IN RETREAT: LGBTQ Mafia Loses More Than Half Its Fortune 500 Partners
Tyler O'Neil /
Transgender orthodoxy is in retreat in medicine, the courts, and even business—as the LGBTQ mafia bleeds allies in corporate America.
The Human Rights Campaign has long employed mafia-like tactics to pressure companies to toe the line on gender ideology, but a growing chorus of critics, assisted by President Donald Trump’s second administration, has led companies to reconsider their alliances with the organization.
About three-quarters of all Fortune 500 companies (377) disclosed their business practices to HRC in 2025, so the LGBTQ activist group could rate them on its Corporate Equality Index. This year, however, only 131 companies are working with HRC—a 65% drop.
This represents a massive hit to the transgender industrial complex, but conservatives shouldn’t rest on their laurels. In the very press release where HRC admits its massive losses, it touts its abiding impact: the companies still working with HRC employ over 22 million Americans.
HRC’s Social Credit Score
The Human Rights Campaign bills itself as “the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization,” and it takes credit for “transforming the institutions and systems that shape our everyday lives by advancing LGBTQ+ inclusive policies and practices in schools, workplaces, hospitals, communities and beyond.”
That sounds noble. Americans support being “inclusive,” right? Yet many Americans vehemently disagree with HRC’s interpretation of this purported “inclusion.”
When it comes to transgender orthodoxy, “inclusion” means allowing men into women’s intimate spaces. In the corporate setting, it means forcing employees to endorse the lie that a man can become a woman and vice versa. It means celebrating as “joyful” behaviors that many Americans of good conscience consider sinful or depraved. The “inclusion” travels only in one direction.
How does HRC “transform” institutions? Its Corporate Equality Index gives every major company a rating to show just how pro-“equality” the company is. Investors in the environmental, social, and governance movement used the index to determine where their money goes, and this made the index extremely powerful.
Like the mafia or Al Capone, the Human Rights Campaign promises these brands protection from the Left’s activist investors and protester shock troops in exchange for a generous cut. In order to demonstrate their “inclusion,” companies make contributions to LGBTQ groups, partner with transgender influencers like Dylan Mulvaney, and promote rainbow products.
When Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, HRC released a list of policy preferences, and Biden’s administration met at least 75% of them. Examples include massive policies—like reinterpreting civil rights law to allow men to invade women’s spaces—and mundane policies—like directing Border Patrol to use the preferred pronouns of illegal aliens.
Why Is HRC in Retreat?
Companies began to desert HRC even before President Trump won reelection in 2024.
In 2023, transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney partnered with Bud Light, and the beer lost its top spot in sales rankings. Similarly, Target sales slumped when the company launched a new line of transgender products, including “tuck” swimsuits designed to make men appear female.
Conservatives launched pressure campaigns of their own.
Alliance Defending Freedom launched a “Viewpoint Diversity Score” to counter HRC’s version, rating companies on whether they respect customers’ religious freedom, whether they harbor religious and ideological diversity, and whether they respect various views in charity and society.
1792 Exchange launched a “Back to Business Tracker” to encourage businesses to withdraw from HRC’s index, to dissolve “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policies, and to refrain from taking divisive positions on political or cultural issues.
The Heritage Foundation, Bowyer Research, Inspire Investing, and the National Center for Public Policy Research have engaged in shareholder activism, purchasing shares in major companies and filing resolutions to push companies away from leftist causes and back toward neutrality. This activism has led companies to distance themselves from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which enforces the transgender agenda by demonizing its conservative critics.
Conservative activists like Robby Starbuck have taken a page out of the Left’s playbook and started calling companies, urging them to stop allying with HRC.
This conservative engagement led companies whose customer bases aren’t a good fit for HRC—firms like Molson Coors, Ford, Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniels, and Lowe’s—to leave HRC in 2024.
Backlash to Transgenderism
Under Trump’s second term, the trend has only accelerated. Not only has the federal government rejected transgender orthodoxy and DEI, but the medical industry is also starting to wake up to just how destructive transgender orthodoxy can be.
A jury recently ordered doctors to pay $2 million to a detransitioner who regretted having her breasts removed. Last week, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommended against transgender surgeries for minors, and even said the data doesn’t support hormones for minors.
These positive signs should not give gender critics a false sense of security, however.
Even while acknowledging its losses, the Human Rights Campaign celebrated that companies opting into its Corporate Equality Index employ over 22 million U.S. employees. A whopping 534 companies earned the top score of 100, and these companies represent nearly 6 million employees.
Sanity is winning, but the LGBTQ mafia isn’t going to go away. ADF, 1792 Exchange, Heritage, Starbuck, and others should be encouraged, but also cannot afford to let up the pressure.
Here’s hoping HRC loses even more Fortune 500 allies next year.