TheU.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a pivotal case that could significantly impact access to preventivehealth care under the Affordable Care Act, including life-saving HIV prevention drugs like pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP. The court granted the petition on Friday. The case, which the federal government petitioned for the court’s intervention, is set to be argued this spring, with a decision expected before the Court’s term ends in June.
The Advocate was the first to report on the existence of this case back in 2022 when it was revealed that conservative attorney Jonathan Mitchell was representing Braidwood Management, Inc., aTexas-based business, and other plaintiffs in challenging the ACA’s requirement that insurers cover preventive services like PrEP without cost-sharing. The plaintiffs, claiming that coverage of PrEP violates their religious beliefs, argue that it promotes “homosexual behavior.”
Initially, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor sided with the plaintiffs, ruling that the ACA mandate violated their religious rights. However, the Department of Justice swiftly appealed, and the Fifth Circuit Court upheld the district court’s decision butlimited the scope of its effect. The decision meant that while the plaintiffs are exempted, the broader mandate requiring insurance providers to cover preventive services, including PrEP, remains in effect nationwide.
The case is now headed to the Supreme Court, where it will be argued that the ACA’s coverage requirements, which have been instrumental in reducing HIV transmission and improving public health, should be upheld.
At the heart of the case is the structure of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which issues recommendations for preventive services like PrEP. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Task Force’s structure violated the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The government maintains that the Task Force operates within constitutional bounds, with members serving as “inferior officers” under the secretary’s supervision, that this structure is consistent with constitutional requirements, and that it is vital to ensure that essential preventive services are covered under the ACA.
The case also raises the specter of rolling back coverage for a range of other critical preventive services, including cancer screenings, diabetes prevention, and vaccinations—services that have long been proven to save lives and reduce health care costs. If the court upholds the Fifth Circuit’s ruling, the federal mandate requiring insurers to cover Task Force recommendations could be significantly weakened, disrupting the health care protections millions of Americans currently rely on.
Amazon has quietly removed several policies from its public websites aimed at protecting workers, including “solidarity” pledges with its Black employees and health care benefits for transgender workers.
The pages were removed about a month ago, according to The Washington Post. The changes include several to policy, as well as department titles. A section previously called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” is now “Inclusive Experiences and Technology,” and the section “advance DEI through technology” is now a pledge to “advance the employee experience.”
One of the removed policies includes an outline of the gender-affirming carebenefits provided to employees under Amazon’s health care plan, which it said were “based on the Standards of Care published by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).” Also removed was the company’s pledge that it is “working at the U.S. federal and state level on legislation” that would provide anti-discrimination protections for transgender people.
Though Amazon previously stated that it stood “in solidarity” with its Black employees, the company also removed that section, as well as one claiming to support “legislation to combat misconduct and racial bias in policing, efforts to protect and expand voting rights, and initiatives that provide better health and educational outcomes for Black people.”
Spokesperson Kelly Nantel confirmed to the outlet that the company “update[s] this page from time to time to ensure that it reflects updates we’ve made to various programs and positions.”
Several major U.S. businesses have announced they would be ending their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the past year, including Ford Motor Company, Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s, and Tractor Supply among others. The decisions came after pressure from conservative extremists online, including failed filmmaker turned failed congressional candidate Robby Starbuck, who has taken credit for the companies’ decisions. However, experts believe that Starbuck’s pressure alone does not explain the shift.
Meta recently announced the end of its DEI programs almost immediately after announcing new content rules that allow users to abuse LGBTQ+ people, citing the shifting “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States.” McDonald’s also cited Supreme Court decision against affirmative action in its decision to end DEI programs the, as well as changes among “other companies.”
In 2025, the targeting of transgender people in bathrooms has emerged as a top Republican priority. Following the 2024 election, Congresswoman Nancy Mace launched an aggressive hate campaign against the first transgender congresswoman, Sarah McBride. Over several days, Mace posted hundreds of demeaning comments about McBride on social media, demanding that she be banned from using women’s restrooms. Her efforts culminated in Speaker Mike Johnson adopting a policy barring McBride from using such restrooms. Now, Montana Republicans are taking this crusade even further: they have announced that one of the first bills to be considered in 2025 will be a bathroom ban for transgender adults in public buildings. If passed, the legislation could have profound consequences for the state’s two transgender elected officials, Representatives SJ Howell and Zooey Zephyr, as well as all transgender people in the state.
