State Farm scraps gender identity project after ‘Like a Creepy Neighbor’ campaign brings awareness

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State Farm distances itself from gender fluidity project after ‘creepy neighbor’ campaign

Consumers’ Research feels State Farm still has to ‘undo the damage’ already caused.

State Farm quickly distanced itself from a program that pushed books about gender fluidity on young children Monday after a new ad campaign slammed the insurance giant as "a creepy neighbor," but Consumers' Research thinks the insurance giant still has to "undo the damage" it caused. 

"Yesterday we launched our ad campaign calling out State Farm for donating books aimed at kindergartners on the topics of transgenderism and being non-binary… now they claim that they have ended their partnership with the GenderCool Project," Consumers' Research executive director Will Hild told Fox News Digital, calling the turn of events "an indication of how much power consumers have." 

An email from a whistleblower provided to Consumers’ Research, which the organization provided to Fox News Digital, indicated that State Farm urged Florida agents to take action and provide LGBTQ+ books to children through a partnership with the GenderCool program – which describes itself as "helping replace misinformed opinions with positive experiences meeting transgender and non-binary youth who are thriving." 

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State Farm ended a partnership after being accused of recruiting agents to push books about gender fluidity on young children. (Gendercoolproject)

Consumers’ Research, a nonprofit that aims to "increase the knowledge and understanding of issues, policies, products, and services of concern to consumers and to promote the freedom to act on that knowledge and understanding," launched the website LikeACreepyNeighbor.com, where information and ways to take action against State Farm were provided. The group also created a 30-second ad, titled "Like a Creepy Neighbor," which mocked the company’s slogan, and began with a narrator declaring that State Farm says it's a good neighbor before asking, "But would a good neighbor target five-year olds for conversation about sexual identity?"

A few hours after Consumers’ Research campaign went live, State Farm emailed employees, announcing they would no longer be participating in the GenderCool program. 

"This program that included books about gender identity was intended to promote inclusivity," a State Farm spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

"Conversations about gender and identity should happen at home with parents. We don’t support required curriculum in schools on this topic. We support organizations providing resources for parents to have these conversations," State Farm continued. "We no longer support the program allowing for distribution of books in schools. We will continue to explore how we can support organizations that provide tools and resources that align with our commitment to diversity and inclusion." 

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Consumers' Research executive director Will Hild believes State Farm still has to "undo the damage" it caused.

Hild is "very happy" that the Consumers’ Research campaign helped put a spotlight on the situation, but he doesn’t think simply ending the partnership is enough. 

"This is not enough to undo the damage that they have done. It's not even enough to stop the damage being done. So the email that we received was from January of this year, and there's evidence from Facebook posts of schools talking about receiving these books as recently as April. So there have been five months of these books being donated, placed in libraries where kindergartners, five-year-olds could get access to them and those books are still there," Hild said. 

"What we are demanding State Farm do is to actually stop the damage being done to children," he added, noting that it would take three additional steps to undo "damage" that has already been done. 

"They need to hire an external, credible third party to audit everything that was done in conjunction with this program. They need to figure out everywhere where these books were donated, and they need to do their best to retrieve those materials, get them out of the hands of kids where they don't belong," Hild said. "And then third, they need to publish all of this publicly and notify parents whose children were potentially affected by this. And until they do those three things, they are not serious about protecting children. They're not serious about undoing the damage that they've done. And they clearly don't give a lick about the customers or the nation's children." 

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State Farm did not immediately respond to a request for comment when reached by Fox News Digital regarding Consumers’ Research requests. 

Hild said Consumers’ Research was overwhelmed with feedback from customers and State Farms agents alike on Monday, as many were completely unaware the insurance giant was caught up in liberal politics. 

"They were appalled and shocked as everybody else. Customers were livid. They were canceling, calling their agents, canceling their State Farm policies. So, this is obviously something that America's consumers were not happy about," Hild said. "America's parents were not happy, they were appalled." 

Consumers' Research targeted insurance giant State Farm in its new advertisement.

As of now, the LikeACreepyNeighbor.com campaign will keep going until Consumers’ Research sees that State Farm is serious about fixing the problem. 

"These books are still on the shelves in libraries and community centers, and until those have been retrieved, and parents have been notified, State Farm has not even stopped the damage being done to children. So they are still being a creepy neighbor," Hild said. 

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While Hild doesn’t feel his work is finished when it comes to State Farm, he’s thankful that American’s consumers can still force change from when a company is doing something that offends customers. 

"Yesterday is an indication of how much power consumers have, and they should be wielding that power to force companies to serve their interests, not woke politicians or woke activists," he said.

Consumers' Research has previously launched campaigns against other companies, including BlackRock, Levi’s and American Express.