Dylan Mulvaney faced transphobic backlash following her social media collaboration with Bud Light. After she promoted the brand on her Instagram page in April 2023, there was a range of transphobic responses. This included right-wingers smashing displays, bars refusing to sell Bud Light, and musician Kid Rock shooting cans of the beer.
Anheuser-Busch InBev, Bud Light’s parent company, reported a more than 10 percent fall in the US sales of Bud Light in spring 2023, according to the BBC. Additionally, the Mexican brand Modelo replaced Bud Light as the top-selling beer in the US.
Despite this decline in the US, Budweiser sales outside the US rose by nearly 17 percent compared with 2022. Anheuser-Busch InBev, which also owns Stella Artois and Leffe, stated its performance had been better than analysts had expected.
In June 2023, Brendan Whitworth, the chief executive of Anheuser-Busch, reaffirmed the company’s support for the LGBTQ+ community on CBS Mornings, saying, “Bud Light has supported LGBTQ since 1998, so that’s 25 years. As we’ve said from the beginning, we’ll continue to support the communities and organizations that we’ve supported for decades.”
However, this statement and a previous one, where he said the company never intended to be part of a divisive discussion, sparked another backlash from the LGBTQ+ community. Some felt the brand hadn’t been unequivocal enough in supporting the trans community, leading to several queer bars joining the boycott of Bud Light.
Mulvaney spoke about the campaign in June 2023, expressing that she had faced intense bullying and transphobia, making her scared to leave her house. She criticized Bud Light for not publicly supporting her, stating, “What transpired from that video was more bullying and transphobia than I could have ever imagined… I was waiting for the brand to reach out to me, but they never did. For a company to hire a trans person, then not publicly stand by them is worse, in my opinion, than not hiring a trans person at all.”
