Dylan Mulvaney—Trans TikTok Star—Scores Bud Light Deal And Some Conservatives (Travis Tritt, Kid Rock, More) Lose It

Topline

Dylan Mulvaney, a TikTok star known for posting videos about her gender transition, is the target of furor from conservatives including Kid Rock and Candace Owens after she landed a Bud Light partnership, the latest in months of online attacks directed towards the social media personality.

Dylan Mulvaney attends the 65th GRAMMY Awards on February 5, 2023. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty … [+] Images for The Recording Academy)

Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Key Facts

Mulvaney, a social media personality with more than 10 million TikTok followers known for her upbeat “Days of Girlhood” video series, shared a video on social media Sunday announcing a collaboration with Bud Light and a March Madness contest participants can enter to win $15,000.

In her video, Mulvaney, 26, joked she did not know March Madness was about sports and said Bud Light sent her a can with her face on it to celebrate her one-year anniversary of publicly identifying as transgender.

The conservative backlash was swift: The highest-profile objection to the collaboration came from musician Kid Rock, who posted a video to social media shooting cans of Bud Light while yelling profanities about Bud Light and its owner Anheuser-Busch.

Other country musicians, including Travis Tritt and John Rich, announced they would no longer support Bud Light, and conservative media personalities including Candace Owens and Ben Shaprio posted tweets blasting both Bud Light and Mulvaney for their partnership.

Some on social media were quick to mock Tritt, who says he will no longer have Bud Light in his tour hospitality rider: Journalist Radley Balko tweeted, “‘I will no longer be requesting free Anheuser-Busch products to drink backstage’ is the funniest attempt at a political boycott since right-wingers were smashing their Keurigs with baseball bats.”

Noodles, the guitarist for rock band The Offspring, tweeted he will be adding Bud Light products to his tour hospitality rider “just to piss off a bunch of dimwitted bigots who fear what they don’t understand.”

Some conservative objections to the collaboration explicitly criticized Mulvaney’s transgender identity, including Owens, who called being a transgender woman “woman-face.”

Anheuser-Busch has since defended its decision to offer a commemorative can to Mulvaney and maintained it works with hundreds of influencers “to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics” in statements to the media.

Though Mulvaney hasn’t addressed the Bud Light controversy directly, she posted a video Tuesday night stating she hasn’t made many videos lately because she’s felt “a little down,” before telling a story about how a garbage collector on the street greeted her and made her day.

A false claim circulated on social media that Anheuser-Busch fired its entire marketing department in response to the controversy over its partnership with Mulvaney, though this was debunked.

Some online anger centered around Bud Light allegedly releasing a line of LGBTQ Pride-themed cans, though these were a limited release in Canada last year and are not connected to Anheuser-Busch’s partnership with Mulvaney.

Amid the Bud Light controversy, a June 2021 Jack Daniels and RuPaul’s Drag Race partnership resurfaced, stoking online anger (including from Tritt) despite the campaign being nearly two years old.

Key Background

Mulvaney is best known for her daily videos highlighting her gender transition, each of which begins with her declaring what day it is of being a girl, and her positive attitude. She acted on Broadway before starting her TikTok account in 2020 during the early days of the pandemic, several years before she came out as transgender. Since racking up millions of followers, Mulvaney has partnered with a number of brands and made high-profile media appearances. In October (on “day 222 of being a girl”), Mulvaney visited the White House and spoke with President Joe Biden about transgender rights in an interview for NowThis. Biden, during their conversation, said laws targeting transgender individuals and gender-affirming care are immoral. Last month, on “day 352 of being a girl,” she accepted the Queerties Groundbreaker Award, given by Queerty, an online LGBTQ magazine. In her speech, Mulvaney considered her “trans joy” in light of a barrage of anti-transgender legislation and protests to be groundbreaking.

Chief Critic

Mulvaney’s TikTok fame and media appearances have sparked an onslaught of online attacks, including from Republican lawmakers, media personalities and celebrities who have targeted Mulvaney’s transgender identity. Following Mulvaney’s conversation with Biden, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) tweeted one of Mulvaney’s TikToks, calling her identity “absurdity” and blasting Biden and “left-wing lunatics” for supporting the transgender community. Other politicians, including Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), also blasted Biden and Democrats, calling the acceptance of transgender women a “war on women.” Caitlyn Jenner, also a transgender woman, posted a tweet agreeing with Blackburn. Mulvaney posted a TikTok responding to Jenner (which has garnered more than 5 million likes) calling herself and Jenner two of the most privileged trans women in America and criticizing Jenner for using her large platform to invalidate another transgender woman’s identity.

Contra

Conservatives now trying to boycott Bud Light have become the subject of internet mockery. Some have posted videos throwing away perfectly good cans of Bud Light—with others pointing out they’ve already purchased the beer and given the company their money. Others have declared they’re switching to Coors Light instead, though Molson Coors has long supported LGBTQ organizations and sponsors Denver Pride.

Tangent

Growing online attacks against Mulvaney have occurred as protests and laws targeting the transgender community have ramped up. The American Civil Liberties Union has identified 451 bills it considers anti-trans introduced in state legislatures in 2023, more than double the amount introduced in 2022. Many of these bills seek to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth and would limit the instruction of gender and sexuality in schools.