Ever have Jelly Bellies as a kid? They’re basically like normal jelly beans, but they come in more varied flavours and have a fancy little logo printed on each bean, so they cost way more. Go figs.
Seriously. Pretty underwhelming, really.
Anyway, it turns out the chairman of Jelly Belly, Herman Rowland Sr, donated money to anti-transgender causes. According to BuzzFeed, Rowland reportedly donated $5,000 to repeal California’s transgender student protection law.
The National Center for Transgender Equality has even gone so far as to write Rowland, asking him to “reconsider [his] support of the campaign by joining leaders from the transgender equality movement in a conversation about the real harms facing transgender kids.”
It’s weird to think that the chairman of a company like Jelly Belly — They make jelly beans! DESIGNER jelly beans! — could be so openly transphobic, especially against trans youth and students. But then again, ignorance rarely if ever turns out logical or sensible.
Regardless, it sends a pretty clear message that Rowland thinks that trans kids don’t deserve the same rights that everyone else has and that he will spend money to ensure that those rights are taken from them. That’s a pretty fucked-up world view for a guy who makes vegetable-shaped candy for a living.
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