By Alliance Communications Coordinator Amy Durr
In the before times there was no sanitized Pride Month, no corporate sponsors, no legitimization. There didn’t need to be – Pride was pride in the face of hate and bigotry. Pride was people trying to exist. Pride was Protest.
In 2023, the National Women’s Law Center wrote, “This Pride Month is feeling a little less celebratory. It’s been a long year: from the rising legislative attacks on LGBTQI+ people’s rights to exist, to hate groups threatening to ramp up violence during Pride Month, it almost feels difficult to muster the emotional energy to celebrate Pride.”
They continue: “While Pride is rooted in revolution and resistance, rainbow capitalism packages our identities to turn a profit, flattening both the trauma and violence LGBTQI+ people — especially LGBTQI+ people of color — weather every single day. Rainbow capitalism also undermines the true intersectionality of the LGBTQI+ rights movement and the bravery demonstrated by the trans women of color who risked their lives and safety in inventing Pride.”
The political environment in the US is shifting, noted the Guardian. “Republican state legislatures are passing laws restricting LGBTQ+ rights and conservative media personalities are demonizing trans people. Some companies have faced a rightwing backlash over recent Pride promotions.”
2025 Corporate Pride Is a Riptide
“The risk is that Pride’s radical roots, as an ongoing fight for LGBTQIA+ rights and acceptance, are watered down into just a seasonal marketing opportunity. Critics point out that rainbow capitalism can be outright hypocritical; it came to light that several major US corporations that proudly sported rainbow logos and sponsored Pride parades had simultaneously donated large sums to politicians who oppose LGBTQIA+ rights,” shares science writer Dr. Shalvaree Vaidya.
Similar to the appropriation of Indigenous cultures, the “commodification of the rainbow flag and Queer culture does little to nothing to benefit those within the 2SLGBTQ+ [Native American terminology for 2 Spirit] community itself, nor does it address the violence continually directed towards these relatives,” explains the Indigenous NDN Collective.
They add, “More often than not, these corporations completely fail to shed light on the origins of Pride as an act of resistance, led by Black and Brown Queers, whose efforts were centered on liberation. Meanwhile, these same corporations profit off of the Queer struggle.”
While there have been a growing number of attacks on Pride and LGBTQ+ rights, I was feeling hopeful that young people and many others were turning the tide and making it safer and more acceptable to be LGBTQ+.
However, Trump’s vindictive, outright bigoted attacks on trans people during the election led to fear and physical harm for many trans people. Once he won the election, Trump amplified his hate through his speeches, social media and outrageous anti-LGBTQ+ Executive Orders – ranging from cutting off school funding if trans athletes compete to the removal of trans people from the military.
It’s hard to believe but things are looking even more grim. I am personally feeling the weight and fear as the mother of both a trans and LGBTQ+ child. It’s really scary.
Flag Bans, Disappearing Advertisers and Trump: Pride 2025
Pride month flag bans have been signed into law in Utah, Idaho and Montana. “Bigotry is nothing new,” says Donald Williamson, executive director of Idaho’s Boise Pride. “This community has been dealing with targeted legislation for several years now – flags are just the latest. All it does is bond us more closely together and emphasize how important festivals like Pride are.” I intensely feel the pettiness and vindictiveness of Pride flag bans.
“Ushering in a Pride month that is sure to be tumultuous, these flag bans are among a raft of fresh anti-LGBTQ+ legislation,” reports the Guardian. “At the time of writing, the ACLU was tracking the progress of 588 anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the country. MAP puts the figure at about 700 bills, while pointing out that in recent years most anti-LGBTQ+ bills have ultimately been defeated.”
They continue, “Pride 2025 already has an acutely political focus due to the sheer scale of these legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ people, alongside the Trump administration’s targeting of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and trans rights. In this precarious landscape, a swath of big-name corporate sponsors have withdrawn from Pride events, leaving organizers to urgently re-evaluate both their size and security costs.”
Queerness Is Joyful Without Corporate Sponsorship
In 2025 as many prominent companies pull their sponsorships from major metropolitan Prides in deference to the rising anti-LGBTQ+ movement, “the time is ripe to reconsider what Pride has become and what we want it to be. For decades, heavy corporate involvement in Pride events has been a given — welcomed by many, ignored by some, protested by a few,” says Christina Cauterucci, Slate senior writer and podcast host of Outward, Slate’s podcast on queer life, in an article called “The End of the Rainbow”.
She continues, “If this year’s trend continues, Pride as we know it will drastically change. And that would be a good thing: Even if corporations come crawling back once President Pete Buttigieg clinches the White House in 2028, big-city Pride organizers should rebuff them, in favor of the homegrown celebrations of LGBTQ+ culture and resistance we all deserve.”
Christina Cauterucci has a beautiful vision of the corporate-less Pride Month:
“Queers in big cities are already hosting massive events with minimal operating costs and no sponsors. They’re called Dyke Marches, and they run on volunteer labor, community fundraising and a lot of nerve. At the annual New York City march, with no permit for their event, marshals block traffic by linking arms across intersections for nearly 2 miles.”
“Tens of thousands of people march the route — waving signs, playing music, running into friends and future friends, exes and future exes…The spectacle — a sea of blissed-out queers blazing down Fifth Avenue, seizing control of the street without anyone’s permission — embodies the purest essence of Pride.”
“If I had to pinpoint the purpose of Pride, it would be not a specific event or political ambition but a feeling. You find it in those transcendent Pride moments when you’re surrounded by a mix of loved ones and strangers, sensing that everyone around you is linked by a mutual history, touching the possibility of a future that gives our freest, most joyous selves adequate space to grow.”
Christina, we couldn’t agree more.