Scared advertisers, flag bans and Trump: the US is in for a troubled Pride 2025

The Guardian

29-05-2025

When Utah brought in its pride flag ban, organizer Chad Call was hardly surprised. On 7 May the US state became the first to explicitly prohibit the flying of LGBTQ+ flags at government buildings and schools; anyone who does so could face fines of $500 a day.
'We live in an incredibly conservative state,' says Call, executive director of Utah Pride. 'It's disappointing that this is such an important issue to our lawmakers. Unfortunately, we lead the nation in anti-LGBTQ legislation.'
Similar Pride month flag bans have been signed into law in 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.'
In Salt Lake City and Boise, which are both Democrat-run, people are already resisting the bans. Salt Lake City has introduced three newly designed flags featuring the city's traditional sego lily design imposed over a pride flag, the transgender flag and the Juneteenth flag. Meanwhile, Boise's mayor issued a proclamation retroactively making the pride flag an official city flag.
Around 31 flag-related bills have been introduced across 17 states, says Logan Casey, policy director of independent LGBTQ+ thinktank the Movement Advancement Project (MAP). 'Some bills apply to all government property, while some apply to school settings only,' says Casey. 'Some specifically name and prohibit LGBTQ-related flags, while others only allow certain flags like the national, state, or other governmental flags – and so LGBTQ-related ones are prohibited implicitly.
Ushering in a Pride month that is sure to be tumultuous, these flag bans are among a raft of fresh anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. At the time of writing, the ACLU was tracking the progress of 588 anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the country. MAP puts the figure at around 700 bills, while pointing out that in recent years most anti-LGBTQ+ bills have ultimately been defeated.
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.
The exodus of sponsors from America's Pride events, large and small, have made headlines: the loss of the likes of Anheuser-Busch, Comcast and Diageo from San Francisco Pride has accounted for – at the time of writing – a $200,000 shortfall for a $3.2m event last year attended by an estimated 1.5 million people. (La Crema and Benefit Cosmetics have recently returned as sponsors, a spokesperson said.)
Some organizers say that companies retreating from Pride have been spooked by Trump's anti-DEI crusade. (The White House did not respond to requests for comment about its plans for any Pride month messaging.)
Utah Pride, for instance, is currently short $400,000 – or close to half – of its typical sponsorship total. 'It's primarily due to the anti-DEI rhetoric happening on a federal and state level,' says Call, declining to name the companies that have withdrawn. 'We definitely have a target on our backs. But there is nothing they can do to prevent us from having Pride, unless more legislation is coming down, and that would be probably unconstitutional.'
Yet some companies have said they are pulling their financial support because of the jittery economic climate.
'Businesses are struggling for a lot of different reasons, like uncertainty around future tariffs,' says Elizabeth Michael, executive director of SoMA 501, which is organizing a Pride event in Little Rock, Arkansas. 'Putting on this event costs a lot of money, around $20,000-40,000, and we're doing our best to scrape it together the best we can.'
SF Pride had also been struggling to regain its stability after the pandemic, even before this year's turmoil. 'We are by no means financially safe,' Elizabeth Ford, its executive director, says. 'I don't think any Pride in the United States is financially safe at this moment.'
New York City Pride, the US's largest Pride festival attended last year by an estimated 2.5 million people, has seen the withdrawal of Mastercard, PepsiCo, Nissan, Citi and PricewaterhouseCoopers as corporate sponsors. The New York Times reported that 25% of New York's corporate Pride donors had 'canceled or scaled back their support, citing economic uncertainty and fear of retribution from the Trump administration'. Organizers Heritage of Pride now face an estimated $750,000 shortfall.
Technology company Booz Allen Hamilton withdrew their backing from WorldPride, the biannual, global-themed event this year happening in Washington DC. Two corporate sponsors have withdrawn from Pridefest, Virginia's largest LGBTQ+ festival, Axios reported (organizers declined to name them). Anheuser-Busch, Lowe's, Nissan and Walmart have withdrawn from Columbus Pride in Ohio, costing the organization around $125,000 in lost donations, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
Many Pride organizers say that the impact of sponsors' withdrawal will not just be felt at Pride events, but in the losses to funding, and potential scaling back, of LGBTQ+ advocacy programs throughout the rest of the year.
Not all companies have turned their back on Pride. Citi still plans to have an employee presence in the New York march, and contribute to other events. Ford says that while some large businesses were still funding SF Pride events, they had requested they receive no public recognition for doing so; she declined to name them. Other event organizers said the same, claiming that companies still wanted to support Pride but privately, with their names unspoken and invisible.
In Boise, Williamson says: 'so far, knock on wood,' no sponsors had withdrawn their support for the September festival, now in its 36th year. Last year, 60,000 people attended the largest Pride event in Idaho, backed by 77 corporate sponsors and 35 small business sponsors. Williamson says that so far, there are only 40 corporate and small business sponsors signed up for the festival's 2025 edition. He declined to name names. 'I don't want to jinx anything at this stage in the process.'
