Costa under fire for cartoon of trans man

The popular high-street coffee-shop chain, Costa Coffee, has been left facing a boycott after “irresponsible” advertising featured a cartoon of a transgender man who had had a double mastectomy.

#BoycottCostaCoffee was trending on Twitter earlier in the week, after using imagery of a transgender man who had scars typical of breast removal operations on one of their vans. Breast removal operations are common for biological females whose sense of gender does not align with their sex (whether that be because they believe they are male or non-binary). The surgery is irreversible.

Costa responded by saying, ““At Costa Coffee we celebrate the diversity of our customers, team members and partners. We want everyone that interacts with us to experience the inclusive environment that we create, to encourage people to feel welcomed, free and unashamedly proud to be themselves. The mural, in its entirety, showcases and celebrates inclusivity.”

The coffee-shop chain is the latest of a number of corporations to come under fire for using transgender people in its advertising in the name of ‘inclusivity’. Earlier in the year, Bud Light controversially used the transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote its beer, and has seen a sharp drop-off in its sales, with its US revenue dropping by more than 10% in the second quarter of the year. Nike has also been subject to criticism for using transgender women (who are biologically male) to advertise its sports bras.

The director of advocacy for Sex Matters, Helen Joyce, commented: “It’s disgustingly irresponsible of Costa to suggest-sell - even glorify - mental distress, bodily dissociation and self-harm among teenage girls. Costa presumably thinks it’s being ‘inclusive’ with this messaging; in fact it’s helping to fuel a social contagion and medical scandal masquerading as a social-justice movement.”