When the bill was introduced, Disney found of having donated $249,126 to Florida legislators that voted for the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation and $50,000 to DeSantis himself over the previous two years. Disney made no comment on the bill during its introduction or while it was voted upon. In fact, Disney failed to make any sort of statement regarding the legislation until it had passed, as which point then CEO Bob Chapek reached out to DeSantis to urge him not to sign the bill into law.

This delayed action came only after Disney employees spent months speaking out for LGBTQIA+ rights and calling for their employer to do the same. Actor and writer Ben Siemon was not satisfied with Disney’s eventual statement, tweeting, “Please don’t be fooled by this half-hearted triage. The bill was allowed to pass with no public position from Disney, and they still intend on funding all the politicians that passed it.”

It came as a shock to many that a company that has been so outspoken about its support for LGBTQIA+ rights would stay so quiet while this heinous law was passed in its own backyard. But this microcosmic demonstration of corporate indifference speaks to a much larger dynamic at play.

It seems a safe enough assumption to say that ‘Disney’ (whatever one construes that to mean) does not hate gay people. In fact, Disney takes care of its queer employees, hints at representation in its media, and cloaks its branding in rainbows every June for Pride Month.

Disney also benefits extensively from the queer community’s ties to its content and its theme parks. It has encouraged Gay Days at its parks, where tens of thousands of LGBTQIA+ fans flood Disney World in Orlando. It offers rainbow covered merchandise year-round. During Pride Month, the company goes all out: it offers even more opportunities to spend money on pride themed clothes and collectibles, puts up special photo opportunities in the parks, and of course, displays Pride-specific logos on all its social media accounts.

That Disney donated to Republican politicians it knew to be homophobic proves not that Disney doesn’t care about gay people, but that it doesn’t care about them nearly as much as it does its bottom line.

That Disney donated to Republican politicians it knew to be homophobic proves not that Disney doesn’t care about gay people, but that it doesn’t care about them nearly as much as it does its bottom line.

Republican politicians in Florida have done a lot for Disney. The Republican-controlled state government has given Disney billions in tax breaks, allowed it special governing status, and prevented environmental regulations that would impact Disney’s profitability. Politicians lobby Disney for donations and support with promises of continued pro-business legislation. This quid pro quo relationship between Disney and its Republican benefactors has resulted in a public-facing showdown between Disney and Florida Republicans, who seem to feel that Disney executives speaking out against anti-gay legislative efforts are now biting the hand that feeds them.

Indeed, in response to Disney’s eventual condemnation of Don’t Say Gay legislation, the state has revoked Disney’s ‘special district’ status, which allowed it to add to its resort area, including with new theme parks and hotels, without interference from local counties. “The path forward is Disney will not control its own government in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said. “Disney will have to follow the same laws that every other company has to follow the state of Florida. They will pay their fair share in taxes.”

What exactly DeSantis means by that statement in unclear, though he could be hinting at an even bigger bargaining chip in this battle over DeSantis’s extreme positions, to the tune of $578 million in tax credits promised to Disney between now and 2040.

The dilemma faced by Disney—between standing up for its publicly stated values and maintaining the kickbacks it receives from politicians that contradict them—is one that many companies face. Republican politicians secure corporate funding for their campaigns by promising tax cuts and relaxed regulations. But with public donation data readily accessible, corporations now find themselves tied to those politicians’ deeply unpopular legislative efforts.

Among the 32 republicans that have co-sponsored the national Don’t Say Gay bill are Tom McKlintock, who has received donations from AT&T, John Joyce, beneficiary of Sheetz and BlueCross/ BlueShield, and Steve Womack, whose top donor is Walmart and additionally receives funding from Tyson Foods, Boeing, and Raytheon.

Every one of these companies claims some form of allyship with the LGBTQIA+ community. Sheetz is “happy to support True Colors United, a charity dedicated to supporting homeless LGBTQ youth.” BlueCross BlueShield covered Massachusetts in rainbow adorned Bluebikes for Pride Month in 2022. Boeing “stand[s] together in pride with the LGBTQIA+ community,” while Walmart offers thousands of pride themed products to its paying customers.

