The transgender woman who is the face of Hershey’s International Women’s Day chocolate bar has shut down her haters after they accused the company of not caring about women.
Fae Johnstone, 27, said the backlash she received ‘demonstrates exactly how much the far-right is zeroing in on trans people and trans women in particular.’
‘The reaction to my inclusion as a trans woman in Hershey’s Canada’s IWD campaign shows just how far we still have to go in the fight for feminist liberation and trans rights,’ she wrote in a tweet on Thursday. ‘They’re coming for us. We need our allies now more than ever.
‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m not shutting up. I will always stand up for women and girls, cis and trans.’
The Canadian, who is a co-founder of a small consulting firm, is one of the new faces of the American chocolatier’s Canadian HER for SHE campaign, which launched on International Women’s Day on Wednesday. Johnstone and four others will adorn five different wrappers during March.
The other women featured in the ad are Kelicia Massala, the founder of Girl Up Quebec, Naila Moloo, a climate technology scientist, Rita Audi, a gender and education equality activist and an Indigenous rights activist Autumn Peltier.
Hours after the launch, social media activists began calling for a boycott of the iconic chocolate maker.
‘Spurring an international campaign to boycott a chocolate company definitely wasn’t on my list of predictions for 2023,’ Johnstone wrote on Twitter.
This is the third year that Hershey’s has marketed a product to celebrate International Women’s Day. Its 2022 campaign was fronted by woke actress and comedian Mindy Kaling.
While Johnstone, the executive director of consulting business Wisdom2Action, tweeted on Wednesday that the was ‘honored’ to be in the campaign. By Thursday, Boycott Hershey’s was one of the top trending topics on Twitter in United States and Canada.
‘Why does Hershey’s hate women?’ pondered one conservative Twitter account on Thursday.
‘You get the feeling that these companies always despised women — they were just waiting for the right moment to stick it to us. Here’s the thing about real women, Hershey’s. We have long memories,’ tweeted Abigail Shrier, the author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.
While Oli London, who announced his plans to de-transition in 2022, tweeted: ‘A biological MAN fronts the new Hershey’s campaign celebrating women for International Women’s Day. This is misogyny at its finest! A real slap in the face to actual women!’
In addition to the presence of Johnstone, at least one TikTok user was upset that Hershey’s highlighted the ‘she’ in the company’s name in the bars rather than the ‘her.’
A commenter said: ‘For those not understanding it could have read ‘celebrate her!’ Now it reads ‘celebrate she’ it’s grammatically awkward.’
On her Twitter page, Johnstone sent out multiple messages in support of the campaign, lamenting the fact that she did not have many transgender role models growing up.
She wrote: ‘Many young trans folks haven’t met a trans adult. I hope this campaign shows trans girls they can dream big and change the world too.’
‘We still have a long way to go in the fight to end misogyny, patriarchy and gender-based violence. I hope this campaign helps give more young women and girls role models and possibility models. And shows them how we can be change the world, together,’ Johnstone also tweeted.
