Wiseacre/Instagram
Wiseacre Brewing Co. said Tuesday afternoon that the company’s social media manager who made transphobic comments on her personal Twitter account Monday night is no longer with the company.
Liz Dean, the former social media and merchandise manager at Wiseacre, took shots on Twitter at a user called @imp_kid.
“This is why drag queens confuse me,” Dean wrote on Twitter. “They are not only a drag queen but they are also transitioning to be a woman yet their nips are allow to be out??
“They get to be a woman with more rights than woman [sic] get. Frankly, as a woman this pisses me off.”
Dean went on to tell @imp_kid that “no one is forcing you to wear that to prove a point. That should be common knowledge. You are using your previous body to have more rights than your new body to help women when you know nothing of what it’s like to be a woman.”
The user, @imp_kid, found that Dean identified herself as a Wiseacre employee and went straight to the company.
“Ummm @wiseacrebrew, why is your social media manager in my DMs saying dumb, hateful TERF bullshit?”
ummm @wiseacrebrew why is your social media manager in my DMs saying dumb hateful TERF bullshit? pic.twitter.com/2Y5Ux3KbmN
— imp (@imp_kid) March 5, 2019
Wiseacre Says Employee Is Out After Offensive Statements
TERF stands for ”trans-exclusionary radical feminist.” The term refers to a group of feminists that claim trans women aren’t really women and the term is considered a slur by the people with those views.
Many Memphians watched the outrage flow on Wiseacre’s Instagram page from the early-morning hours.
hey @wiseacrebrew y’all looking for a new social media manager? never done any professional marketing, but i have a ton of experience drinking your beer and not being a transphobic internet bully https://t.co/6OjgLWvMqc
— sammo (@lalasissybaby) March 5, 2019
Wiseacre Says Employee Is Out After Offensive Statements (2)
At around 3 p.m., Wiseacre co-founders Davin Bartosch and Kellan Bartosch issued a statement on Instagram, apologizing to @imp_kid and for the “pain and hurt these comments caused.”
Here’s the statement in full:
“We were shocked and saddened to hear that last night one of our employees made some insensitive and inappropriate comments on their personal social media. Their comments do not reflect Wiseacre, and they are no longer with our company.
“Still, we are very sorry for the pain and hurt that these comments caused. No one deserves to feel judged. No one deserves to feel hurt. This is not what Wiseacre is about.
We believe not just in inclusion, but in celebrating diversity. We believe in love. We believe in bringing people, all people, together. We can’t undo what’s been done, but we’re going to do our best to make it right moving forward.
“We want to apologize to the person to whom these offensive comments were made. We are deeply sorry. We also want to apologize to our community and to everyone who has supported us.
We are sorry if these comments made you feel like you are not welcome in our community. You are welcome here. Our community is very important to us, so if you have any thoughts about what happened or ideas about how we can grow through this, we would really like to hear them.
Again, we are so sorry for the hurt that was caused. We love y’all.
– Very sincerely – Davin, Kellan and the Wiseacre family”