Conservatives Call for Boycott after Advertising Deal with Transgender Star

Boycott calls after advertising deal with transgender star

Conservative Kulturkampf in the USA: Now it’s about beer and shoes

Grandpa feels a little playful today, says Kid Rock in a video, laughing mischievously. He has a message that he wants to clearly announce, says the musician. He doesn’t use words for this, but pulls out a submachine gun. With it he fires several times at a built-up tower with Bud Light beer cans. After his beer massacre, he gives the camera the middle finger and says, “F*** Bud Light. F*** Anheuser-Busch.”

What sparked Kid Rock’s hatred of the beer brand and brewery? An advertising deal with a trans influencer. Dylan Mulvaney, who is almost eleven on Tiktok and has 1.7 million followers on Instagram, posted a video a few days ago showing her with several cans of Bud Light, which belongs to the Budweiser brand.

The trained theater actress also reveals that the brewery gave her a can with her face as a gift on the first anniversary of the start of her gender reassignment, which she has shared with her fans since March 2022 under the name “Days of Girlhood”.

“Go Woke Go Broke”: Conservatives call for boycott of Nike and Budweiser

For many conservatives, that’s enough to call for a boycott. Hundreds of people shared their displeasure in comments on social networks – with the addition “Go Woke Go Broke” (roughly in German: become woke, go broke). Videos can be seen of them throwing away or destroying Bud Light, including one of Sebastian Gorka, a former aide to ex-US President Donald Trump, throwing a full six-pack and box in the trash.

Only a short time later, the concentrated hatred hit the sporting goods manufacturer Nike, also because of an advertising campaign with Dylan Mulvaney. While it was mainly men who got angry at Bud Light, conservative women are now also at the forefront: Why should a person who in their eyes is not a real woman advertise women’s clothing and the Nike Women brand?

Outrage meets zeitgeist: Kulturkampf in the USA

“Another day, another company slapping women in the face by taunting them and paying a man to take their place,” one person wrote in the comments on the Instagram page by Nike. Here, too, the hashtag “Go Woke Go Broke” is used again and again – in connection with calls for a boycott of Nike.

The populism surrounding Dylan Mulvaney’s advertising deals with Bud Light and Nike are representative of a culture war that has been intensifying in the United States for several months. Until recently, Budweiser and Bud Light’s commitment to LGTBQI* rights has not been criticized or called for a boycott – for example, rainbow-colored cans have been sold in the past.

After abortion bans, there are now restrictions for LGBTQI* people

But something has changed in the USA, especially when it comes to the situation of minorities and women. After more than a dozen mostly Republican-led US states criminalized abortion last year – sometimes also in the case of pregnancy through rape and despite great public outcry, the focus is now on trans people. This year alone, seven Republican-governed states have introduced legislation to worsen the situation of trans people.

• North Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, Nebraska, South Carolina and Tennessee have banned or plan to ban drag shows in public spaces.
• Tennessee and Florida also enact bans on underage sex reassignment procedures. This includes not only gender reassignment surgeries, but also hormone treatments and wearing clothing that is assigned to a specific gender. Doctors have already warned that the ban will harm the health of young people, especially their mental health.
• Tennessee wants to go one step further: trans people, including adults, should no longer be able to have their name and gender changed on official identification documents.

US population divided on LGBTQI* rights

Polls suggest the US population is divided: While 36 percent think society needs to be more accepting of trans people, they agree „Pew Research Center“ compared to 38 percent that acceptance had gone too far.

Few Americans are transgender

The presence of the topic in politics and (social) media has little to do with the absolute numbers: according to the news agency Reuters In 2021, twice as many children and adolescents between the ages of six and 17 were treated with puberty blockers than in 2017, but it was still only 1390 out of a total of around 40 million minors in the USA. 4,200 people underwent hormone therapy and 282 underwent surgery.

The concerns that conservatives claim to have have long since been refuted by science and medicine: in a US study, only six out of 1989 people were subsequently unhappy with their gender reassignment, in the Netherlands a study showed that 98 percent of minors who underwent hormone treatment and continued into adulthood.

Shift to the right in the USA: Experts fear interference with contraceptives

Experts already fear that the next step could be an intervention in contraception, such as „NBC News“ and „New York Times“ to report. The main focus is on the morning-after pill, a tablet that can be taken after unprotected sex to prevent or delay ovulation. The emergency drug can prevent pregnancy even before the ovum is fertilized.

Texas: Minors are not allowed to use birth control without parental consent

Missouri is said to have concrete plans to ban the morning-after pill as well, writes the science magazine „Pew Trusts“. Some states also allow medical and pharmaceutical staff to deny people access to birth control and emergency birth control.

In Texas, it was recently ruled that it is against state law and the rights of parents for minors to use contraceptives without their parents’ knowledge. To date had noisy PBS around 182,000 young people accepted the offer of free contraceptives in state clinics. Also in Texas, a federal court suspended approval for an abortion drug. This could have ramifications for the entire United States. However, the US Attorney General wants to appeal the decision, as does US President Joe Biden.