The bill, House Bill 121, was introduced by Republican Kerri Seekins-Crowe, who once stated that she would not allow her child to transition if it would prevent their suicide. It has garnered 35 co-sponsors—a significant portion of Montana’s Republican Party. If enacted, it would rank among the most extreme bathroom bans in the country, prohibiting transgender individuals from using restrooms that match their gender identity in all publicly owned facilities across the state.
Notably, the bill’s scope covers all “public buildings,” defined as any facility “owned or leased by a public agency.” This broad definition extends to rest stops, public colleges and universities, public schools, libraries, museums, state airports, publicly owned hospitals, park restrooms, and more. The measure would also include Montana’s state capitol building and courthouses.
The bill comes on the heels of a contentious vote by Montana’s Republican rules committee, which narrowly rejected a proposal to bar transgender Representative Zooey Zephyr from using women’s restrooms in the state capitol. During that meeting, Republican David Bedey, one of four Republicans to vote against the measure, expressed skepticism about its utility, stating, “This particular action will have the effect of making people famous in the national news and will not contribute to the effective conduct of our business.” The proposal ultimately failed.
Transgender bathroom bans targeting trans legislators have become a prominent feature of the national political landscape. One of Speaker Mike Johnson’s first actions, driven by pressure from Congresswoman Nancy Mace, was to bar transgender individuals from using bathrooms in United States House buildings—a move aimed directly at Representative Sarah McBride. Mace, who has used slurs against transgender sit-ins and consistently misgendered McBride, escalated her attacks today by posting on social media, referring to the congresswoman as “a man in a suit with makeup.” Though the rule was not in the rules package passed by the United States House, Johnson clarified that it will indeed be in effect and enforced as he “controls the facilities.”
Mace has announced a similar federal bill that would ban transgender individuals from using bathrooms matching their gender identity on all federal properties, a measure with potentially far-reaching consequences. If enacted, the ban would apply to national parks, cultural landmarks such as the Smithsonian Museums, the National Gallery of Art, and the National Zoo, as well as military bases, VA hospitals, federal government buildings, and major DC-area airports like Dulles and Reagan.
Bathroom bans have tremendously negative impacts on transgender people. In some lawsuits, it has been revealed that such bans have led to UTIs and medical issues for trans people who have been forced to hold their pee for extended periods of time. They force transgender men into women’s restrooms and transgender women into men’s restrooms, which often leads to far more disruption and discomfort by all parties involved. Even when complying with the law, transgender people are often faced with violence, such as in Ohio when the owner of a campground told a transgender man that he was to use the ladies room because he was assigned female at birth. He complied with this demand and went to the women’s restroom. On doing so, other campers accused him of being a transgender woman and proceeded to beat him.
Cisgender individuals are unlikely to avoid the repercussions of such laws either. These policies often disproportionately target gender-nonconforming cisgender people, who are mistakenly accused of being transgender. For instance, cisgender women with short hair are frequently singled out. An example from Las Vegas highlighted this issue when a woman was harassed in a bathroom after being falsely accused of being transgender, leading to police involvement. Video of the incident quickly went viral.
The Montana bill is particularly notable for being one of the first anti-trans measures to be considered in 2025—a year already shaping up to be especially challenging for transgender people as Republicans nationwide appear to be prioritizing the issue. Montana’s legislature, which convened on Monday, is set to hold its first hearing on the bill in the House Judiciary Committee this Friday. Nationally, the focus on anti-trans legislation is also prevalent: the very first billlisted in the House rules package seeks to ban transgender athletes from sports, and over 140 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have already been introduced across the country in the opening days of the 2025 legislative session.
Readers in Montana can contact their legislators using a lookup tool provided by Datamade.
