Companies have been dialing back their LGBTQ+ Pride messaging since President Donald Trump took office last year, and analysts say that contributes to a less divisive marketplace.

“This is both a market correction and a cultural correction,” Allen Mendenhall, a senior adviser for The Heritage Foundation’s Free Enterprise Initiative, told the Daily Signal. “After years of performative corporate activism, companies are rediscovering that their customers—particularly families—do not want firms serving as vehicles for ideological agendas.”

“Businesses are increasingly rejecting pressure from activist investors and corporate bureaucracies in favor of listening to consumers and respecting longstanding moral and religious convictions,” he added. “Top-down cultural engineering is losing its grip.”

Many companies have adopted Pride messaging as a result of the environmental, social, and governance investing movement. Investors used ESG standards to direct their dollars, and they often relied on the Human Rights Campaign‘s Corporate Equality Index, which rates companies based on their pro-LGBTQ+ policies and statements, to determine where money went.

Yet Trump issued executive orders combating so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion, noting that discrimination in favor of racial minorities and those who identify as LGBTQ+ still violates federal civil rights laws. This has inspired many companies to opt out of HRC’s index, though some had already begun to do so in 2024.

The Human Rights Campaign recently surveyed consumers who identify as LGBTQ+, finding that these consumers identified five companies perceived as pulling back their commitment to the LGBTQ+ community: Target, Walmart, Amazon, Chick-fil-A, and Home Depot.

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