Transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney has faced a swath of criticism and hate speech from conservatives following her social media promotion with Bud Light last month, and is now speaking out.
On April 1, Mulvaney released her collaboration with Bud Light in celebration of her “365 days of girlhood” series. In the promotion, Mulvaney sits with several cans of Bud Light in front of her and discusses the company’s special “March Madness” sweepstakes contest.
Though the video is innocuous, conservative figures became outraged with the use of a transgender person for brand advertising and quickly began boycotting the beer. Musician Kid Rock even took to his own social media to share a video of himself shooting a stack of Bud Light cans with a gun.
The New York Times reports that Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch announced that two executives were taking leaves of absence in response to the boycott. But some company representatives have stood behind their decision to be inclusive in their ad campaigns. Vice president of marketing, Alissa Heinerscheid, stated on a podcast that if the company doesn’t “attract young drinkers to come drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light.”
After a month of silence, Mulvaney has finally taken to TikTok and Instagram to speak out about her experience and rather than directly addressing the backlash, she spoke to her following of nearly 12 million people about her hopes for her future as an influencer stating: “…going forward, I wanna share parts of myself on here that have nothing to do with my identity, and I’m hoping those parts will still be exciting to you and will be enough.”
Mulvaney implored viewers to remember and respect her humanity saying, “Dehumanization has never fixed anything in history ever,” but reiterated that she intends to stay out of the hateful conversations surrounding the brand partnership.
