It’s been a tough couple of months for Dylan Mulvaney. On the penultimate day of Pride Month, the transgender influencer took to TikTok to call out Anheuser-Busch. She alleges that the beer brand failed to support her after she received transphobic backlash to a Bud Light sponsorship.
Mulvaney’s Bud Light tie-up started with some Instagram posts that seemed innocuous at the time. It wasn’t long, however, before right-wing critics took exception to the partnership. The story exploded into a conservative firestorm, with Republican Senators involving themselves in the controversy. The sponsored video led to a Bud Light boycott that has had a significant effect on the beer brand’s sales and reputation.
As the story moved through the news cycle, Mulvaney stayed relatively quiet, offering only occasional comments about the ill-fated partnership. In a June 29 video, however, the 26-year-old creator laid into Anheuser-Busch, claiming that the Bud Light owner abandoned her amidst the crisis.
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According to Mulvaney’s recounting of the events, “the brand” never reached out to her after her Bud Light video erupted into a national controversy. “For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse than not hiring a trans person at all,” she says in her video, “because it gives customers permission to be as hateful and transphobic as they want.”
@dylanmulvaneyTrans people like beer too. 🏳️⚧️🍻
Anheuser-Busch responded to Mulvaney’s video with a statement, which it provided to The Daily Beast. The statement does not mention Mulvaney by name. Instead, the company behind Bud Light said it remains “committed to the programs and partnerships we have forged over decades with organizations across a number of communities, including those in the LGBTQ+ community.”
As she comes to terms with the response her sponsored video generated, Mulvaney is urging her followers to champion LGBTQ+ rights. “If you care about me, I need you to care about every trans person, and I need you to support us, and I need you to stand by us,” she said in her video. “And hey, it’s still Pride Month, so I’m going to celebrate being alive.”
