The precipitous rise of anti-LGBTQ sentiment in America has increasingly put corporate allies in the crosshairs of fraught culture war battles, creating unprecedented challenges for firms as they navigate business decisions during Pride month.

Concerns follow recent cases in which Target Corp. and Anheuser-Busch InBev suffered financial and reputational damage – first, when their outreach to LGBTQ customers provoked backlash, and again when the companies backed down in response to their anti-LGBTQ critics.

How should firms approach Pride month promotions in a climate where even the most minor or anodyne move can inspire right-wing calls for boycotts, or even threats of violence? What obligations do companies have to their LGBTQ customers, many of whom have long objected to brands’ tendency to offer performative demonstrations of support for the community to boost their sales in June?  

Three experts spoke to the Washington Blade to address these and other questions.

Andrew Isen is founder and president of WinMark Concepts, a firm that provides marketing services targeting LGBTQ audiences and customers, primarily for large publicly traded companies. Todd Evans is president and CEO of Rivendell Media, a firm that coordinates and manages advertising and marketing campaigns that are run in LGBTQ media. And Jack Mackinnon is senior director of cultural insights at Collage Group, a consumer research firm whose customers include many of the world’s biggest and best-known brands.

Anti-LGBTQ backlash is real and difficult to predict

False claims on social media that an item in Target’s seasonal Pride collection – a “tuck-friendly” swimsuit – was offered in children’s sizes led to in-store confrontations that prompted the retailer to respond by moving merchandise to the back of stores and off the floor in some rural southern locations.

The controversy illustrates the unpredictability and arbitrariness of online flare-ups targeting individual companies, often driven partially or entirely by misinformation, the sources agreed.

“We are literally jumping from crisis to crisis to crisis,” Isen said, adding “we are in uncharted territory” where companies are “unable to foretell on an hourly basis what will blow up on social media,” and responding effectively is made more difficult when the claims at issue are “patently untrue.”

As a result, “there is a real reticence to move forward” on outreach to the LGBTQ community “until things work themselves out,” Isen said. Companies are now struggling with balancing their obligations to LGBTQ customers and their corporate shareholders, he said.

Evans said part of the problem is proportionality. Pressures from a small and vocal contingent of anti-LGBTQ consumers are amplified by unregulated social media platforms, he noted.

For example, he said, “One Million Moms,” a division of the American Family Association that is known for demanding boycotts against companies that have embraced the LGBTQ community, only has a few thousand Twitter followers.

Isen and Evans said that while brands have long been attacked for publicly embracing the LGBTQ community, the controversy over Bud Light’s social media spot featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney marked a tipping point because of the resulting harm to parent company Anheuser-Busch’s bottom line.

Negative ramifications would have been thwarted, Isen said, had the company not reacted with a defensive posture by issuing a statement that “we never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people.”  

“There’s no PR professional that would have recommended” Anheuser-Busch respond in the way that it did, agreed Evans.

To the extent that firms can anticipate when they may encounter anti-LGBTQ backlash, the sources agreed it is generally directed at the transgender community and anything involving minors – as seen in the rise in attacks against all-ages drag performances, for instance, and legislation targeting the rights of trans Americans, especially youth.  

Evans said transphobia is part of a broader reactionary moment in American politics that presents a threat to the entire LGBTQ community and “anybody else who is different.” Isen noted the political climate has been defined by a right-wing crusade against “wokeness” led by the likes of Florida’s Republican Gov. and 2024 presidential contender Ron DeSantis.

Mackinnon, however, said the anti-trans backlash is distinct. “Other LGBTQ+ issues like gay marriage are not very controversial” from a marketing and advertising perspective, but there has been a shift in recent years as “people starting to think about transgender issues on a higher level,” he said.

Misinformation can be weaponized and exploited to a greater extent when it concerns gender issues about which many Americans are still unfamiliar, Mackinnon said.

Brands can mitigate risks by engaging thoughtfully with their LGBTQ customers

As they approach any business decision concerning advertising or outreach to the LGBTQ community, the sources agreed the Bud Light dustup may offer important lessons for companies moving forward into Pride month and beyond.

When the beermaker approached Mulvaney, “the decision to engage her was done for business reasons,” Isen said, as the company saw a valuable opportunity to tap into a broader market of young potential customers. The influencer “has a demographic following that fit perfectly into a market expansion opportunity for the brand that was in double digit decline.”

The company’s response, he said, was a problem because Anheuser-Busch seemed to characterize its work with Mulvaney as, instead, a cultural outreach effort – which rang insincere and “alienated the entire LGBTQ community, bar owners in the trade, and consumers.”

“Had they stood firm and said, ‘we made a calculated business decision to engage this social influencer as we have thousands of other social influencers,’ it would have been a different story,” Isen said.

Anheuser-Busch’s major miscalculation was failing to build a relationship with its LGBTQ customers who might otherwise be inclined to forgive the company’s decision to back down to pressure from anti-trans extremists “with its delayed response and then a really unthoughtful response,” Evans said. Engendering goodwill with the community is crucial, he said.

“This is a brand that was not necessarily known for [LGBTQ] outreach in their marketing,” Mackinnon said, “so when they partnered – in a very small way, by the way – and dabbled in a partnership with [Mulvaney], that caught some people by surprise, potentially, and they put themselves in an awkward position to explain what it was that they were doing.”