The company’s new guidelines prohibit insults about someone’s intellect or mental illness on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, as have previous iterations. However, the latest guidelines now include a caveat for accusing LGBTQ people of being mentally ill because they are gay or transgender.
“We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird,’” the revised company guidelines read.
The new guidelines around hate speech are part of Meta’s broader major changes regarding how it moderates online speech on its platforms. On Tuesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it will replace its fact-checking program, which has relied on trusted organizational partners, with a community-driven system similar to X’s Community Notes. X’s system allows users to submit suggested “notes” on other people’s content, and then certain users vote on whether or not the notes are publicly displayed. Zuckerberg cited “recent elections” and “a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech.”
The long list of changes to the new hate speech guidelines include removing rules that forbid insults about a person’s appearance based on race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious disease. Meta also scrapped policies that prohibited expressions of hate against a person or a group on the basis of their protected class and that banned users from referring to transgender or nonbinary people as “it.”
GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group, denounced the changes.
“Without these necessary hate speech and other policies, Meta is giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalized groups with violence, vitriol, and dehumanizing narratives,” President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “With these changes, Meta is continuing to normalize anti-LGBTQ hatred for profit — at the expense of its users and true freedom of expression. Fact-checking and hate speech policies protect free speech.”
A spokesperson for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CEOs and business leaders in tech and beyond are broadening their efforts to woo President-elect Donald Trump. Meta is among the several tech companies and executives — including Amazon, Apple CEO Tim Cook and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman — that donated $1 million to Trump’s second inaugural fund within the last several weeks. Meta also announced Tuesday that UFC’s Dana White, a longtime Trump supporter, would join its board.
The Biden administration’s Title IX rules expanding protections for LGBTQ students have been struck down nationwide after a federal judge in Kentucky found they overstepped the president’s authority.
In a decision issued Thursday, U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves scrapped the entire 1,500-page regulation after deciding it was “fatally” tainted by legal shortcomings. The rule had already been halted in 26 states after a wave of legal challenges by Republican states.
President-elect Donald Trump previously promised to end the rules “on day one” and made anti-transgender themes a centerpiece of his campaign.
The decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti called it a rejection of the Biden administration’s “relentless push to impose a radical gender ideology.”
“Because the Biden rule is vacated altogether, President Trump will be free to take a fresh look at our Title IX regulations when he returns to office,” Skrmetti said in a statement.
The Education Department did not immediately comment on the decision.
The Biden administration ignited controversy when it finalized the new rules last year. The regulation expanded Title IX, a 1972 law forbidding discrimination based on sex in education, to also prevent discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. It also widened the definition of harassment to include a broader range of misconduct.
Civil rights advocates hailed it as a victory, saying it gave LGBTQ students new recourse against discrimination. But it drew outrage from conservatives who said it could be used to protect transgender athletes in girls’ sports.
The rule didn’t explicitly address athletics and mostly detailed how schools and colleges were required to respond to cases of discrimination and sexual assault. A separate proposal dealing with transgender athletes in sports was put on the back burner and later revoked after it became a focal point of Trump’s campaign.
In his decision, Reeves found the Education Department overstepped its authority by expanding the scope of Title IX.
There’s nothing in the 1972 law suggesting that it should cover any more than it has since Congress created it, Reeves wrote. He called it an “attempt to bypass the legislative process and completely transform Title IX.”
The judge also found that it violated free speech rights by requiring teachers to use pronouns aligning with a student’s gender identity.
“The First Amendment does not permit the government to chill speech or compel affirmance of a belief with which the speaker disagrees in this manner,” Reeves wrote.
Rather than carve out certain aspects of the rule, Reeves decided it was best to toss the regulation in its entirety and revert to a previous interpretation of Title IX. He said his decision will “simply ’cause a return to the status quo’ that existed for more than 50 years prior to its effective date.”
Among the biggest critics of the rule was Betsy DeVos, former education secretary during Trump’s first term. On the social media site X, she wrote that the “radical, unfair, illegal, and absurd Biden Title IX re-write is GONE.”
