Dylan Mulvaney calls on brands to stick up for their LGBTQ+ partners ‘when the going gets tough’
Trans social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney has said she feels she rushed a lot of things this past year. (Getty Images)
Dylan Mulvaney has called on brands who partner with LGBTQ+ figures to have a backbone and be willing to stand up to “bigots” in the wake of the Bud Light debacle.
The influencer and TikTok star made headlines earlier this year when her partnership with beer brand Bud Light, which involved a single post to Mulvaney’s Instagram, unexpectedly sparked nationwide backlash.
Both Bud Light and Mulvaney felt the impact of that backlash but in vastly different forms. While Bud Light faced boycott threats, Mulvaney faced death threats that left her “scared to leave the house.”
In June, the influencer accused Bud Light of refusing to support her and publicly stand with her when things got tough.
At the time, she quipped: “For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse in my opinion than not hiring a trans person at all.”
Now, Mulvaney is calling on brands who feign allyship and progressive attitudes to stick to their guns, and not abandon their LGBTQ+ partners against “hate and vitriol” that might ensue.
Speaking at the 2023 Forbes CMO Summit on Tuesday (3 October), used her own experience to encourage brands to do better.
“If you’re going to ask us to capitalize on our vulnerabilities and our traumas, at least have our backs when the going gets tough,” she stated in her discussion with Seth Matlins of the Forbes CMO Network.
Elsewhere in the interview, Mulvaney declared that companies’ first port of call should not be to hire diverse spokespeople for marketing campaigns, but “push for diversity in the boardroom and on their consulting staff.”
She noted: “If you’re not sitting at the table, you’re on the menu.”
And if companies are going to hire transgender talent for marketing campaigns Mulvaney urges them not to back down when bigots rear their heads.
“Supporting and hiring trans people should not be political, and the people making it out to be. They’re bigots. And we should not let them win,” she said defiantly.
