Big brands distance themselves from Pride events amid DEI rollback

Marty Zuniga, who helps organize PrideFest in St. Louis — one of the Midwest’s biggest LGBTQ+ celebrations — could tell by January that this season would be unlike any he’s seen.

That’s when Zuniga noticed that corporate contacts weren’t answering his emails. In the weeks that followed, longtime partners like Anheuser-Busch declined to sponsor this year’s two-day festival while others slashed donations, leaving him with a massive gap in his budget. Meanwhile, he told the Washington Post, several companies willing to commit financially also asked him to keep their names out of it.

Their rationale was consistent, Zuniga said: “We still want to support you, but we can’t scream it from the rafters.”

Amid the Trump administration’s targeting of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, companies are distancing themselves from Pride, a celebration of queer identity that began in the 1970s following the Stonewall uprising in New York City and now spans scores of cities across the globe. Intent on staying out of the government’s crosshairs, many big brands are backing away from LGBTQ+ celebrations of all sizes as part of a broader rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, leaving organizers from coast to coast — including for marquee events in San Francisco, New York, and the Midwest — with budget shortfalls at a time when most are anticipating higher turnout, as well as facing heightened safety and logistical challenges.

Pride organizers say they’re worried the administration’s antipathy toward trans people and drag performers could make their events a magnet for hate against the broader LGBTQ+ community. Such crimes were already on the rise before President Donald Trump returned to office in January, FBI data shows, with 1 in 5 hate crimes motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias.

“Not only are we losing sponsorship dollars, we’re having to spend way more on security,” said Zuniga, president of the nonprofit Pride St. Louis. This year’s PrideFest will be encircled by 6-foot fencing, and Zuniga rented a nearby parking garage simply so he could shut it down. He said he wanted to ensure it could not be used as a vantage from which to inflict violence on festivalgoers. “It’s very scary times.”

The Pride pullbacks come as companies reassess the extent to which they want to weigh in on social issues, said Luke Hartig, who counsels Fortune 500 companies and other large employers as president of Gravity Research, with many opting to focus on matters strictly related to their business amid intensifying legal and political scrutiny on DEI programs. Firms are concerned about attracting government scrutiny, and attention from conservative activists such as Robby Starbuck, whose online campaigns have pressured brands such as Boeing, Caterpillar, Toyota, Molson Coors, and Tractor Supply to revise their DEI policies.

Pride has become a particular point of anxiety in the past couple of years, Hartig said, as executives took notice of how some brands’ efforts to embrace the LGBTQ+ community backfired.

There was Bud Light’s short-lived partnership with trans comedian and influencer Dylan Mulvaney in 2023, which was met with vitriol from some conservative consumers, who dumped cans of Bud Light and called for a boycott of parent company Anheuser-Busch, a longtime partner of GLAAD. The brand’s response, which didn’t directly address the hate directed at Mulvaney, angered LGBTQ+ people, many of whom joined the boycott.

Anheuser-Busch did not respond to a request for comment.

Target also faced blowback in 2023 over some merchandise in its Pride line, which intensified after the retailer pulled some items from stores. People claiming to be angry about the removal of merchandise targeted stores in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Utah with bomb threats.

“A couple of high-profile incidents can have a chilling effect more broadly,” Hartig said. “Companies are looking at a couple brands that have really suffered online activism and saying, ‘Hey, this could happen to us.’”

Now, against the backdrop of Trump’s war on DEI, fear of potential backlash is “even more heightened,” Hartig added. If companies are participating, they’re not touting involvement publicly as they have in the past, he added. Many have “given more leeway” to their LGBTQ+ employee resource groups to represent them at Pride in the view that it’s less controversial than the broader brand signaling support.

Amid the corporate pullbacks, Eve Keller, co-president of United States Association of Prides, said festivals of all sizes are reckoning with a sudden drop in financial support. Keller, who is on the board of Indy Pride, noted that most local Prides do much more than put on a festival. Many host dozens of events from May through Pride Month in June, while others hold celebrations throughout the year — each one “another location, another security risk.”

“I know there’s some Pride members removing their board members’ names and faces from their websites,” Keller told the Post. “It’s a totally different atmosphere now.”

Keller acknowledged that economic uncertainty must be making it hard for companies to manage their budgets. Many Pride events have lowered the sponsorship threshold to as little as $500 to help fill the gaps, she said, but there are other, lower-profile ways for companies to signal their support, such as sending their employees to help work as parade marshals.

“We’re having these conversations with people that are passionate about staying involved but are waiting for approval from corporate,” she said.

Corporate involvement in Pride began around 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is protected by the Constitution. Before long, Zuniga said, advertisers were eager to sponsor LGBTQ+ celebrations for a chance to attach their names and logos to the revelry — as well as reach a community that represents roughly 1 in 10 Americans and commands $1.4 trillion in annual spending power, according to analysis from Merrill Lynch.

Corporate sponsorship has become somewhat controversial in recent years, as some have criticized companies for offering performative, short-lived support of the LGBTQ+ community, according to Bob Witeck, president of Witeck Communications and an expert in LGBTQ+ marketing.

This year is shaping up to be a “sort of a test” for large businesses, he said, with some firms backing away from efforts associated with DEI in a bid to stay out of government crosshairs.

In January, when Trump signed a flurry of executive orders to end DEI programs in the federal government, he also directed agencies to draw up lists of public companies to investigate over their DEI policies — a move that legal experts said was meant to create a chill in the private sector. Weeks later, the Federal Communications Commission notified Philadelphia-based Comcast that its DEI practices were under investigation.

Companies — especially those that do business with the federal government — are in an environment where “they never know if day-to-day they’ll be targeted,” Witeck said. Though he understands businesses’ need to be cautious, he worries about the sort of “public surrender” some brands have made in changing course.

“Every company today is aligning their policies or language so they don’t find themselves in a risky place,” Witeck said. “But there’s vulnerability in a surrender that suggests you’re waffling on your values.”