Pride Month 2025 has begun — not with a bang, but a whimper, seemingly continuing a trend as corporations and institutions back away from celebrating the LGBT agenda. According to a report from Gravity Research, nearly 40% of corporate executives have muted their Pride promotion this year, while no executives reported plans to increase their Pride messaging.

The majority of the scaling back will impact public-facing initiatives, including advertising and merchandising, while internal Pride operations, such as workplace events or activities and corporate donations to LGBT activist organizations, will “remain largely intact.” However, even many of those corporate donations are now being made quietly or even anonymously, in an effort to avoid backlash.

2023 and 2024 both saw mounting and widespread reactions against Pride Month promotion, culminating in devastating boycotts impacting numerous corporations, top retailers, and brands. Gravity Research reported that 65% of corporate executives surveyed expect to face Pride-related backlash this year and are “actively preparing for backlash, crafting reactive communication strategies and training HR teams to manage internal sentiment.” While 39% of executives said that their Pride promotion is being scaled down at least partly due to fear of boycotts and “conservative activists or consumers,” 61% said that they felt pressured to tone down their LGBT messaging by President Donald Trump and his administration.

Perhaps predictably, business-to-consumer companies are more concerned about both public reactions and the Trump administration than are business-to-business companies. However, business-to-business companies reported a significantly higher degree of pressure to tone down Pride activities from board members and executives than did business-to-consumer companies.

While many companies and corporations are scaling back or almost completely abandoning Pride promotion, some brands are continuing to release Pride merchandise lines. According to Pink News, well-known brands like Abercrombie and Fitch, Apple, Converse, Hollister, Levi’s, Puma, Skullcandy, and others have all released Pride-themed lines and collections, ranging from rainbow-colored products to LGBT activist slogans emblazoned on jackets or shoes and all the way to explicitly sexual “homoerotic” imagery stamped on T-shirts.

But other brands and retailers have significantly toned down their Pride selection. Target, for example, notoriously generated rage in 2022 and 2023 when it began selling transgender-oriented “chest binders” and “packing underwear,” Pride-themed onesies, and Satanist-inspired LGBT outfits — all marketed to and made for children. Now, almost all of the retail chain’s Pride merchandise is available only online, as opposed to in-store, and is labeled “ADULT.” According to multiple reports, Target has replaced its in-store Pride section with merchandise and messaging featuring patriotic American gear emblazoned with the American flag.

Major companies have also cut their funding of Pride parades and events, in some cases after decades of supporting the LGBT agenda. The disappearance of corporate sponsors has left Columbus Pride events in Ohio with a $125,000 shortage and the St. Louis PrideFest with a $150,000 shortage, thanks to Bud Light maker Anheuser-Busch ending its 30-year sponsorship of the event. K.C. Pride in Missouri, San Francisco Pride, and Twin Cities Pride in Minnesota are each facing a $200,000 budget gap, while Denver Pride has lost $230,000 in sponsorship funds, and Seattle Pride lost $350,000. New York City’s Pride parade, run by Heritage of Pride, was left with a $750,000 shortfall. Last year, the organization had five “platinum sponsors,” corporations responsible for donating $175,000 or more, but is now down to just one.

In addition to Anheuser-Busch, defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, banking giant Citi, British alcohol company Diageo, home improvement chain Lowe’s, automobile manufacturer Nissan, food and drink behemoth PepsiCo, consulting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and retail staple Walmart all withdrew from sponsoring Pride events this year. The four “platinum sponsors” who abandoned Heritage of Pride are Garnier, Mastercard, Skyy Vodka, and Target. Other companies, like broadcasting company Comcast, have scaled back on their Pride funding and withdrawn from backing major events — like San Francisco Pride, in Comcast’s case — but are still making smaller donations to a few small Pride events, typically in towns or cities linked to the companies’ founding.

Heritage of Pride spokesman Kevin Kilbride noted that many corporations are withdrawing their support due to fear of financial backlash, but also in an effort to avoid the wrath of the Trump administration, according to The New York Times. “The vast majority of what we have heard is that folks are treading carefully from an economic perspective,” the LGBT activist said. He added that “some folks have definitely mentioned the fear of potential blowback from the Trump administration if you are a big corporation and you are publicly supporting D.E.I. initiatives.”

Pride messaging has also significantly decreased. Typically, June sees social media feeds flooded with rainbow profile pictures and Pride-themed posts, but fewer companies are including Pride in their public-facing messaging. In the past, companies such as American Airlines, Gap, IBM, Mercedes-Benz, Meta, Nordstrom, Paramount, Volkswagen, and, of course, Target and Walmart have updated their social media profile pictures to feature Pride rainbows. This year, the only one to do so on X, Instagram, or Facebook was Mercedes-Benz.

The National Football League (NFL), however, has blasted Pride posts all over its social media accounts. While the NFL has decided to stick with its red-white-and-blue profile picture for the present, the sports association has shared numerous Pride-themed posts on its X page, mostly reposting the Pride-themed posts of NFL teams, including the Carolina Panthers, the Green Bay Packers, the Los Angeles Rams, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In the past, the NFL has sparked backlash with its overt Pride Month messaging, including posting a video in 2021 in which captions define football as “gay,” “lesbian,” “queer,” and “transgender.” While still endorsing Pride, the football association does appear to have toned down its messaging. Other sports associations have done likewise: Major League Baseball (MLB) has made two Pride posts on X, the National Basketball Association (NBA) reposted one Pride post, and the National Hockey League (NHL) made no Pride posts.

But some executives clearly missed the “tone down the Pride stuff” memo. Beloved children’s show “Sesame Street” incited instant outrage with an X post showing multi-colored puppet characters forming a rainbow together, accompanied by the caption, “On our street, everyone is welcome. Together, let’s build a world where every person and family feels loved and respected for who they are. Happy #PrideMonth!” Replies to the post included accusations of grooming and child molestation, calls to defund “Sesame Street” broadcaster PBS, and at least one illustration of a man sinking to the bottom of the sea with a millstone tied around his neck.

Backlash against Pride Month boiled over in 2023, following Anheuser-Busch’s disastrous decision to partner with transgender-identifying social media personality Dylan Mulvaney, who became famous for constantly posting videos about his transition to “girlhood.” When Mulvaney became the new face of Bud Light, Anheuser-Busch faced an international boycott, just in time for Pride Month to kick off. The boycott quickly expanded to include Pride devotees like Target and Nike. Some corporations quickly backed away from Pride messaging, fearing for their own stock values.

The rage continued into 2024, when even more companies pared down their Pride propaganda. Companies like Tractor Supply Co. and John Deere ditched their LGBT activism and shuttered their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Although June has only just begun, 2025 seems on track to continue the trend as more and more companies and institutions refuse to touch Pride.