Conservatives Are Furious at Skittles' Pro-Transgender Packaging

Conservatives online have attempted to make Skittles the latest target for boycotts after the brand released pro-LGBTQ+ packaging in partnership with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

The new packaging is predominantly black and white, with the candy brand's traditional bright colors reserved for a band of rainbow running across it. Additionally, it features illustrations of various young people, as well as phrases like "Black Trans Lives Matter" and "Joy Is Resistance."

This is the fourth year that Skittles has partnered with GLAAD, one of the most prominent pro-LGBTQ+ media monitoring groups in the country. Despite that history, this year the campaign ran afoul of a subset of online conservatives opposed to pro-LGBTQ+, especially pro-transgender, messaging from companies and brands. Such messaging has been commonplace for years, but has recently faced increased backlash as conservatives have launched renewed opposition to LGBTQ+ communities.

The pushback emerged on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, with a number of posts, including one from the popular Libs of TikTok account. In addition to pushback against the pro-trans messaging, some users took issue with what appeared to be a drag queen on the packaging and accused the brand of "coming after your children."

Newsweek reached out to GLAAD and Skittles' parent company via email for comment.

The pushback from conservatives about Skittles' new packaging drew its own response from other users, some in the form of mockery. Ron Filipkowski, a former federal prosecutor turned Democratic social media watchdog, facetiously referred to the packing as "another sign of the apocalypse." That post garnered a response from Democratic strategist Jeff Timmer, jokingly referencing similar boycotts of Bud Light.

Another X user responded to a conservative post about Skittles, questioning anger at a brand's messaging and not over child sexual abuse cases involving religious leaders.

The current trend of conservative boycott calls reached new heights earlier this spring, when Bud Light spurred pushback online after partnering with transgender influencer and activist Dylan Mulvaney for a single sponsored post. The brand, which had already been seeing its popularity decline in recent years alongside the rest of the beer market, seemed to be the most impacted by boycott calls, with sales dropping notably in the ensuing weeks.

Other brands have appeared less impacted long-term. Target spurred right-wing anger after releasing its line of Pride Month merchandise in June, something it has done annually for years. While the department store chain suffered some hits to its popularity initially, its stock price since then has not appeared relatively stable. The price did take a large dive in mid-May, but experts pinned that on a general instability in the retail sector.

Speaking with NBC News in May, Media Matters LGBTQ+ director Ari Drennen attributed the trend to the disproportionate influence of a few figures, such as far-right commentator Matt Walsh. She also called out the trend as an attempt to target LGBTQ+ visibility in public life.

"He's been one of the most strident voices pushing this forward," Drennen told NBC News about Walsh. "Now, they've been picked up kind of more broadly throughout the right-wing media from people following that lead, but he's been the person who's really been pushing this kind of aggressive boycott tactic."

She added: "All of this is a coordinated attempt to make it untenable to be specifically trans in public. And one of the ways that they've attempted to do this is by removing any kind of political support, any kind of corporate support—just basically making it untenable to be an ally to the trans community. And I think that's the real connective tissue between these."