A new Adidas women’s swimsuit worn by two masculine-presenting models has touched off controversy on social media as the sports apparel maker becomes the latest brand along with Bud Light and Nike to take fire for gender-inclusive promotions.
The swimsuit is part of Adidas’ “Let Love Be Your Legacy collection” made by South African designer Rich Mnisi to celebrate Pride Month.
Adidas unveiled the collection this week, calling the partnership with Mnisi a “shared ambition to encourage allyship and freedom of expression without bias, in all spaces of sport and culture.” Mnisi described his collection as “a symbol for self-acceptance and LGBTQ+ advocacy.”
British influencer Oli London, who previously identified as transgender and is spokesperson for Caitlyn Jenner’s political action committee Fairness First tweeted: “Nike and Adidas are at War to see which brand can become the Most WOKE! Both brands are now using male models to advertise women’s sports bras. Who wins the WOKE Award?”
Former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, who opposes trans women competing in sports against biological women, called the Adidas campaign an “assault on being female.”
Former NCAA women’s swim star Riley Gaines, who also opposes trans athletes in women’s sports, tweeted: “I don’t understand why companies are voluntarily doing this to themselves. They could have at least said the suit is ‘unisex,’ but they didn’t because it’s about erasing women. Ever wondered why we hardly see this go the other way?”
Hundreds of negative reviews have been left for the swimsuit. “Please stop offending, biological women by having men wear women’s suits,” one anonymous reviewer wrote.
Some conservatives are calling for a boycott of Adidas. In a statement, Adidas said it was one of the first brands to work in partnership with the LGBTQ+ community and the Mnisi collection was designed to celebrate freedom of self-expression in sports and culture.
“This is reflected in a diverse line of models who bring the spirit of this collection to life,” the company said.
Jay Brown, the Human Rights Campaign’s senior vice president of programs, research and training, said the Adidas attacks are “just the latest example of an ideology obsessed with erasing LGBTQ+ people.”
“Businesses that stand up for what’s right not only prove their support to LGBTQ+ shareholders and employees, they also send a powerful message that bullying and discrimination will not go unchecked,” Brown said in a statement to USA TODAY.
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Shaun Harper, a professor at the University of Southern California and founder and executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center, says the women’s apparel section of the Adidas website is overflowing with images of cisgender women.
“The evidence is clear that cisgender women are neither excluded nor erased in the women’s apparel section of the Adidas website,” Harper wrote in a piece for Forbes.
Corporations may get spooked by the backlash and decide not to risk featuring gender nonbinary people in their ad campaigns, Harper says.
“Adidas didn’t take a risk,” he said. “Instead, the company chose to disrupt narrow conceptualizations of gender during the upcoming LGBTQIA+ Pride Month. It would be great if Adidas and other companies expanded and sustained their inclusion of transgender, gender nonbinary, and genderqueer persons all year long and beyond one-time Pride Month marketing efforts.”
