Post Dylan Mulvaney, Bud Light's 'gender pronoun' cans are thankfully absent from this pride season

Of note: the following gender pronoun Bud Light cans story has been one full YEAR in the making, going back to June 2022. Also of note, this story has been given an added level of news value due to the Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light controversy, south of the border. (As you know, for some bizarre reason, Bud Light thought it was a good idea to employ a fake woman as its spokesthingy and then insult its core base of consumers, such as blue collar males and frat boys. End result: Bud Light is going skunky on store shelves stateside as a nationwide boycott shows no end; meanwhile the stock value of Anheuser-Busch has plunged by some US$16 billion.) Winning!

But back to our year-in-the making Canadian Bud Light story...

Namely, last pride “season”, Labatt, which brews Bud Light under licence in Canada, thought that it would be a jolly good idea to market rainbow-festooned Bud Light “gender pronoun cans.” No, we’re not making this up.

So it was that Bud Light cans commanded drinkers to “celebrate everyone’s identity.” As well, the Bud Light cans were festooned with pronouns and words that… might be pronouns. Which is to say, the cans displayed classic pronouns such as she, him, her, they, them, etc.

But there were also a bunch of what seems to be made-up words on the cans. We assume these words are whiz-bang new-age pronouns that, alas, do not reside in any dictionary on the planet. For example: what is Xe and Xem? (That last one kinda sounds like a satellite radio network.) What is Sie and Hir? And what the devil is a Ze and a Zir? (Hmmm… wasn’t Zir an old trim level sported by certain Chevy Camaros back in the day?)

Here's another question: are there even a dozen people in our great Dominion who “identity” as a Xe, Xem, Sie, Hir, Ze and a Zir? Have you ever met one? What do they look like? And not to be rude, but what is their genitalia? It’s all so confusing!

We sought answers by calling the 1-800 number on the Bud Light can. And get this: Labatt Brewery, which brews Bud Light in Canada, has apparently axed its call centre (or as they call it, they have “transitioned” to digital). That means that there are no actual hes or hers or theys picking up the telephone these days. Instead, you are asked to send an email to www.Budwieser.com. Which we did. A year ago. And that email remains ignored. Customer. Service. Excellence.

That prompted us to go straight to the source last year — namely, the Labatt Brewery in London, Ont., where Bud Light is concocted. We wanted to get an idea of what all this gender gibberish means. And shockers! Can you believe it? Nobody at the brewery knew what a Xe, Zir, etc., was either!

But a security guard promised to pass along our queries to corporate affairs. Twelve months later, radio silence. Maybe the corporate bigwigs have no idea what these terms mean either?

Fast-forward to a few days ago: we visited Labatt’s corporate headquarters in downtown Toronto. We are still hellbent on finding out what these goofy gender pronouns mean. The nice lady at the reception desk guessed that the likes of Zir and Xer were regular pronouns but conveyed in a foreign language. Esperanto, perhaps?

We were then instructed to send our queries to Veronica Bart, the communications guru at Labatt. We decided to forward the questions we sent earlier this month to the media relations department of Anheuser-Busch (which have gone unanswered too, by the way). In any event, here are our questions:

1. Last year we went to the London, Ont., headquarters of John Labatt Limited, which brews Bud Light in Canada. We wanted to know what sie/hie, xe/xem and ze/zir mean. Nobody employed there could answer our queries. We were told that someone from corporate communications in Toronto would get back to us to answer our questions (but no one ever did.) So, can you kindly provide us with the answers re: what do these pronouns actually mean?

2. Are these pronoun cans being sold anywhere else? The cans don't seem to be available in Canada anymore, although Bud Light cans in the Canadian market feature rainbows (but curiously, not in the U.S.) Can you kindly explain why that is?

3. When it comes to other international markets where Bud Light is sold, aside from the U.S., can you provide a list of other countries in which the rainbow artwork and/or gender pronouns are absent from the cans?

4. Can you provide the most up to date numbers regarding Anheuser-Busch share value and the sales numbers for the Bud Light brand post-Dylan Mulvaney controversy?

5. Does Anheuser-Busch have any new strategies in place to bring an end to the Bud Light boycott?

Alas, the silence has been deafening.

So, to recap: in 2023, there are, thankfully, no more gender pronoun Bud Light cans. Most Bud Light cans in Canada are back to the basic blue design without any LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP propaganda. But there is a still a small smattering of rainbow-festooned cans; apparently, Anheuser-Busch just can’t quite completely divorce itself from virtue-signaling and wokeness, despite the company’s catastrophic financials in recent months.

Bottom line: how is it that such a corporate leviathan is so pathetic when it comes to communications? And given that it can’t quite divorce itself from pandering to the LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP community, one must ponder: is Anheuser-Busch actually TRYING to go bankrupt?