Screenshot of Bluebikes Instagram post found at https://www.instagram.com/p/CP1ILIxsF1v/

Many of these corporations boast their Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index score on their websites: “Raytheon Technologies is regularly recognized by the HRC one of the best places for LGBTQIA+ employees to work.” AT&T has scored a 100 on the Index for eighteen consecutive years, and the Vice President and Chief DE&I Officer of Tyson Foods sits on the HRC Business Advisory Council.

The HRC Corporate Equality Index purports to measure “corporate policies, practices and benefits pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees.” However, it does not factor in donations made to politicians that actively harm their queer and transgender employees and customers. This shortcoming allows corporations to foster duplicity between their internal policies for employees and their continued support for politicians that will further harmful legislation.

These examples of corporate hypocrisy on LGBTQIA+ issues are far from extraordinary. Thanks to a Supreme Court that was bought by industry, corporations are able to spend anonymously without limit. What little accountability exists today is only due to sites like OpenSecrets.org that publish data on public donations made to elected officials.

Anonymity makes pink washing, the process by which corporations use LGBTQIA+ support as a distraction from ongoing controversies, even easier. Rather than using their wealth and power to support marginalized communities, many corporations “indulg[e] in a bit of low-cost pink washing to soften the edges of some spiky reputational damage.” Companies can largely claim progressive stances on issues that affect queer people without having to account for the donations they make and political affiliations they maintain.

Don’t Say Gay laws are insidious, and it is difficult to consider the motivations that drive those who draft and support them. Michael Liroff of 5-4 Podcast has pointed out that anti-gay propaganda has been on the rise in conservative media, which has been spearheading queer book banning efforts and supporting the “insinuation that schoolchildren learning that their teacher is gay is basically tantamount to exposing them to pornography, and maybe putting them at risk of being victims of pedophilia.”

Governor DeSantis’s press secretary exemplified this propogandist theory, going even further than insinuation when she tweeted, “If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill [read: Don’t Say Gay law], you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children.”

The ties between the culture war in conservative media and legislative efforts to decimate legal protections are clear. As Liroff remarked, “Ultimately, these are synergistic movements. And what they’re trying to do is create the cultural space for the Supreme Court to do something like overturn important constitutional precedents protecting gay people. And they’re doing that by trying to create a critical mass of people—politically engaged people—that are scared of queer people.” This strategy is not new, and to queer Americans, it feels concerningly familiar.

The moral panic stoked by right-wing pundits has been used for centuries to provide a ‘legitimate’ basis for what is ultimately nothing more than homophobic bigotry. As reported by Nikita Shepard for the Washington Times, “political discourse about protecting children since the mid-20th century has never really been about improving their health.” The well-being of children has been used to demonize marginalized communities in arguments over school integration, interracial marriage, and mass incarceration among other cultural controversies.

As the country has largely accepted the rights of queer Americans over the past two decades and especially after the legalization of gay marriage, conservative politicians have fallen back on invoking the protection of the vulnerable as a political tool. After that ruling in 2015, “within months, the right found that by refocusing hatred and legislation specifically on trans people, they could once again use the promise to protect children to regain political ground.”

Teachers, particularly queer and trans teachers, are increasingly finding themselves in the center of the culture war brewing over LGBTQIA+ rights in this country. The fever-pitch of queer panic in education is hitting queer teachers and students the hardest. While she was a teacher, Amanda was terrified to even hold her wife’s hand in public. “If a parent saw me with my wife and complained, it would have been a conversation at work.”

Amanda’s home state is on track to become even more unfriendly to its LGBTQIA+ population with the recent doubling down on support for Trump-backed election denying homophobe Alex Mooney. After losing a congressional seat in the wake of the 2020 census, West Virginians voted between two incumbents for the remaining seat—David McKinley and Alex Mooney. Now McKinley is no friend of the gays, but Mooney’s track record on queer issues is bleak, to say the least. Despite, or perhaps in part because of, his homophobic beliefs, Mooney won reelection in 2022.

