'Kind and Good': Bud Light's Recent Transgender Collaboration

Food and drink have a long history as catalysts for advocacy. There was the famous tea party in Boston when ungrateful colonists no longer wanted to pay taxes without a voice in how they were governed. And who remembers "freedom fries" after France opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq? We showed them. And then there is the ongoing refusal of some to get in the long lines that consistently wrap around Chick-fil-A because of their activist stance against LGBTQ groups.

Recently Bud Light partnered with transgender influencer and activist Dylan Mulvaney, sparking a controversy after she posted a video with cans of Bud Light bearing her image, which were created to celebrate the one-year anniversary of her gender transition. Bud Light, which is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, custom-made these for Mulvaney and were not available for sale.

The most notable backlash, unfortunately, came from Kid Rock, who posted a video using a semiautomatic AR-15-style rifle to destroy a stack of Bud Light cans. The literally sickening irony is the number of people who have died from supporting a person's right to be whoever they want, versus the number of people who have died from an AR-15. This week.

Also, country musician Travis Tritt posted that he'd no longer accept free Bud Light on his tours.

We reached out to a handful of Dallas bars early Monday to see if they'd noticed any chatter or change in Bud Light sales over the weekend. One didn't know what the controversy was; another said they don't ever sell much Bud Light.

"I try to bet on people who haven't had the opportunity, bet on people that have similar values as me, who are hungry and want to do great things, but care about each other and protect each other, and are kind and good." – Alissa Heinerscheid, VP of marketing for Bud Light

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Locally, the only reference we found was from Alexandre's on Cedar Springs Road, which posted a message on Facebook that it has always received "woke" beers and will continue to welcome the full line of Anhuesuer-Bush products, which includes Michelob Ultra, Stella Artois, Estrella Jalisco, Natural Light, Hoegaarden, Landshark, Shock Top and craft-ish beers like Karbach.

Speaking of Karbach: it's not widely known that Houston-born Karbach is under the AB InBev brand. Conservative Texas representative Dan Crensahw posted a video saying because of Bud Light's "stupid ad campaign" he was throwing out all his Bud Light, then showed a fridge stocked with Karbach.

The roots of this Bud Light partnership with Mulvaney could be just the tip of the all-inclusive iceberg with the brand. Bud Light hired a new vice president of marketing, Alissa Heinerscheid, in July 2022. For a little insight into Heinerscheid, she was a guest on the podcast Make Yourself at Home and spoke about being the first woman tasked with elevating the declining Bud Light brand.

Speaking of the potential impact in her position, she had this to say:

"The most important thing about this job is that you have to prioritize bringing other people along the way. Community and women. It doesn't mean anything unless I am positively impacting other people. ... I try to build teams of people who maybe nobody else has taken a chance on yet. I try to bet on people who haven't had the opportunity, bet on people that have similar values as me, who are hungry and want to do great things, but care about each other and protect each other, and are kind and good."

The word on TheStreet is that Anheuser-Busch stock hit a 52-week high "despite the controversy" last week. Or perhaps because of its all-inclusive messaging.