As a result, he said, for many people Anheuser-Busch’s business decision to work with Mulvaney seemed insincere or opportunistic.

Mackinnon said consumer research indicates that young people, especially, are inclined to research individual companies to assess the extent to which their support for inclusivity is sincere and baked into their corporate governance, rather than performative and motivated entirely by profit chasing.  

As an example, Mackinnon pointed to cases where, following the murder of George Floyd, firms expressed their support for the Black Lives Matter movement, only to face criticism when customers discovered the lack of diversity in their boards of directors.

“Brands should be thinking about not [just] what should my campaign be for this June, but where do we want to be in terms of building trust six months from now, a year from now, five years from now,” Mackinnon said.

“Most of that work is quiet and under the surface and behind the scenes, and it is essential for building a platform and a framework and a foundation to have any other effective types of campaigns,” he said.

Part of this strategy should also include clear and consistent messaging on online platforms, which Mackinnon said can act as an effective bulwark against the spread of misinformation targeting companies.

“A brand that is investing in transgender, LGBTQ+ consumers,” he said, must “be ready to know how to explain [those investments] and how to combat that misinformation” with quick, simple responses provided in real time.

Used properly, Mackinnon said, social media can be an effective tool for firms to build trust – allowing for opportunities to engage in discussions and storytelling in a conversational fashion not afforded by other forms of corporate communication.

The ascendency of transphobia and anti-LGBTQ sentiment comes as Americans’ faith in institutions – politics, traditional media, scientific and medical expertise – continues to plummet.

These conditions have primed consumers to “look to brands to speak to these issues,” Mackinnon said, “not to, like, heal the world, but to operate as influencers on the issues that are front-of-mind for people.”

Companies might, then, see not just a set of challenges but also valuable opportunities for LGBTQ outreach during Pride month. Acting thoughtfully, these firms might maximize their market caps for the month of June without alienating their LGBTQ customers while also, potentially, helping to facilitate a world in which more Americans might be down to have a beer with a trans neighbor or bring their kids to a drag performance.

The Human Rights Campaign on Tuesday declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ people in the U.S., “following an unprecedented and dangerous spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislative assaults sweeping state houses this year.”

America’s largest LGBTQ organization, which has never before made such an announcement in its 40+-year history, also featured findings from its new report, LGBTQ+ Americans Under Attack, which “details more than 75 anti-LGBTQ bills that have been signed into law this year alone, more than doubling last year’s number, which was previously the worst year on record.”

In a press release, HRC explained, “The sharp rise in anti-LGBTQ+ measures has spawned a dizzying patchwork of discriminatory state laws that have created increasingly hostile and dangerous environments for LGBTQ people, prompting HRC today to also issue a national warning and downloadable guidebook for the LGBTQ+ community. “

These include resources for health and safety, “a summary of state-by-state laws, ‘know your rights’ information, and information designed to support LGBTQ+ travelers as well as those already living in hostile states.”

For the first time ever, we’re declaring a national state of emergency as LGBTQ+ Americans face extremist attempts to roll back our rights. It’s more important than ever we have the necessary resources to stay safe no matter where we are. https://t.co/EcnZgqDDCp pic.twitter.com/q0axEWCM1N

— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) June 6, 2023

“LGBTQ+ Americans are living in a state of emergency,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said in a statement.

“The multiplying threats facing millions in our community are not just perceived — they are real, tangible and dangerous,” she said. “In many cases they are resulting in violence against LGBTQ+ people, forcing families to uproot their lives and flee their homes in search of safer states, and triggering a tidal wave of increased homophobia and transphobia that puts the safety of each and every one of us at risk.”

Speaker Emerita U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday will throw the ceremonial first pitch for the annual Washington Nationals Night OUT celebration, Major League Baseball’s longest-running Pride event.

Pelosi will be honored for her work advancing equal rights for the LGBTQ community throughout her career, from her first speech on the House floor addressing the AIDS crisis in 1987 to her leadership codifying protections for same-sex couples through passage of the Respect for Marriage Act last year.

Pelosi, as a special guest of the LGBTQ sports group Team DC, will throw the pitch shortly after Tuesday’s game begins at 7:05 p.m. ET.

According to a press release from the Washington Nationals, “The first 20,000 fans in attendance will receive a Screech Night OUT bobblehead, and fans who purchase a special Night OUT ticket will also receive an exclusive T-shirt with $5 of every special ticket purchased donated to Team DC.”

Tickets for Night OUT are available for purchase.

Pelosi reflected on her record of advocating for LGBTQ Americans during an interview with the Washington Blade in January, shortly after her planned departure from Democratic leadership, where she had served for two decades, including as Speaker of the House.

“Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi is the most consequential Speaker in American history and I am humbled by the opportunity to recognize her as Speaker Emerita,” Democratic House Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) said last November, following the unanimous vote to bestow the honorific on Pelosi.

The move celebrates “Speaker Pelosi’s lifetime of service as a legendary legislator, notorious negotiator and a fabulous facilitator. Our Caucus and our country are better off for her leadership, without question, and this title is but a small token of our gratitude,” Jeffries added.