A beer manufacturer has released “the world’s first ‘non-binary, transgender beer’ designed to… champion inclusivity.” The product comes just weeks after the company was accused of “transphobia” for featuring men in women’s clothing in an ad campaign.
Craft brewer BrewDog, which prides itself on its rebellious image and claims to make “beer for punks”, will launch the No Label brand in Soho, London today to celebrate the “diversity of the area.”
They say the new beer is a celebration of trangenderism because it “has been brewed with hops that have changed sex from female to male flowers prior to harvest. We have used these to emphasise that, just like humans, beer can be whatever the hell it wants to be, and proud of it.”
As well as being “a beer that blurs boundaries between the binary worlds of lager and ale. The beer draws parallels with individuals who identify themselves in a similar ‘non-binary’ way, as neither exclusively male nor female – a community of people that is still largely under-acknowledged by society.”
BrewDog is seeking to redeem themselves after launching an ad campaign and crowd funding appeal in September, called “Don’t Make Me Do This” featuring the company owners doing things they did not want to do to raise investment money; such as begging and cross dressing as female prostitutes.
They were forced to remove the ad after 25,000 people signed a petition claiming the it “mock[ed] homeless people, trans women and sex workers” by “performing as offensive caricatures of people, many of whom already suffer discrimination.”
The transgender lobby has been trying to outlaw cross-dressing for some time, claiming that men wearing women’s clothing is “offensive” and “dehumanising” for the transgendered.
The National Union of Student (NUS) voted to “condemn” “‘cross-dressing’ as a mode of fancy dress” advocating a “zero tolerance ban” in March. In August, a fun run organised by a children’s charity, where fathers dress in drag, was reported to police as a “hate crime” by a transgender group.
BrewDog say they will be donating all the profits from the venture to the charity Queerest of the Queer, which supports transgender youth communities.
“We see a huge number of parallels between BrewDog and Queerest of the Queer – we’re cut from the same cloth and believe in much the same things,” explains Dr J, the organisation’s co-founder. Adding:
“Inclusivity is a huge deal for us, and is at the heart of everything we do. When we met the BrewDog team recently, we discussed what it means to live beyond the L and G in LGBTQI+, and delved deeper into the areas where labels don’t really translate anymore.
“BrewDog was super responsive and respectful and we could see their approach to diversity and inclusivity in brewing is pretty close to what it means to Queerest of the Queer.”
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