Before moving to West Virginia, Mooney served as a state senator in his home state of Maryland. During that time, “Mooney became synonymous with the issue of LGBTQ rights, and his extreme opposition to them.” Mooney has at various times compared homosexuality to bestiality, claimed those that criticize him are “in cahoots with militant homosexuals and cross-dressers,” and as recently as 2022 made it clear that his position is unchanged, tweeting “Marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Though he has been an outspoken homophobe since at least 1999, corporations like iHeartMedia, Wells Fargo, and Toyota have donated to his campaigns as recently as 2020. iHeartMedia donated more than $10,000 to Mooney in 2020, who was at the time cosponsoring a bill to ban transgender women from women’s sports. That very year, iHeartMedia spent millions marketing its virtual pride event, “Can’t Cancel Pride.”

iHeartMedia donated more than $10,000 to Mooney in 2020, who was at the time cosponsoring a bill to ban transgender women from women’s sports. That very year, iHeartMedia spent millions marketing its virtual pride event, “Can’t Cancel Pride.”

Mooney is a more than likely supporter of H.R. 9197, which would make Don’t Say Gay the law in every state. Although the bill has almost no chance of passing in the Senate (or being signed by President Biden), widespread conservative support for these legislative efforts sends a clear message to LGBTQIA+ teachers, many of whom are trying their best to support their students despite the hostile environment created by parents and politicians.

One of the most concerning aspects of Don’t Say Gay legislation is that it requires teachers to inform their students’ parents if a student confides their sexuality or gender identity to them. If a student asks a teacher to use pronouns other than those assigned at birth, that teacher is meant to report that to their parent—whether the student has come out to their parent or not. “The legislation gives parents the power to sue schools for withholding information about their children from them,” forcing teachers and administrators to choose between outing their students and putting their own livelihoods at risk.

Amanda “had students who were transgender and gay, [whose] parents actively went against their child’s decision.” She would still use their preferred pronouns at school to try to give them a safe haven, but that safe haven is more threatened than ever as conservatives continue their fearmongering tactics.

Amanda knew that it was extremely controversial to use her students’ preferred pronouns and accept their identities as a teacher. But she told me “I also know trans people have higher rates of suicide. I was not going to be another reason to add to that statistic.”

“I also know trans people have higher rates of suicide. I was not going to be another reason to add to that statistic.”

Contrary to the 2019 article published by The Atlantic titled “The struggle for gay rights is over,” queer people have never been free from the fight for equality. This refrain is commonly heard among right-wing pundits that seek to flip reality on its head by furthering the narrative that queer Americans are a favored minority and no longer face any form of adversity.

Don’t Say Gay laws have made plain the belief still held by many Americans—perhaps more than would even admit to it—that to be gay is to inherently be sexualized. The very discussion of queer gender and sexuality is denounced as a threat to children and an attempt to groom them to follow in our footsteps.

Popular conservative pundit Charlie Kirk has recently claimed, “They are not happy just having marriage. Instead, they now want to corrupt your children.” There is a tendency among Americans to brush off rhetoric like this as radical and disfavored. But the reality is that an increasing number of elected politicians are happy to cosign and further these ideas through legislative efforts, and the corporations that donate to them have not made it at all disadvantageous to do so.

With the dust having settled on the 2023 Pride season, it is clear that some corporations have no qualms abandoning support for the queer and trans community to appease homophobic consumers. Target is one retailer well known for its yearly displays of Pride merchandise. This year, the collection included clothes designed for trans folks and displaying trans pride slogans. Conservative pundits and politicians attacked Target for supporting what they consider a “Satanic” project of “grooming.” Faced with the pressure queer and trans folks face every day, Target decided to remove the Pride products at the center of the controversy, citing “volatile circumstances.”

Similarly, Bud Light dropped trans activist Dylan Mulvaney from its marketing campaigns after transphobic conservatives threatened to boycott the brand. “Congressional Republicans including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (of course) and Sen. Marsha Blackburn singled Mulvaney out for transphobic harassment on a national scale, calling her a “fake woman” and labeling her gender expression as “absurdity.” Rather than defend the woman they had previously been more than happy to profit from on a national scale, Bud Light released a statement to assure its consumers that it “never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people.” But that statement exemplifies the very problem with performative corporate allyship: in a political environment where queer and trans folks are being violently targeted by an emboldened far-right faction, there is no way to support us without risking taking on some of that bigoted scrutiny.

As homophobia becomes more overt and acceptable in national politics than it has been since the early aughts, corporations will have to choose between continuing to support the politicians that benefit their bottom lines and standing up for the LGBTQIA+ populations they claim allyship with.