Is Lizzo’s gender-inclusive, new Yitty line exploiting the audience it seeks to serve?

After Lizzo’s Yitty line debuted its upcoming gender-inclusive “Your Skin” line, gender-affirming brand Urbody is raising the alarm.

A cause for celebration has become a callout. Lizzo’s Yitty brand, which has centered on size inclusivity, has come under fire for new gender-inclusive offerings allegedly derivative of those by a trans and queer woman-founded brand. Meanwhile, Yitty’s design team is reportedly lacking similar representation.

On Yitty’s one-year anniversary and just days before Trans Day of Visibility on March 31, Lizzo’s brand announced a new gender-inclusive collection. In honor of its “YITTYVERSARY,” the company pushed its ethos of inclusivity with the “Your Skin” collection. The brand teased the collection — set to release this summer, as reported by People — with a photo campaign showcasing the brand’s new Binding Top and Tucking Thong. 

“We believe in radical self-love for people of all gender identities — including the trans, non-binary, gender-fluid and gender non-conforming communities that have been chronically underserved,” read an Instagram post touting the new collection.

However, reports have since emerged that the line was heavily influenced by Urbody, a gender-affirming underwear line created in 2021 by Mere Abrams and Anna Graham. According to the brand, Yitty’s design team reportedly placed two orders for Urbody’s compression and tucking garments between April 2022 and early 2023, prior to debuting plans for its own gender-inclusive line. After the initial order, Urbody claims to have been encouraged by Yitty’s interest in developing gender-inclusive products and reached out to the Fabletics-owned brand “to share their expertise” in the field, according to a statement published via Urbody’s blog.

“As a small company with limited reach and resources, and with the awareness that Black and Brown trans women are the most targeted members of our community, we were excited by the potential to see our community have a meaningful seat at the table with a brand represented by Lizzo and her powerful, vital message of racial and size inclusivity.

We reached out to Fabletics last year, after they placed that first order, with the hope that we could learn from each other’s experiences — and understand how they might be committed to developing products with trans fashion experts at the core of a line ostensibly aimed at our community. We didn’t hear back. … When we finally got a meeting to discuss their line, we expected to see our community represented on the team — but we did not.”

Source: Urbody

Urbody goes on to state that it followed up with Yitty several times after meeting with a proposal for partnering on a gender-inclusive line but despite Yitty’s expressed desire for input from the trans community, “were largely ignored and brushed off.” When the teaser campaign for “Your Skin” debuted in March, Urbody’s founders say they were dismayed to see “strikingly similar creative, copy, and designs as Urbody, from the name to the products,” seemingly confirming its fears that the larger brand was “attempting to profit off of our community’s hard work without proper recognition or collaboration.”

As of this writing, neither Yitty nor Fabletics have issued a statement in response to Urbody’s allegations; theGrio has also reached out for comment. The smaller brand says it is now speaking out on the issue to bring it to Lizzo’s attention, as it believes “she’d be empathetic and aligned with us if she knew this backstory.” Urbody also hopes to bring greater awareness to the need for trans visibility and inclusion both in front of and behind the scenes.

“[O]ur disappointment isn’t primarily rooted in feeling copied, it’s coming from the reality that the trans community, time and time again, is overlooked and marginalized — even when we have valuable experiences, talents, and expertise to contribute,” Urbody’s statement contends, later adding: “Businesses need to do their part to fight for us — and include us in leadership — before they attempt to profit off of us.”

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