Open Letter to Anheuser-Busch & Brendan Whitworth

Thinking through the issue and your letter...

Brendan, you and your company, inevitably with your Board of Directors’ approval, sent the following letter to America to address the backlash your company has experienced to the tune of over $6B in losses and much expressed angst. My hope in writing this letter is to bring some clarity around this issue, the backlash your company experienced and your statement in response. Where I leave out portions of your letter, it is just because I don’t see them as problematic.

“We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”

This statement is problematic in that it seems like blatant gaslighting at best, and this despite your company indicating “‘…no one at the senior level…” knew of the Dylan Mulvaney partnership. As one having worked in corporate America for 20+ years, that does not smack of truthfulness at maximum, but at minimum does indicate that your company has a significant strategy-to-execution communication deficit. Considering Dylan’s profile within our culture, the dramatic shift that would result from him becoming a brand ambassador of sorts and the visibility this ad campaign would entail, it is difficult to see this choice as an ‘oversight’ or ‘miscom’. Corporations just don’t work that way. The level of vetting by leadership, legal, etc. is meticulous so as to avoid these sorts of issues and legal action.

Also, your own Vice President of Marketing indicated that this marketing choice was meant to combat the declining Bud brand by ‘evolving’ to become more ‘inclusive’ and “Shifting the tone”. This was juxtaposed in her mind with “…Bud Light [being] kind of a brand of fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor…” Knowing why the change in marketing was made, to what it was purposefully shifting and the implied significance & magnitude of that change makes it hard to believe a VP can make that sort of change apart from her supervisor (and those above her) knowing about it. (Otherwise, what sort of organization are you running?)

“My time serving this country taught me the importance of accountability and the values upon which America was founded: freedom, hard work and respect for one another.”

Brendan, these are some of the important values upon which our country was founded, but there are others equally, if not more, important than these. …and this is where good judgment should have prevented this campaign from moving forward. Protecting children / teens, family / parenting and ensuring a strong, moral society were also a major part of our foundation, so much so that our nation’s founders indicated that our form of government would fail without it.

…and this brings us to the crux of the issue. If “gender ideology” was simply a personal choice for adults, then your brand choice would have likely been a non-issue. The response you are receiving, including the significant loss of revenue, is not because of “hatred” or “trans phobia”. (Please read that again.) Instead, it is because of how this trans / gender focus has been implemented within our nation’s culture, politics, schools, laws, etc.

First, our children have been specifically targeted, first in our schools, but also on social media, with others encouraging them down this path of ‘gender transitioning’. (Parents, your kids should not have private access to social media. Period.) TikTok (and other platforms) has been used to great effect to not just shape our culture in general, but to convince other young kids to become dissatisfied with who they were made to be and to seek to change to the opposite sex. (…which is something not even possible, as each cell in their body would testify if they’d listen to their chromosomes.) Then, once swayed, our culture is encouraging, and doctors are facilitating, the use of hormone blockers to stop puberty (with as-of-yet unknown repercussions) and then opposite-sex hormones to known detriment even when they are very young: well below legal adult age. “These medical treatments don’t begin until the onset of puberty, typically around age 10 or 11.” (source) …and this is certainly too young to make this decision on their own. This is also and often followed up by surgeries even on minors that cannot be undone. …which then leads to many instances of life-long regret and suffering, as exemplified by Chloe Cole (video). (Here is a longer interview with Jordan B. Peterson.)

Then there is how our government is increasingly supporting these young-age transitions, even at the expense of the parent’s ability to shepherd their own children. This is, as you can see, happening both at the state and national level, even from the President.

Also, there is how trans folks are impacting sports, with boys / men competing against girls / women and erasing their hard work and opportunities to win (even significantly hurting them) as well as superseding the records they have previously set.

I could go on, but I believe this provides a sufficient picture. To put a trans man on your beer can at the very least implies (1) that Anheuser-Busch is OK with the impacts gender ideology is having on our nation and (2) that it supports the idea that a man can actually become a woman. With the threat to our nation’s children and families caused by this agenda, Dylan being on your beer cans is not going to be good optics for your brand. Finally, you are going to be hard-pressed to convince most Americans this was just a ‘snafu’. Perhaps your follow-up letter to America can actually demonstrate the “…importance of accountability and the values upon which America was founded” you mentioned in your first letter?

Sincerely,

An American