Bill Cassidy, R-La., chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said Biden’s rule “betrayed the original intent of Title IX by removing longstanding protections that ensured fairness for women and girls.”
“With President Trump and a Republican majority in Congress, we will ensure women and girls have every opportunity to succeed on the field and in the classroom,” Cassidy said in a statement.
South CarolinaRepublican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace’s latest attack on transgenderrights has hit a wall. Her proposal to bar transgender people from using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity in House-controlled spaces didn’t make the cut in the rules package for the 119th Congress. Leaving the measure out of the package marks a setback for Mace’s culture war efforts, even as other anti-LGBTQ+ priorities remain front and center.
Mace introduced her bathroom resolution last November, admittedly targeting Delaware Rep. Sarah McBride, the first out trans member of Congress. LGBTQ+ advocates and Democratic lawmakers slammed the proposal as not only discriminatory but also unenforceable. House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican, has previously stated that transgender women must use the men’s bathroom. McBride said at the time that she would comply with House rules.
The Advocate reached out to Johnson’s office for clarification on why the measure wasn’t included.
The rules package, which largely mirrors policies from the last Congress, did include one significant anti-trans provision: a measure redefining Title IX compliance in athletics to base eligibility solely on sex assigned at birth. This codification, a key Republican priority, was coupled with the first bill in the package, which explicitly targets transgender athletes.
“It is not surprising to me that an anti-trans bill will be the first, if not one of the first bills they put forward,” McBride told The Advocate. “It’s going to be important for us to acknowledge the harm that anti-LGBTQ legislation presents, but also to pull back the curtain on what these attacks are attempting to do, which is to distract from issues that impact our economy and worker protections. These policies harm not just LGBTQ people but everyone who believes the federal government should improve lives rather than wage culture wars.”
The U.S. House voted on the new rules package after electing Mike Johnson speaker again and swearing in legislators.
Four years after launching a push for more diversity in its ranks, McDonald’s is ending some of its diversity practices, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed affirmative action in college admissions.
McDonald’s is the latest big company to shift its tactics in the wake of the 2023 ruling and a conservative backlash against diversity, equity and inclusionprograms. Walmart, John Deere, Harley-Davidson and others rolled back their DEI initiatives last year.
McDonald’s said Monday it will retire specific goals for achieving diversity at senior leadership levels. It also intends to end a program that encourages its suppliers to develop diversity training and to increase the number of minority group members represented within their own leadership ranks.
McDonald’s said it will also pause “external surveys.” The burger giant didn’t elaborate, but several other companies, including Lowe’s and Ford Motor Co., suspended their participation in an annual survey by the Human Rights Campaign that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees.
McDonald’s, which has its headquarters in Chicago, rolled out a series of diversity initiatives in 2021 after a spate of sexual harassment lawsuits filed by employees and a lawsuit alleging discrimination brought by a group of Black former McDonald’s franchise owners.
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“As a world-leading brand that considers inclusion one of our core values, we will accept nothing less than real, measurable progress in our efforts to lead with empathy, treat people with dignity and respect, and seek out diverse points of view to drive better decision-making,” McDonald’s Chairman and CEO Chris Kempczinski wrote in a LinkedIn post at the time.
But McDonald’s said Monday that the “shifting legal landscape” after the Supreme Court decision and the actions of other corporations caused it to take a hard look at its own policies.
A shifting political landscape may also have played a role. President-elect Donald Trump is a vocal opponent of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Trump tapped Stephen Miller, a former adviser who leads a group called America First Legal that has aggressively challenged corporate DEI policies,as his incoming deputy chief of policy.
Vice President-elect JD Vance introduced a bill in the Senate last summer to end such programs in the federal government.
Robby Starbuck, a conservative political commentator who has threatened consumer boycotts of prominent consumer brands that don’t retreat from their diversity programs, said Monday on X that he recently told McDonald’s he would be doing a story on its “woke policies.”
McDonald’s said it had been considering updates to its policies for several months and planned to time the announcement to the start of this year.
