EXCLUSIVE: Does Apple Support Chemical ‘Transition’ for Minors? Shareholders Want to Know

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Apple shareholders sent a letter to CEO Tim Cook, raising concerns about the tech company’s commitments to transgender ideology and the potential market downsides of such a stance.

“Gender ideology has become an incredibly divisive issue in the United States and around the world, and companies put billions of dollars of shareholder value at risk when they align themselves with that ideology,” representatives of the Heritage Foundation, which owns Apple stock, wrote in the letter. The letter cited a 2023 article noting that investors in Target and Anheuser-Busch lost billions after those companies faced backlash for transgender stances.

The letter, sent July 8, asked Apple a series of questions about transgender ideology and requested answers within 14 days of the letter, a time period that ended Wednesday. Apple, the second largest company in the world by market capitalization, has yet to respond, and the company did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment about the letter.

“Because of how controversial gender ideology and transgenderism are, the risks of alienating consumers and potential partners are great, and related decisions must be fully informed to protect shareholder value,” Stefan Padfield, a principal at Heritage’s Free Enterprise Initiative and one of the letter’s nine signatories, told the Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday.

He called on corporations to be “more transparent in this space,” given “the associated risk that these decisions are driven by ideological bias within echo chambers.”

“Corporate decisionmakers should not be able to hide their heads in the sand when it comes to all the potential harms associated with promoting this ideology,” Padfield argued.

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Apple Supporting Pride

While many companies dialed back their LGBTQ messaging following pressure campaigns from shareholder activist Robby Starbuck and after President Donald Trump’s executive orders paring back “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Apple launched a Pride collection in May.

The letter noted Apple’s standing in three corporate rating systems.

The 1792 Exchange Corporate Bias Ratings classify the company as “high risk,” in part due to its support for “transgender issues.”

The Human Rights Campaign, a pro-transgender group, gives Apple a 100% score on its Corporate Equality Index. The Corporate Equality Index imposes a stringent list of requirements for companies to score a 100% rating. Companies like Apple must provide “baseline coverage” for “gender-affirming care” including “puberty blockers for youth,” surgical procedures, paid short-term leave, and mental health counseling. In addition to these requirements, companies must offer at least five of 10 other treatments and services, such as voice modification surgery, voice modification therapy, or facial surgeries. Companies can also lose points for “major offenses against the LGBTQ+.”

While Apple voluntarily works with HRC, it has reportedly refused to respond to Alliance Defending Freedom’s Viewpoint Diversity Survey, on which it scored a meager 3%.

Apple’s leadership has contributed $1.95 million to Democrats and only $55,650 to Republicans, signaling a 35-to-1 bias, according to 1792 Exchange.

Polls suggest Americans are souring on transgender ideology. An Associated Press-National Opinion Research Center poll from May 2025 found that 68% of respondents said “whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by their biological characteristics at birth” rather than gender identity.

A Gallup poll from June 2025 found that 65% of Americans want athletes who claim a transgender identity to play on teams matching their birth sex, and that support for sorting teams by transgender identity had fallen 10 percentage points in four years (from 34% in 2021 to 24% in 2025).

A 2023 Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 68% of adults opposed “puberty blockers” for minors aged 10-14, while 58% opposed access to cross-sex hormones for minors ages 15 to 17.

The Department of Health and Human Services conducted a peer-reviewed study last year finding little evidence for positive impacts from sex-rejecting procedures for minors. Studies have suggested these interventions cause harm, from increased cancer risks to a higher risk of suicidal thoughts.

A jury awarded a detransitioner $2 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit in February, and psychiatrists reportedly agreed to settle another detransitioner’s medical malpractice claim in January. Hospitals have distanced themselves from the Human Rights Campaign.

Transgender Questions

The Heritage Foundation letter posed four questions to Apple CEO Tim Cook:

1. Is it Apple’s official position that a child can be born in the wrong body?

2. Is it Apple’s official position that a male can be a woman and, if so, how does Apple define “woman”?

3. Is it Apple’s official position that males should be permitted to invade females’ spaces and sports simply by identifying as a woman or girl?

4. Is it Apple’s official position that minors should be chemically and/or surgically transitioned?