A transgender influencer whose social media campaign for Bud Light was attacked by conservatives and boycotted the brand spoke directly about the controversy on Thursday for the first time, saying she was bullied and the beer maker refused to contact her. had failed. Of enmity
Since April, when Dylan Mulvaney, an influencer, featured Bud Light in an Instagram video, she has faced stalking and personal attacks, she said. Video He posted on social media.
“What happened in that video was more bullying and transphobia than I could have ever imagined,” Ms Mulvaney, 26, said. “I’ve been followed, and I feel a loneliness I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
He further said, throughout the controversy, Bud Light did not contact him. She said, she was scared to leave her house while the company failed to support her.
“I kept waiting for the brand to reach out to me, but they never did,” she said. “For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand up to them is, in my opinion, worse than not hiring a trans person at all.”
Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Bud Light, did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday about whether it had tried to contact Mulvaney following the boycott.
“As we’ve said, we remain committed to the programs and partnerships we’ve built over decades with organizations across many communities, including the LGBTQ+ community,” a company representative said in an email. “The privacy and security of our employees and our partners is always our top priority.”
Controversy over Ms. Mulvaney and Bud Light arose when states passed laws that restricted medical care for transgender people; control which bathrooms they can use; and decide whether schools can affirm the preferred personal pronouns of transgender students. Republican state lawmakers have also continued to propose legislation that seeks to regulate the lives of young transgender people and require schools to send transgender students to their parents.
On April 1, Ms. Mulvaney posted a video On his Instagram account, where he has 1.8 million followers, nearly $15,000 of the gift was sponsored by Bud Light during March Madness. He also mentioned that the company sent him a Tallboy can with his face on it to celebrate the milestone of 365 days of publicly sharing his transition journey.
This was followed by calls for a boycott, partly fueled by those who had previously attacked the transgender community. one of the main voices Musician Kid Rock was also involved.WHO posted a video Shooting a stack of Bud Light cases.
Bud Light sales plummeted. Since then two marketing officers of the company have gone on leave. The company also said in May that it would focus its marketing campaign on sports and music. This month, Bud Light was dethroned as the country’s top-selling beer. The brand is still struggling to win back customers.
Bud Light has been criticized by some members of the LGBTQ community for being slow to respond to the backlash.
But the conservative outcry extends to brand partnerships that other companies have made with transgender people. Like Bud Light, Retail Company Target The company changed its marketing due to opposition to the inclusion of the LGBTQ community. country singer garth brooks criticized When he said at a concert that his new bar in Nashville would serve a variety of beers, including Bud Light.
Ms Mulvaney is popular on TikTok, where she has 10.6 million followers, and has documented her transformation in a viral series called “Days of Girlhood”.
Amid the backlash, Ms. Mulvaney has addressed the hostility she experienced, without directly reacting to the Bud Light uproar. He described himself as “an easy target” in an interview on the podcast Released on 11th April “Because I’m still new at this.” she told this to her tiktok fans 28 April: “What I’m struggling to understand is the need to dehumanize and be cruel.”
In the video on Thursday, Ms Mulvaney called on companies to move beyond donations and promotional campaigns in support of the LGBTQ community.
“Supporting trans people shouldn’t be political,” she said. “There should be nothing controversial or divisive about working with us.”
