Less Corporate Pride Is an LGBTQ Opportunity
This is a moment for queer and trans people to embrace their history of challenging inequities.
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Michael Arceneaux writes about pop culture, politics, race, sexuality, religion, class and gender. He is the author of "I Don't Want To Die Poor" and "I Can't Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I've Put My Faith in Beyoncé."
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Pride Month is well underway, but you might not notice it if you walked into major retail stores or scrolled through many corporate social media accounts. Instead of companies loudly showing support, rainbow-branded merchandise and logos have quietly disappeared. Corporations, it seems, have followed through on pledges to scale back their visible displays of allyship. An April report from Gravity Research, a risk management research firm, said that nearly 40% of companies planned to do so this year.
For longstanding critics of 'rainbow capitalism,' a term referring to businesses that use imagery and language to appeal to LGBTQ shoppers like me, the decline in corporate support is unsurprising. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 68% of LGBTQ adults thought that all or most companies promoting Pride do so because they think it's good for business.
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