Friday, April 7, 2023

Transphobes are boycotting beer because of the spokesperson

someone sticks out their tongue and there is chewing gum on it
Gillian Branstetter tweets on April 7, 2023: She presents a very joyful vision of the trans experience, which is anathema to the fear-mongering that portrays our lives as unlivable and our inclusion in public life as a project doomed to fail. They're terrified of her. Quoting Ari Drennen: One fact for understanding Dylan Mulvaney’s popularity on TikTok is that she has more than half as many followers as Taylor Swift. Right wing media figures attacking her are going after somebody far more popular than they are.

On Medium, April 20: "Conservatives and Libertarians claim to support a free, unregulated marketplace in which corporations should be allowed to hawk their goods however they deem appropriate....Yet, when a company chooses to market its product line to any other demographic than the Cleaver Family, these same self-described “conservatives” call that company out for its evil, ulterior motives....Why else would Anheuser-Busch reward a popular trans influencer with a custom beer can if not to inflict the evils of transgenderism on thirsty Americans?" — "LGBTQ-Targeted Advertising Isn’t Woke, It’s Free Enterprise at Work," Rand Bishop

Caitlyn Jenner, herself trans, complained that Nike signed a trans woman instead of a cis woman. She pointed out that a particular cis woman had been offered a pay cut after she got pregnant, and she parted ways with Nike. Jenner said: "it is a shame to see such an iconic American company go so woke! We can be inclusive but not at the expense of the mass majority of people, and have some decency while being inclusive. This is an outrage."

On April 18, the Republican Governors' Association accepted a $25,000 donation from Anheuser-Busch, and less than a week later — as Judd Legum observed in Popular Information — Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds was making an obvious dig at Anheuser-Busch, selling $15 beer koozies endorsing the idea of Republican woman governors as "real women." Republicans have a non-stop grift.

24 April 2023 tweet: Kim Reynolds selling Real Women of Politics beer koozies with the faces of women politicians

In June 2023, a Florida bar was selling Bud Light for $0.49 so patrons could pour it out in protest. 49 is the number of people murdered at Pulse, a gay nightclub, during a "Latin Night" in 2016. "Is ‘Anti-Woke’ Bar in Florida Mocking Pulse Victims With 49-Cent Buds?" Christopher Wiggins, Advocate, June 5, 2023.

Jessie Earl: Trans women are allowed to express our gender however we wish. It's messed up to tell trans people to 'play good transes' to appeal to narratives that commodify us to be appealing to cis folks. Dylan is allowed to dress in a suit and it doesn’t delegitimize her womanhood.

"Dylan Mulvaney wins breakout creator at Streamy Awards, calls out transphobia," Marianne Garvey, CNN Entertainment, August 28, 2023

Ari Drennen tweets: I was told over and over that the problem with Dylan Mulvaney was that she had pronouns and conformed to 'female stereotypes' and yet the right wing media is doing the Bud Light thing all over again about Maybelline working with an 'any pronouns' bearded beauty influencer

See also: The Overlooked Origins of the War on Bud Light and Other 'Woke' Companies: Starbucks and Anheuser-Busch are the latest corporate targets of tactics honed by segregationists post–Brown v. Board. Lawrence B. Glickman. Slate, July 5, 2023.

"Anheuser-Busch InBev said Tuesday [October 31, 2023] that revenue growth in most of its global regions was offset by a drop in North American sales in the third quarter, in a sign of continuing fallout from a promotion with a transgender influencer.

The world's largest brewer and parent company of Bud Light said its revenue climbed 5% to $15.6 billion for the July-September period. That was in line with Wall Street's estimates, according to analysts polled by FactSet. But revenue in the United States tumbled 13.5%. [emphases mine]

Bud Light sales plunged in early April amid a conservative backlash after the brand sent a commemorative can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Bud Light also angered supporters of transgender rights who felt it abandoned Mulvaney."

— "Bud Light brewer confident it can win back US drinkers, but sales are still down after backlash," Dee-Ann Durbin, AP, October 31, 2023

The whole incident "also sent a message to advertisers and producers: don’t hire trans people unless you want to make it a fight." Kay Elúvian wrote (Feb 23, 2024). Unfortunately, "these people are willing to fight — anywhere, any time and over anything."

