Turns out, Barbieland isn't as gay as s queer fans had hoped

GEE W. BH'S FOTTEN GAY-RIGHTS HISTORY

What was like to be gay and Republin at a time of gay-bashg polics? * gay bush can *

In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that.

GAY GUYS WHO DIG BH

* gay bush can *

“The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them,” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer. Hodson built up a strong social media followg on TikTok and Instagram durg Covid-19 and is g some of the money om that (as well as om iends and fay) to help fund Gay Water.

“Gay is an umbrella term and the ia behd the brand is to be as clive as possible, which means we want alli, we want straight people to be part of this muny we’re buildg.”. Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails,” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN.

“There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns,” Roth said. Of urse, other drks e the word “gay,” too, cludg Gay Beer and So Gay Rosé, Hodson noted, which are also tryg to reach the queer muny and offer them an alternative the straight-domated space.

GAYS AND LBIANS OWE THANKS TO PRINT GEE W. BH AND JTICE SLIA

Like dozens of other gay lleagu the Bh Whe Hoe, many of them closeted, Leve had been sure that Bh himself was personally tolerant even if the GOP was not—and unfortable wh gay-bashg as a way to w electns. But this was also the print who had ma batg AIDS Ai a personal e (later, at Leve’s urgg, he would even rate the Whe Hoe North Porti wh a giant red ribbon to mark World AIDS Day), who had met wh prevly ostracized gay Republin lears and whose hard-le nservative vice print had an openly gay dghter. Evertz says Bh’s polil gu, Karl Rove, for a time would only give him clearance for public appearanc if he promised not to be billed as the first openly gay appotee a Republin admistratn.