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In October 2019, we received multiple inquiries from our readers about the accuracy of news reports claiming that Procter & Gamble, the company behind the Always brand of menstruation products, had decided to remove the female Venus gender symbol from the packaging of such products. Some articles pointedly claimed that the company had been forced to make this change by angry trans activists, who had complained that adding female gender symbols and imagery to Always product packaging excluded trans men and non-binary individuals who, although they menstruate and therefore have need of menstruation products, otherwise live as men or identify as male or gender non-binary. On Oct. 19, the Daily Mail published an article with the headline Transgender Lobby Forces Sanitary Towel-Maker Always to Ditch Venus Logo from Its Products, which reported that: As evidence of a supposed campaign of pressure and intimidation by the transgender lobby, the Daily Mail cited just two tweets posted by two trans activists, one of them Ben Saunders, adding: In addition to claiming that the same transgender lobby had forced Procter & Gamble — one of the world's largest consumer-products companies — to make the change, the Daily Mail used the words kowtow and cave-in to describe the packaging decision. Similar articles were published by the U.K. tabloid The Sun and the right-leaning U.S. websites Daily Wire and PJ Media, all of which also claimed the company had been forced to remove the Venus symbol by trans activists or the transgender lobby. Representatives for the Always brand did tell Saunders of their intention to remove the female Venus symbol from menstruation products beginning in December 2019 and did indicate the decision had been influenced, at least in part, by the concerns expressed by some trans people. That position was broadly reiterated by a company spokesperson in a statement to Snopes. However, it was misleading and sensationalist to claim the company had been forced into taking the action they took. The available facts simply do not support that characterization. It's unclear when Always first added the Venus symbol to the packaging of their menstruation products, but Twitter users in the U.S. and U.K. (likely among other countries) first began to raise concerns about it in March 2019: Those concerns and requests persisted over the course of the summer and into the fall of 2019. The tweets were strikingly civil, respectful, and assertive in tone, rather than threatening or intimidating, as were the responses from the Always brand's Twitter account. On 16 October, activist Ben Saunders tweeted out a screenshot of an email from The Always Team at Procter & Gamble. Saunders' account has been set to protected, but we have been able to capture the tweet, as shown below. The company confirmed the email's authenticity to Snopes. In the email, which can be read in full here, a person named Sheryl wrote: A spokesperson for Procter & Gamble told Snopes the Venus symbol would be removed from menstruation products in multiple markets at various dates, and confirmed this process would begin in early 2020. The statement read: Saunders' tweet prompted multiple news reports and an angry response from some women and feminists, who objected to the planned removal of the Venus symbol. The hashtag #BoycottAlways appeared on Twitter in October, a more aggressive and inherently coercive form of dissent than had ever emerged on social media among those trans activists who had objected to the inclusion of the symbol beginning in March. Procter & Gamble's decision to introduce the Venus symbol certainly prompted a concerned response among trans activists (especially trans men) in 2019, and some of those activists expressed those concerns and requests to the company in no uncertain terms. However, the proverbial angry backlash, including online calls for a boycott of Always — an inherently coercive form of opposition — only came in October, when news emerged that the company would be removing the symbol. Companies make marketing and public relations decisions for various reasons, and such choices are typically arrived at after careful consideration of multiple strategic, commercial, financial, ethical, and legal factors. Requests and appeals such as those made by Saunders and other trans activists certainly appear to have played a role in Procter & Gamble's decision, based on the company's own statement. However, it is a gross distortion of the actual sequence of events to claim that those activists, or an ill-defined transgender lobby, somehow forced the company into its U-turn on the Venus symbol. They did not.
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