Coca-Cola-Owned Coffee Chain Faces Boycott Calls Over Trans Ad Showing Breast Removal Scars

Customers sit outside a Costa Coffee store in London on Aug. 31, 2018. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

A coffee chain owned by Coca-Cola is facing boycott calls in the UK over its use of promotional material that features a cartoon image of a transgender person with prominent scars from surgical breast removal.

Costa Coffee, a leading coffee shop chain in the UK, used the cartoon-like mural on the side of a Costa Express van, with critics saying it glorifies life-changing gender reassignment surgery and fuels gender dysphoria.

“You are promoting the mutilation of healthy young girls,” Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox wrote in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“I hope you are boycotted out of existence.”

Mr. Fox punctuated his post with the hashtag #BoycottCostaCoffee.

Mr. Fox’s post calling for a boycott was viewed more than 3 million times, with numerous other users weighing in with scathing criticism of the mural—many asserting that it promotes child mutilation.

Costa Defends Use of Image

Costa Coffee didn’t immediately respond to a request from The Epoch Times for comment on the boycott call. However, the company defended its decision to use the illustration in support of “inclusivity” in a statement to UK news outlet Evening Standard.

“At Costa Coffee, we celebrate the diversity of our customers, team members, and partners,” a company spokesperson told the outlet.

“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.”

There were some supportive voices on social media. Dr. Helen Webberley, who runs a private clinic providing gender-change procedures for children in the UK, called top surgery “completely routine and normal.”

But the bulk of reactions on the X platform appeared to be sharply critical.

“If they wish to promote dangerous medical procedures on little girls (who may need careful and compassionate help, not corporate-sponsored surgery), I will restrain from drinking horrendous coffee,” attorney Jeremy Brier wrote in a post.

He shared a thread on the topic by Malcolm Clark, an Emmy-nominated science documentary director who campaigns against what he describes as “gender identity pseudo-science.”

Mr. Clark, who on Substack penned a critical essay titled “Mutilation with your Coffee Ma'am?” argued in his thread that one likely motivation for corporations to embrace transgender marketing is to try to deflect from prior bad publicity.

“Costa was recently accused of treating its staff so badly it had to agree to an independent audit,” he wrote.

“All hail the #Transwash.”

The play on words drew on the concept of insincere corporate virtue signaling on environmental issues known as “greenwashing.”

Helen Joyce, director of advocacy for human-rights organization Sex Matters, told the UK media outlet The Telegraph that the use of the image glorifies self-harm and fuels gender dysphoria.

“It’s disgustingly irresponsible of Costa to suggest, sell, even glorify mental distress, bodily dissociation, and self-harm among teenage girls,” she said.

“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.”

‘Actions Have Consequences’

James Esses, co-founder of Thoughtful Therapists, a group of psychologists that’s concerned about the effect of gender ideology on today’s youth, penned an op-ed published by The Telegraph on Aug. 2, arguing that the campaign is a “shameless promotion of a brand” that’s also “harming the very fabric of our society.”

“It is concerning how corporations, such as Costa, risk capitalising on what may be a response to mental ill-health, such as body dysmorphia or gender dysphoria,” he wrote. “What sort of message would it send to a young, pubescent girl, perhaps unhappy with her changing body, to see recognisable brands celebrating surgical removal of breasts for gender ideological reasons?”

Mr. Esses argued that Costa’s campaign is the latest example in a string of corporations pushing “troubling ideologies” that harm young people.

He noted that some of these companies may intentionally be looking to spark outrage with provocative ads such as Costa’s trans mastectomy mural under the “no such thing as bad publicity” mantra.

“It is about time they were taught that their actions have consequences,” Mr. Esses wrote, noting that the hashtag #BoycottCostaCoffee was already trending on social media and called on more people to join the boycott.

Other supportive voices for the ad were the pro-LGBT publication Pink News, which ran an article praising the mural as “bold” and “beautiful” and a “breath of fresh air,” citing the words of trans artist Fox Fisher, who had top surgery about a decade ago.

The call to boycott Costa Coffee comes amid a wave of backlash against the increased use of transgender imagery and personalities in marketing campaigns, both in the UK and the United States.

British shoe brand Dr. Martens has faced consumer backlash for offering a pair of boots showing a transgender person with mastectomy scars, while in the United States, Bud Light beer has been the target of a long-running boycott over its marketing partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.