Nike critics launch a 'burn bra challenge' and rail against its treatment of female athletes amid growing backlash for its work with a transgender influencer

• Transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney announced a partnership with Nike on Instragram this month.

• A Nike critic started a "burn bra challege" on TikTok last week.

• Nike, which has weathered other protests, encouraged inclusivity on social media.

The backlash against Nike for its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney continued this weekend after a critic started a "burn bra challenge" on TikTok.

Mulvaney earlier this month announced a partnership with Nike on Instagram.

The influencer's sponsorship deals with companies including Nike, Bud Light, and Kate Spade have been met with positive and negative feedback, with supporters celebrating advertising inclusivity and critics saying the companies are pushing a "woke" agenda.

Last week, a TikTok user started a "burn bra challenge" and recorded a video of herself lighting her Nike bra on fire, saying Nike should be "ashamed of itself."

"You chose a little boy with no breasts and some junk in his pants to represent real women," the TikTok user said, according to the New York Post.

The video is no longer available. The associated account also is no longer available. The owner of a new account with a similar screen name claimed it was banned for "speaking out against Nike."

On Twitter, Caitlyn Jenner criticized Nike in early April for a "double standard," noting how the company mistreated Olympic legend Allyson Felix, while celebrating Mulvaney.

Felix, a former Nike runner, wrote a bruising op-ed about the company's treatment of female athletes in the New York Times in 2019. Nike has worked to address the criticisms from Felix and other former Nike female runners.

Mulvaney isn't the first transgender person to endorse Nike products. In 2016, Nike featured Chris Mosier, Team USA's first transgender athlete, in a commercial.

In a pinned comment on Instagram, Nike earlier this month said, "Hate speech, bullying, or other behaviors that are not in the spirit of a diverse and inclusive community will be deleted."

Nike has been criticized over the years for several of its endorsement partners, including John McEnroe, Charles Barkley, Tonya Harding, and Colin Kaepernick.

But calls to destroy the company's products typically have been short lived, with Vox calling the brief online Kaepernick boycott "largely confined to performative social-media outrage."

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