After employees at State Farm leaked an internal email, Consumers’ Research launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign called “Like a Creepy Neighbor, State Farm is There.”
The leaked internal email at State Farm sent by corporate responsibility analyst Jose Soto announced a partnership “with The GenderCool Project to help diversify classroom … and library bookshelves with a collection of books … about being Transgender, inclusive and non-Binary.
“This project’s goal is to increase representation of LGBTQ+ books and support our communities in having challenging, important and empowering conversations with children Age 5+,” Soto, whose signature includes his pronouns “(he/him/his),” writes.
“Nationwide, approximately 550 State Farm agents and employees will have the opportunity to donate this 3 book bundle to their local teacher, community center or library of their choice,” he adds. “We are seeking six agents in Florida that would be interested in participating in this unique project.”
In response to the leak, Consumers’ Research has launched the “Like a Creepy Neighbor, State Farm is There” ad campaign to alert State Farm customers and potential customers to State Farm’s attempt to indoctrinate kids with transgender ideology. Consumers’ Research’s site, likeacreepyneighbor.com, includes the ad, Soto’s email and page-by-page pictures of two of the books State Farm wants agents to “donate” to classrooms and libraries. The books are titled A Kids Book About Being Transgender by Gia Parr and A Kids Book About Being Non-Binary by Hunter Chinn-Raicht.
The first book tells the story of a boy who realized he felt like a girl when he wanted to draw a picture of himself in a dress. He then looks up “boy who feels like girl” on the internet and finds “stories of people who were just like me.” The second book says, “Gender is how you feel in your heart and mind, but it may not match what the doctor says when you are born.”
Executive Director of Consumers’ Research Will Hild says before the sponsorship page was pulled off of gendercoolproject.com, other companies, including Allstate, HP, Oracle and Adobe were listed as “partners and supporters.” The list is far more extensive than even Hild recalls. General Mills, Prudential, Bank of America, Capital One, Indeed and even the U.S. Department of Agriculture have thrown their support behind the transgender-affirming project.
Wild explains that he doesn’t know if other companies supported The GenderCool Project as heavily as State Farm, but he says, “All of those companies can be said to be supporting an organization that is targeting kindergartners because these books that they’re trying to get into the hands of kids are, by their own statements, targeted at 5-year-olds.”
Consumers’ Research has listed a Creepy Neighbor Toolkit on its website that includes the national ad and other videos, including Not Your Parent’s State Farm and Creepy Neighbor Explainer Video, as well as quotes from State Farm’s internal email.
The toolkit also includes a section called “State Farm Should Focus on Addressing Its Own Conduct.” In this section, Consumers’ Research accuses the company of “hosting employee seminars” with elements of critical race theory and says it “faces multiple lawsuits from customers and employees alleging discrimination.”
Responding to backlash from thousands of customers, Victor Terry, chief diversity officer for State Farm, sent an email out to staff that was leaked to the Twitter account @libsoftiktok. In it, Terry writes, “State Farm’s support of a philanthropic program, GenderCool, has been the subject of news and customer inquiries.” He continues, “This program that included books about gender identity was intended to promote inclusivity.”
BREAKING: @StateFarm sent out a mass email to their staff today stating “we will no longer support that program” after they were exposed for supporting a project to push LGBTQ books into schools.
A source tells me “the agents were really upset when we found out.” W pic.twitter.com/55P1QJ0oLa— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 23, 2022
“We will no longer support that program,” the State Farm email concludes. “We will continue to explore how we can support organizations that provide tools and resources that sign with our commitment to diversity and inclusion.”
“I do not think that this was a satisfying reply,” Hild says, listing two reasons. “One—They never said that they did anything wrong, and this obviously is wrong. Two—they didn’t say that they would stop targeting kindergartners.”
To learn more about the “Like a Creepy Neighbor, State Farm is There” campaign, please visit consumersresearch.org/. {eoa}.
Rob Vischer is a freelance writer for Charisma News.
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