In an open letter to employees and franchisees, McDonald’s senior leadership team said it remains committed to inclusion and believes a diverse workforce is a competitive advantage. The company said 30% of its U.S. leaders are members of underrepresented groups, up from 29% in 2021. McDonald’s previously committed to reaching 35% by the end of this year.
McDonald’s said it has achieved one of the goals it announced in 2021: gender pay equity at all levels of the company. It also said it met three years early a goal of having 25% of total supplier spending go to diverse-owned businesses.
McDonald’s said it would continue to support efforts that ensure a diverse base of employees, suppliers and franchisees, but its diversity team will now be referred to as the Global Inclusion Team. The company said it would also continue to report its demographic information.
The McDonald’s Hispanic Owner-Operators Association said it had no comment on the policy change Monday. A message seeking comment was left with the National Black McDonald’s Operators Association.
Meta, the parent company of Instagram, is under fire for its treatment of LGBTQ+ users after journalist Taylor Lorenz revealed that the platform had restricted LGBTQ-related hashtags for months. The issue, reported in Lorenz’s Substack publication User Mag on Monday, has sparked criticism of Meta’s content moderation practices and repeated failures to support marginalized communities.
Lorenz, a journalist known for her reporting on technology and social media in The New York Times and, most recently, The Washington Post, uncovered that Instagram blocked users—especially teenagers—from searching hashtags like #gay, #lesbian, #trans, and #nonbinary under its “sensitive content” policy. The restrictions, which were in effect for months, were applied by default to teen accounts. When teens searched these hashtags, they were met with a blank screen and a prompt about Instagram’s content restrictions. Meta reversed the blocks only after Lorenz reached out for comment, User Mag reports.
“These search terms and hashtags were mistakenly restricted,” a Meta spokesperson told Lorenz. “It’s important to us that all communities feel safe and welcome on Meta apps, and we do not consider LGBTQ+ terms to be sensitive under our policies.” Meta added that it was investigating how the error occurred but provided no timeline for the investigation or concrete actions to prevent such mistakes in the future.
“Meta categorizing LGBTQ hashtags as ‘sensitive content’ is an alarming example of censorship that should concern everyone,” Leanna Garfield, social media safety program manager at GLAAD, told Lorenz. “These platforms are lifelines for young LGBTQ+ people, and restricting this content isolates them further.”
A GLAAD spokesperson also told The Advocate, “LGBTQ people all over the world, especially young people, use Instagram to express who they are and to find and be part of a community. A responsible and inclusive company would not build an algorithm that classifies some LGBTQ hashtags as ‘sensitive content,’ hiding helpful and age-appropriate content from young people by default.”
The spokesperson added that whether it was an unintended mistake, “Meta should remedy this issue immediately, publicly apologize to its LGBTQ users, and test significant product updates before launch.” They added, “Everyone, not just LGBTQ people, should be deeply concerned about the larger implications of this kind of content suppression.”
Garfield highlighted the damage that blocks like the one Meta had in place do.
“For many LGBTQ people, especially youth, platforms like Instagram are crucial for self-discovery, community building, and accessing supportive information,” Garfield told User Mag. “By limiting access to LGBTQ content, Instagram may be inadvertently contributing to the isolation and marginalization of LGBTQ users.”
Reports of such challenges on Instagram are not new. In September 2023, Mashable highlighted the issue of shadowbanning—when content is flagged as “non-recommendable” and hidden from non-followers. LGBTQ+ creators were disproportionately affected by these restrictions. Topher Taylor, a sexuality educator and creator, told Mashable that his content had been categorized as non-recommendable for years because of reports from bigoted users. “You will get more reports if you’re visibly queer,” he said. Meanwhile, mainstream accounts promoting explicit or suggestive content, such as those tied to celebrities or brands catering to heterosexual audiences, often bypass these restrictions.
