A trans influencer has been hired by Nike to promote its women’s sports bras and leggings, sparking a backlash from people who would prefer someone with a more typical woman’s body to model these kinds of products.
Influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who boats 10.8m followers on TikTok and 1.8m on Instagram, has been hired by Nike to promote its women’s Alate sports bras and Zenvy leggings.
According to More About Advertising, Mulvaney, most famous for her “days of girlhood” series on TikTok, has inadvertently become a focus for toxicity online. Her partnership with Bud Light inspired Kid Rock to shoot at cans of the lager, while another with Olay has received a similar reaction to the Nike deal – as well as plenty of support from her fans.
Nike’s Alate bra is a light support, padded bra, and the sponsorship is part of Nike’s “Feel your all” campaign, which aims to get more women involved in sport regardless of their athletic ability. But Olympic athletes Caitlin Jenner (herself transgender) and Sharron Davies – as well as hundreds of Instagram followers – have spoken out against Nike’s partnership with Mulvaney.
Oli London, a British man who detransitioned after becoming a Christian, took to Twitter to criticize Nike’s move. Commenting on their 20-second video, he state: “Another day, another company slapping all women in the face by mocking them and paying a man to take their place!”
However, is anyone really surprised anymore? The trans insanity has been so crazy that this news won’t really shock anyone.
Jenner, probably the most famous transgender athlete, tweeted, “Have some decency while being inclusive. This is an outrage,” while Davies said, “The ad feels like a parody of what women are. In the past it’s always been seen as an insult to say ‘run like a girl,’ and here we’ve got someone behaving in a way that’s very un-sporty and very unathletic and it’s so frustrating when only one per cent of the USA sponsorship dollar goes to females in sport. That Nike would do this feels like a kick in the teeth.”
The row comes at the start of Nike’s “year of the woman,” which looks ahead to the Women’s World Cup in Australia this July and August. A launch event was held at the newly-opened Serena Williams Centre, and Nike says it is dedicated to eradicating gender inequality in sport, claiming to have doubled investment in women’s products over the last four years.
“It’s so frustrating. We take two steps forward with World Athletics and Swim England protecting women’s sport and then Nike does this,” Davies told GB News referring to recent decisions to bar transgender women from competing in categories based on their gender identity.
“The ad feels like a parody of what women are. In the past, it was always seen as an insult to say ‘run like a girl,’ and here we’ve got someone behaving in a way that’s very unsporty and very unathletic. And it’s so frustrating when only 1% of the USA sponsorship dollar goes to females in sport. That Nike would do this feels like a kick in the teeth.”
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