Originally a comment by Artymorty on Slush staff.
It’s interesting that, of all the retail chains in the world, it’s Lush that’s the most dogmatic about trans nonsense.
What is it about Lush specifically that aligns it so perfectly with gender woo?
I asked ChatGPT to “describe the brand and target audience of the retail chain Lush.”
Its reply began with, “Lush is basically ethical maximalism as retail theatre.” It went on to describe “natural-ish cosmetics, anti-corporate vibes, and sensory excess”, and a brand personality that is “sincere but also performative”. The bricks-and-mortar stores are “like a farmers’ market, candy shop, apothecary, activist booth, and theatre workshop mashed together.”
So it’s a giant international corporation that needs something to position itself as activist-y, countercultural, and individual. A bit Starbucks-y in that way. Starbucks, of course, is next on the list of giant international corporations that have gone kookoo for genderpuffs.
Trans, then, is corporate shorthand for “our brand is virtue”. It’s brand-positioning performance.
(No wonder the annual Toronto parade formerly known as Gay Pride is now nothing but flatbed trucks advertising Canada’s banks and media conglomerates, covered in pink, white, and baby blue.)
(It’s also no wonder that Lush was the primary sponsor of the girls-only kids’ music day camp that operated out of the venue I used to manage. That’s the one that had a strict locked-doors, no-males-anywhere-in-the-building-under-any-circumstance-because-there’s-young-girls-here policy, which it promptly discarded by hiring a hulking middle-aged crossdressing man to look after the girls alone.)
We’re gutting women’s rights and mutilating kids so corporations can sell us expensive bath bombs and pumpkin spice lattes while making us feel like we’re supporting our quirky little neighbourhood friends as we hand them our cash.
Imagine how those blue-haired, mastectomy-scarred they/thems are gonna feel in a few years when it dawns on them that their bodies were seen as nothing more than free advertising by corporate bigwigs.
It’s both tragic and pathetic.
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