The controversy over restricted hashtags is the latest in a series of criticisms against Meta. Last year, a GLAAD report revealed that Meta had failed to moderate harmful anti-trans content across its platforms, including Instagram and Threads. The report detailed violent speech and harassment targeting transgender and nonbinary users, much of which remained live despite clear violations of Meta’s community guidelines.
Meta also faced backlash in September for delaying the ban of far-right Republican Valentina Gomez, who used Instagram to spread antigay slurs and burn LGBTQ-themed books. In December, U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina posted videos on Instagram using a transphobic slur to mock protesters opposing her anti-trans bathroom bill. Despite repeated reports from advocacy groups, Mace’s videos remain live on the platform.
Critics argue that these incidents highlight systemic flaws in Meta’s approach to content moderation.
While opponents of gender-affirming care for trans youth often act as if such care is common and undertaken thoughtlessly, it’s actually quite rare, according to a new study.
The study, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, found that “fewer than 1 in 1,000 U.S. adolescents with commercial insurance received gender-affirming medications — puberty blockers or hormones — during a recent five-year period,” the Associated Press reports.
Other studies have looked at gender-affirming surgery for transgender minors and concluded it is rare, but the use of medications for gender confirmation is not well-documented, the study’s authors note.
“Because age and experience of puberty onset varies by sex assigned at birth and dictates the course of care, it is important to analyze these rates by age and sex assigned at birth,” says an abstract of the study (the full research paper is behind a paywall). “This study filled this gap by using private insurance data across all 50 states.”
“We are not seeing inappropriate use of this sort of care,” lead author Landon Hughes, a researcher at Harvard University,” told the AP. “And it’s certainly not happening at the rate at which people often think it is.”
The authors examined insurance data for more 5 million patients aged 8 to 17, covering the years 2018 to 2022, so it as before many of the state bans were enacted. Only 926 of these patients received puberty blockers and 1,927 received hormones, coming out to 0.1 percent. Puberty blockers were not administered to anyone under age 12.
“I hope that our paper cools heads on this issue and ensures that the public is getting a true sense of the number of people who are accessing this care,” Hughes said.
The new study “adds to the growing evidence base about best practices when serving transgender and gender-diverse youth,” Dr. Scott Leibowitz, who has helped develop the adolescent standards of care for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, told the AP.
Twenty-six states have passed laws banning some or all gender-affirming procedures for trans youth. The U.S. Supreme Court heard a case in Decemberseeking to overturn Tennessee’s ban, and a decision is expected in the spring or summer. Donald Trump has vowed to ban such care nationwide through an executive order when he becomes president again, something that would undoubtedly lead to more court cases, and during his campaign he falsely claimed that young people are receiving gender-affirming medical care at school. He has promised to enact other anti-trans policies as well.
Like the residents of Munchkinland celebrating Elphaba’s watery demise in Wicked‘s opening number, anti-‘woke’ pundits are delightedly banging the drum that diversity, equality and inclusion policies (DEI) – aimed at reducing discrimination in the workplace – are dead, dunzo and pushing up daises.
“The death of DEI is finally here,” Michael Deacon proclaimed, “the DEI cult is now imploding,” Sam Ashworth-Hayes declared – citing car manufacturer Jaguaras the first fatality – “the DEI game is up,” Matthew Lynn insisted.
You get the picture.
Whilst you could argue these statements are just the overzealous sells of attention grabbing headlines, it is undeniable the right’s self-imposed ‘War on Woke’ – which this year turned its Eye of Sauron-esque gaze on DEI – has forced US multi-billion dollar businesses to abandon commitments to fostering fair and equitable workplaces.
Robby Starbuck is leading campaigns against companies he deems ‘woke’. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images)
Leading the charge throughout 2024 has been former music video director turned MAGA pundit and anti-woke campaigner Robby Starbuck, whose mission to bring “sanity back to corporate America” via public pressure campaigns and boycotts has seen big name US brands like Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniel’s, Ford, Stanley Black & Decker and John Deere – just to name a few – all roll back DEI policies.
Starbuck’s ire is with American firms supporting minority causes and communities, such as sponsoring LGBTQ+ Pride events, running inclusivity training for staff and taking part in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. That being said, business participation in the HRC’s Index reached record levels in 2024, despite Starbuck’s best efforts.
