Chicago gay bars boycott Bud Light as brewer shuns Dylan Mulvaney
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May 7, 2023 | 16:15
Here there is mud in their eye.
Five Chicago gay bars are boycotting Anheuser-Busch for distancing itself from transgender social media star Dylan Mulvaney after her Arpil 1[ads1] collaboration drew the ire of conservatives and calls for a Bud Light boycott.
Sidetrack Bar in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood shared its boycott plan on Instagram, noting that the brewer’s move “strongly calls into question their support of the LGBTQ+ community.”
“For 41 years, Sidetrack has encouraged liquor and beer companies seeking to bring together the LGBTQ+ customer base to actively support our community,” the bar’s statement said.
“Bud Light’s recent decision to drop the Dylan Mulvaney campaign, to ‘abandon’ those who created it, as well as the statement from the CEO, falsely confirms the attitude that it is acceptable to accede to the demands of those who do not.” Support the trans community and want to erase LGBTQ+ visibility, it says.
The popular TikTok influencer and actress has over 10 million followers.
The bar said its Anheuser-Busch boycott would continue until the brewer “can clearly demonstrate that they will not go along with the voices of hate that want to erase LGBTQ+ existence.”
2Bears Tavern Group, which owns four bars in Chicago, also announced that its establishments would no longer serve Anheuser-Busch products because of the brewer’s “anti-transgender actions and statements.”
In its announcement on Instagram, the group retracted the statement from Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth amid the controversy.
“Its CEO’s statement, in which he all but erased trans people in favor of anti-trans vitriol, was cruel and hurtful. CEO Brendan Whitworth’s apology that Anheuser-Busch ‘never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people’ was tantamount to saying that transgender rights and safety are topics worth discussing.”
“They’re not,” the group declared.
Busch distributors around the US have felt the fallout, with many bars in more conservative states now refusing to stock Bud Light.
The $132 billion beer company has dropped about $5 billion since the campaign launched on April 1.
The company had previously defended its decision to hire Mulvaney before the CEO lashed out at outraged conservatives, offering a flat apology, saying, “We’re in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”
It is unclear whether any bars in New York City have also decided to boycott Anheuser-Busch, but in 2021 the famous Stonewall Inn poured Bud Light down the drain in response to the brand’s owner donating thousands of dollars to conservative lawmakers who supported anti -transgender legislation, according to Reuters.