"In future, the company will avoid political and social issues, and 'stay in our lane' following 'a very difficult moment', bosses at Anheuser-Busch InBev have now said," according to Pink News. AB InBev’s chief executive Europe Zone, Jason Warner, said the brand is about "want[ing] everybody to be happy together" and should cater to people who want things like "sports," "music," "fun," and "friends." ("Everybody," I suppose, does not include trans people.)
— Cowardly Bud Light to ‘stay in our lane’ after Dylan Mulvaney anti-trans backlash, Emily Chudy, Pink News, May 7, 2024

It's related to homophobia

On a podcast called "The Secret Teachings with Ryan Gable," on the March 5, 2024 episode called "Cereal Raping Your Body," the host argues that the primary reason to boycott processed food is that the food is unhealthy. However, he can't resist adding commentary about Dylan Mulvaney and especially Samantha Hudson:

"These companies literally poison people [via unhealthy snack food], and then when they hire a transgender freak [he's referring to Samantha Hudson] — who isn't a real transgender, OK, they're somebody with mental illness — when they hire a transgender freak who isn't really transgender to be a brand ambassador — just like Bud Light hired another true freak in Dylan Mulvaney — when Doritos hires Samantha Hudson to be a brand ambassador, who does that appeal to? Because that community is so small. Who does this appeal to? 90 percent of your consumer base, actually, like 96 percent of your consumer base, is not LGBTQ. And I would assume it's probably less in Spain, but it's that in countries like the US and the UK. And that's the whole spectrum of LGBTQ. So your whole customer base is outside of that group. Why would you hire somebody — unless you're trying to appeal to people's emotions and emotionally blackmail them to think: 'Well, if you don't buy Doritos, you must hate queers, or you hate transgender people.' 'Cause that's what it is. It's not just virtue thinking. It's emotional blackmail. These companies are disgusting. That is a reason to boycott the company. Not because there's a transgender, but because they're virtue-signaling emotional blackmailers. That's why you should — that's one of the reason you should stop supporting Doritos." (19:57–21:32)

Shortly afterward, he revises his estimate of LGBTQ people to 97%

What he's saying here is that when a company visibly includes LGBTQ people in their advertising, they're appealing to only 3–4% of their customer base, implying that the remaining 96–97% are being pressured to accept the existence of LGBTQ people. He's equating corporate inclusion and visibility of LGBTQ people with "emotional blackmail" of straight people to accept LGBTQ people.

"So if you really want to boycott Doritos, maybe make the transgender thing like Number 3. Number 1 should be the ingredients. Number 2 should be that they are emotionally blackmailing 97%, 96% roughly, depending on what statistic you look at, but for transgender people it's actually 0.7% of the population in the developed world, so that means you're blackmailing emotionally 99.3% of your customer base." (22:50–23:25) He also notes that not everyone is trans-inclusive "A large portion of the marketable base of consumers don't support that [i.e., being transgender] anyway." (33:07–33:15) His conclusion seems to be that large brands should lean toward reflecting the prejudices of large portions of their consumer base.

He says that some people have asked him if he's avoiding beer and chips because he's homophobic or transhpobic (given certain company advertising), and his answer is that, no, he avoids beer and chips because that food is unhealthy. For whatever reason, he can't just provide that direct answer; he has to go on to say that the companies are emotionally blackmailing people into drinking and eating their product, and the way that they do this blackmail is by employing visibly queer people in their advertising.

Of course, if you are LGBTQ and if you take what he's saying literally and seriously, what his position entails is that, by being visibly out in the world — in your everyday life, never mind in your job or in being a brand ambassador for any company — you are emotionally blackmailing everyone you meet into accepting you as you are. So that's no good.

He goes on to say that anyone who chooses solidarity with trans people over interest in Harry Potter has committed "cancellation": "It's like when the political left said: 'Oh, we're not going to support JK Rowling anymore, she's a TERF.' And people like me said: 'Does that mean you're going to get rid of all your Harry Potter books? No, we can separate the art from the artist.'" (31:20–44)

He went on to repeat allegations that Hudson is a "pedophile," and added: "they're definitely a freak. They're definitely a scumbag. You just have to look at a couple pictures to determine that, a couple things they post on Twitter to determine that. They're a narcissistic, egotistic, piece of trash." (32:00–33:22) I don't know if he's effectively separating his opinions about the art from his opinions about the artist. Anyhow. Homophobia and transphobia share this in common, that you're encouraged to look at an image of a person and judge whehter you like the way they look and whether you want to eat a product that uses an image of that type of person, and make that not just a snack choice but part of your worldview about human sexuality.

In the written description of his episode, he refers to the companies' "use of trans-marketing," as if hiring and including a known trans person, just as you'd hire or include any other person, amounts to a different form of marketing called "trans-marketing," perhaps in the sense that what's being marketed is not a snack food but the legitimacy of being transgender.

(I gave up on this episode after 45 minutes, but it goes on for 2 hours.)

Here's another example

(Everything alleged here is also uninformed and wrong.)

The Unshaken Faith podcast (Alisa Childers & Natasha Crain) has "#29 How Dylan Mulvaney changed the face of transgenderism," a 16-minute episode that aired January 24, 2024.

