Pride has become a representation of queer people’s marketability. It’s no longer a radical concept.
Pride has gone from a protest to a capitalist fiasco. Historically, pride is the promotion and increased visibility of the LGBTQ+ community, but recently it has been warped by corporations.
Every June, businesses change their social media profiles to rainbow-colored versions of their logos, add pride merchandise to their stores and sponsor pride parades.
More than 20 million people in the U.S. identify as LGBTQ+, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an organization dedicated to ending discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community.
With such a large community, companies have clearly realized that showing surface-level support of the LGBTQ+ community is good for business.
That is where the problem of “rainbow washing” has arisen.
Rainbow washing is using LGBTQ+ imagery, including rainbows, to indicate support for equality but with very little effort behind the act, according to Urban Dictionary.
Being openly queer is often a contradictory experience. As a transgender woman, I have received so much support and acceptance. Being trans has also made me understand that life isn't just black and white.
It is easy to feel so supported, yet so alienated and alone at the same time.
Rainbow washing is an issue that runs deeper than rainbow logos, tacky t-shirts or pride flag socks with the logo of a weapons manufacturer on it.
AT&T, The Walt Disney Co. and General Motors have all donated substantial amounts of money to anti-LGBTQ+ politicians, according to Data for Progress’s Corporate Accountability Project.
Data for Progress is a group that focuses on using data science to support progressive causes and activists, according to its general website.
In 2021, AT&T ran an advertisement campaign boasting a large donation to The Trevor Project, which is a nonprofit organization that provides crisis and suicide provention for LGBTQ+ teens and children.
However, AT&T also donated more than $1 million to anti-LGBTQ+ politicians, roughly double the amount that the Trevor Project said was donated by the telecommunications giant, according to a June 21 Marketwatch article
Marketwatch is a website that gives financial information, business news, analysis and stock market data, according to its website.
General Motors donated more than $100,000 to the Republican State Leadership Committee, which backed multiple lawmakers with aggressive anti-LGBTQ+ agendas. The company donated an additional $500,000 directly to other politicians with similarly hostile campaigns.
That comes in contrast to General Motors boasting about being the first automobile company to join the Human Right Campaign’s “Business Coalition for Equalities Act,” which it used heavily in marketing during June 2020 on its Twitter.
More than 450 anti-trans legislation have been proposed by lawmakers across the nation.
The Walt Disney Co. donated almost $300,000 to politicians behind Florida’s House Bill 1557, which is colloquially known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, according to a March 11 CNBC article.
Companies will turn their backs on the LGBTQ+ community if it means getting the legislation they want passed.
We need to hold corporations accountable for their actions and non-actions.
It is not acceptable to allow companies to use the LGBTQ+ community for profit, while also supporting the lawmakers and politicians that are trying to silence and get rid of us.
We shouldn’t be supporting the companies that both masquerade support and allyship while also actively donating against the people who need it most.
Across the country, transgender children are being outed against their wills, forced to use their legal names and kicked out of school events, all while corporations that fund pride parades are handing the politicians responsible the money for their campaigns.
Corporations need to start putting their money where their mouths are and support the community they claim to care about so much during pride month.
