Beth Granter

Freelance digital consultant for charities


Why Brewdog’s new ‘trans’ beer is pink-washing


*please share if you agree and comment if you have additional thoughts*

BrewDog beer have announced a ‘non-binary transgender’ beer in time for their Soho bar launch. They’re donating profits to LGBT causes.

All donations to good causes are most welcome, and this was one of the demands of the Care2 petition, so I’m pleased that my campaign led to this.

However, by ‘donating’ only profits of this new beer, the donations are really coming from people buying the beer. This doesn’t directly cost BrewDog as a business anything, but their brand image will directly benefit.

Importantly, they still haven’t apologised for their original offensive ‘Don’t Make Us Do This’ video or pulled it. They even said that those who thought they were ridiculing people were “misguided, ill-informed or out of [their] tiny mind.”

Whilst they’ve clearly heard the concerns we raised about their video being transphobic, they’ve not responded to the fact that they are also mocking homeless people and sex workers in their video.

To me it feels like they’re trying to pay off the LGBT community and benefiting from positive branding, without actually acknowledging the harm they have caused, not just to LGBT people but also to homeless people and sex workers. Without an apology and pulling their ‪#‎DontMakeUsDoThis‬ video, this is pinkwashing.

Here is the petition asking for an apology and for them to pull the video. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/922/392/608/

SIGN THE CARE2 PETITION HERE


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