It acknowledges that Mulvaney rose to stardom on TikTok and then became the face of Bud Light. "In a certain sense, Mulvaney has been pivotal in giving the transgender movement a new face." The host refers to Mulvaney as "he" throughout and promises to deliver "worldview insights" in this episode. (1:10–1:15) We're given a "tip of the week" on "how to introduce these topics to kids: The LGBTQ sort of spectrum can be difficult to know when to introduce these ideas and what age and depending on your kid's maturity. But gender is something you can start really, really early. We can talk about our kids with categories like man and woman, mommy and daddy, boy and girl, so just strengthening the categories male and female with very young kids and teachign them those words can be a great way to set up a lasting foundation of what gender is and what it's built upon." (1:57–2:35)

They go on to say that Dylan Mulvaney had facial feminization surgery so her face would "look more like that a biological female," and because she "actually looks very feminine," she's been "successful as a transgender influencer." "And the impression many people have of what it looks like for a man to transition to a woman is that a man, you know, looks big, burly, just like a guy with long hair, makeup and a dress. And honestly, that is the case much of the time." But, she continues, because Mulvaney appears "like an actual biological woman," she "makes transgenderism seem plausible people's minds." "Mulvaney has made it seem like he truly has been able to achieve womanhood in some sense."

"When we think about what it used to look like for somebody to transition," she says, referencing Caitlyn Jenner's transition, "many people just thought, man, that just looks like a giant Olympic athlete in a dress, you know, big giant man in a dress. But now we're starting to see more people like Mulvaney...One friend I was talking to in particular was following an Instagram account of somebody they thought was a woman and they didn't find out they were following this person for two months that it was actually a man who had quote-un-quote transitioned into a woman. So we're in a whole new world with this, where surgeries and the things they have available are making it a lot more convincing, even though we know biologically: You actually cannot become the opposite gender." (5:10–5:52)

(Already, you see, someone who transitioned not even nine years ago is "what it used to look like for somebody to transition." The sense of history is paper-thin. Also, people thought Caitlyn Jenner was beautiful and glamorous. She made the cover of Vanity Fair. Also, regardless of what people thought of Caitlyn Jenner, Dylan Mulvaney is not the first trans woman who has ever passed or been seen as genuinely feminine.)

They then point out that Mulvaney "knows how to play the part" and "even has mannerisms that are more female than male," and that this is due to Mulvaney's background as an actor in musical theater. They say that many trans women don't pass as women, and so there's something about their gender that "seems fake," like "a man who is presenting as a woman," but the combination of surgery, feminine mannerisms, and training as an actor that lets you "play that part," it seems "convincing" to many.

They then discuss how secular culture supposedly believes that happiness is the goal of human life, and how encouraging people to live their true gender is part of that happiness-first worldview.

In conversation, Mulvaney has a "gentleness...that you don't hear from a lot of transgender activists." (10:55 – 11:00) The demeanor is persuasive to many people, so they say. Also, because Mulvaney doesn't appear to have family "baggage" (e.g., not divorcing a wife, not leaving some negative impact on a child), there isn't any obvious impact on other people and thus the public doesn't pass judgment on it. The host asked her 15-year-old daughter why Mulvaney is popular as a "transgender influencer," and the daughter responded: "It doesn't seem like he's making a mockery of women. It actually seems like he embraces femininity." (12:55–13:03) One host said she's heard Christians say that trans women are mocking femininity, but in Mulvaney's case, she says she agrees with her daughter's sentiment. There's no "drag aesthetic" about Mulvaney, and women see Mulvaney's gender expression "as a form of flattery...rather than any kind of offense." (13:39–13:45) Thus some trans people might achieve "cultural acceptability" but aren't "rooted in objective truth." (13:50–13:55) The other host said she also asked her daughter, who had a somewhat different reaction: "it's a bit of a stereotype...and a lot of it is very young" (14:45-15:00), i.e., Mulvaney appears more like a "little girl" than a woman.

Based on no expertise whatsoever (probably not even knowing a trans person), their assumption is that trans women didn't ever pass as women much before 2020. Just because Rowling liked a "men in dresses" tweet in 2018 doesn't mean this stereotype is broadly true. They also seem to assume that facial feminization surgery and musical theater are new. And that the more you perform things like this, the less you'll seem to be mocking femininity and the more you'll be seen as authentic.

Their conclusion is that everyone is lost without God and is trying to plug the God-hole with things that aren't God. Trans women are "lost," and they should be prayed for.

On March 6, they made another 16-minute episode, "#35 Lord save me from my true authentic self." Frank Turek is saying that secular culture instructs people to follow their feelings (even though their feelings frequently change). Turek says that feelings change, so if you follow them with no other guide, you're not going anywhere. You have to follow Christ, and then your path won't change, and you'll be stable in that identity.

Turek brings up trans boys: "This is called rapid-onset gender dysphoria. How did we go from 1 in 10,000 men saying they were women to 3,000 in 10,000 girls claiming that they are men? And [Abigail] Shrier's point is, it's social media. It's a social media contagion called rapid onset gender dysphoria. It comes through the iPhone — and the Droid." (6:50–7:20)

(Note: When someone says they hear people talking about Dylan Mulvaney but they don't hear anyone saying anything about trans men, please observe references to Abigail Shrier's anti-trans-boy book.)

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