmaster says: “My truest thought on this is I think trans women have a more beautiful understanding of what womanhood is.” The actor goes on to explain that they think cis women link their womanhood to their role or status in society, or their “ability to be sexually assaulted”.

Fightmaster brings up the trans bathroom debate, before adding: “It sounds like the problem we have is that men are going to rape, and women are fearing rape their whole lives.

“When you talk to trans women about their womanhood, they talk about it in such a beautiful, expansive way. ‘This feeling I’ve always had, this truth I’ve always known. This beautiful part of me.’ And I don’t feel that from cis women right now, because I think the propaganda is so strong. I love women, I’m obsessed with all women, and I want cis women to stop letting men be a barrier to their identity.”

Afualo agrees with Fightmaster throughout the clip, also mentioning her defence of trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s song “Days of Girlhood”.

The clip has caught backlash on social media after it was re-posted, which Afualo has now responded to.

In a TikTok video on 10 August, she said: “The video you guys are getting fake outraged over with my friend ER Fightmaster is over a year old. The fact you’re pretending to give a f*** now, means you guys saw one alt-right MAGA-loving creator make a video espousing TERF rhetoric, and now you wanna get clicks and likes too, which means you didn’t go and watch the episode. You didn’t do your own research, and that’s embarrassing.

“So I’ll go ahead and catch you up. The conversation being had is about how trans women most oftentimes identity with femininity and womanhood sometimes even better than cis women do. There’s an entire discussion to it, maybe you should go watch it before you pretend to get mad.

“Either way, saying it’s misogynistic to agree with a trans woman on what it means to be a woman, and then in your defence of that talking point saying things like ‘They don’t know what periods feel like’ or ‘They don’t know what childbirth feels like’ is really f****** stupid and embarrassing for multiple reasons.

“Overarching, though, it’s bigoted and transphobic. Ironically though, it’s also misogynistic. Reducing womanhood down to your uterus and what it does is quite literally a pillar in misogyny. It is quite literally a tenant of patriarchy – reducing women down to being able to have periods and create babies, is a huge misogynistic talking point. Weaponising it to invalidate trans women also makes you a transphobe.

“Believing in feminism unless trans women are included makes you a TERF. TERF stands for trans-exclusive radical feminist.”

She goes on: “All of that to say, what’s even funnier about these ridiculous videos being made mad at me is that ER is not a man. ER was assigned female at birth. ER is a non-binary, lesbian. ER knows all about periods because ER has had them before.

“You guys really need to work on taking 15 seconds and trying to go viral off of it. It’s f****** embarrassing and it’s annoying.

“My stance on supporting trans people has been consistent through the f****** years. If you followed me for real, you should f****** know that. My feminism is intersectional, unlike a lot of women who claim to be feminists when they make videos like that.

“This entire conversation is stupid, bigoted and transphobic. If you don’t like that I support trans women with my whole f****** chest, unfollow me then. It’s imperative cis women support trans women for f****** real, because I know I do.”

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