Despite the monetary perils and anti-DEI headwinds, Pride organizers who spoke to the Guardian insisted the show will go on, especially in light of the political hostility LGBTQ+ people are facing in the US and globally.
There was a certain irony to the brouhaha around the sponsor withdrawal headlines, many US organizers note. Some LGBTQ+ activists have long criticized Pride events for being too corporatist and beholden to big businesses seeking to cash in on the queer community and 'pinkwash' their reputations.
'Big sponsors supported Pride because they knew LGBTQ people had money in our wallets,' says Eve Keller, co-president of USA Prides, a national network of around 200 LGBTQ+ Pride festival organizations across the country. 'They weren't making lasting change, they were just rainbow-washing their logos for the month of June. We had Pride before corporate sponsors paid us any attention. We're getting back to our community roots, with people wanting to connect and collaborate with each another. Pride started as a protest. We're here to show up and be heard as who we are. Pride creates joy, and queer joy is an act of resistance.'
In red states Pride marches and festivals take on an added depth and importance, says Densil R Porteous, executive director of Stonewall Columbus, which organizes the Ohio city's event, 'so people do not feel alone, especially if they're living in smaller rural communities'.
Columbus's event goes under the moniker United in Pride and was attended by around 700,000 people last year. Porteous says the gathering helps combat 'feelings of defeat many people are feeling, and to remind us of the joy in our community and the history we're upholding. We are determined to come together and not be hidden and diminished any more.'
Williamson in Boise agrees: 'It's incredibly rewarding to see tens of thousands of attenders. It's very easy to feel isolated and alone in deep red states like Idaho with people living in relatively isolated areas and incredibly regressive legislatures targeting the LGBTQ community.'
SF Pride's Ford, who is originally from the 'very red' Owensboro, Kentucky, says the scale of larger Pride festivals can also encourage LGBTQ+ people from small towns. 'The size and importance of an event like SF Pride is to say to LGBTQ people everywhere: 'You're not alone, and here in San Francisco you can be who you are. We don't tolerate you. We celebrate you.''
Ford cites Harvey Milk, the San Francisco gay rights crusader who advocated coming out as the most potent expression of LGBTQ+ strength, as a guiding light. 'I knew I was trans when I was five years old. I didn't come out till I was 46. Trans people have to be visible. We are confident, capable, loving people, and we deserve the same rights as everybody else. We don't need special favors, just a chance to exist.'
Keeping attenders safe is another prime expense and focus for Pride organizers. There have been Pride security scares before, most notably at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in 2022 when police foiled plans of a white nationalist group to riot at a Pride event.
Ahead of World Pride in DC, two LGBTQ+ organizations, Egale Canada and the African Human Rights Coalition, issued warnings against traveling to the US – principally down to concern that trans and non-binary people would not be allowed to enter the country. 'People are scared to leave America in case they're not allowed back in, and scared to come here in case they're not allowed in,' said Keller. 'People do not feel safe coming to America.'
It is unknown if these worsening perceptions of America will tangibly dent its share of the LGBTQ+ tourism market, currently estimated at around $300bn, including those traveling to the US for Pride events.
Due to concerns that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security had not yet issued safety advisories ahead of this year's Pride month, Porteous in Ohio recently published a call 'for heightened collective safety and public solidarity'. In the statement he wrote: 'In a time marked by increasing visibility and vulnerability, our shared responsibility is clear: we must protect the spaces we've fought to create, together.' (The FBI did not respond to repeated requests for comment about any threats to Pride events it was monitoring this year.)
The difficulties facing Pride this year has led to organizers rethinking how future gatherings will be financed, perhaps involving more community donations and crowdfunding.
'Ultimately, SoMa Pride is about community,' says Michael in Little Rock. 'It's about ensuring everyone has a place to feel safe and welcome. We're optimistic about closing the funding gap. We know money is tight right now, but if a progressive, welcoming south is important to you, consider giving $5.'
The LGBTQ+ community and its allies need to show up and pay up, adds Ford in San Francisco. 'If every person who came through the gates of SF Pride gave us $20 we'd be in fine shape for 2026.'
If the sponsors who have withdrawn from SF Pride wish to return in the future, 'we would have to discuss with them what happened,' Ford says. 'It can't be swept under the rug. We always have to entertain the idea of rehabilitation, but we can't forget.'
In Ohio, Pride organizer Porteous says they had paused relationships with some organizations, 'but if they come back to common sense we'll have a conversation. It can be about healing and reconciliation, but also just because someone says sorry, it doesn't mean you have to accept their sorry.'
However vexed the current moment, 'it is vital that Pride events across the country are well-attended this year,' Ford says, in order to send a strong message of collective presence and power to all those attacking LGBTQ+ rights. 'We can't afford people to stay home, it's a revolutionary act to go to your Pride.'
In Idaho, Williamson remains determined to put on a celebratory Boise Pride. 'The queer community has been here forever, and Pride is the best time to show the world that the community will still be here when all this shit is done.'