Further to this, corporations abandoning their DEI commitments has certainly not happened without criticism, with disdainful LGBTQ+ folks voting with their feet and making it clear that they’re more than willing to take their cash elsewhere.
The 2024 LGBTQ+ Climate Survey found that 80 per cent of LGBTQ+ adults in the US would boycott a company that rolled back equality programmes, whilst more than 75 per cent said that they would have a less-favourable opinion of a company that cut its DEI policies. The survey found 52 per cent of people said they would urge others to boycott the company, including by posting negative reviews on social media.
As the year draws to a close, here are some of the biggest and most well-known businesses that have backed down on supporting diversity this year.
Walmart
(Getty Images/Bob Riha, Jr.)
Not the most recent company to fold on its DEI commitments, but no doubt the biggest.
Walmart is the America’s largest private employer and has 1.6 million associates working across nearly 5,000 locations in the US, with a total of 2.1 million staff on the books worldwide.
According to revenue data published by Forbes for its Fortune 500 list, Walmart generated revenue worth $645.15 billion in 2023.
Walmart’s decision to step back on its DEI policies came as Starbuck threatened to galvanise a boycott in conjunction with the Black Friday sales, a post-Thanksgiving shopping event which generated a total of $9.8 billion across the US economy in 2023.
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Starbuck said he warned Walmart executives he was “doing a story on wokeness there” and had “productive conversations to find solutions.”
The business will now no longer take part in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index – it earned a perfect score of 100 in 2023 – stop selling “inappropriate sexual and/or transgender products” marketed at children, review Pride funding and no longer provide staff with racial-equity training.
Walmart will also stop using the term Latinx, discontinue the use of DEI as a term and “will evaluate supplier diversity programmes and ensure they do not provide preferential treatment and benefits to suppliers based on diversity.”
Starbuck said the decision would “send shockwaves throughout corporate America.”
Ford
(Carl Court/Getty Images)
Iconic car manufacturer Ford is known not only for producing vehicles but for entirely revolutionising the means of mass production through assembly lines. But despite its industry-leading history, it seems it flinches at the risk of conservative upset.
According to the Fortune 500 list, the brand generated revenue of $176,191,000,000 ($171.19 billion) in 2023 and employs around 130,000 staff members in the United States.
In August, the company announced it would be ending its participation in the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, with CEO Jim Farley saying in a memo: “We are mindful that our employees and customers hold a wide range of beliefs, and the external and legal environment related to political and social issues continues to evolve.”
Farley added Ford would focus on taking care of employees and customers “versus publicly commenting on the polarising issues of the day.”
The HRC slammed the decision, writing on a social media post that Ford was “cowering to MAGA weirdo Robby Starbuck.”
Starbuck, unsurprisingly, celebrated the move: “This isn’t everything we want but it’s a great start. We’re now forcing multi-billion dollar organisations to change their policies without even posting just from fear they have of being the next company that we expose.”
Lowe’s
(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Another large retail chain, Lowe’s might be smaller than Walmart but still has more than 2,000 stores and employs 300,000 people. It generated $86 billion in 2023.
The home improvement chain announced its DEI rollback via an internal memo where the firm announced it would stop taking part in surveys for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), combine employee groups into one umbrella organisation and end support for “festivals, parades and fairs” – arguably meaning Pride events.
Starbuck claimed he contacted executives at the chain last week “to let them know I planned to expose their woke policies” and subsequently “woke up to an email where they pre-emptively made big changes”.
However, a spokesman for Lowe’s told CNN they had heard from Starbuck after the company “already announced changes that had long been in process.”
Toyota
Toyota. ( Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images)
After coming under fire from Starbuck, car-manufacturer Toyota announced their “refocus” of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes means they won’t sponsor cultural events and parades such as LGBTQ+ Pride in the US.
In a memo sent to 50,000 US employees and more than 1,500 dealerships, the company said the decision follows a “highly politicised discussion” around business commitments to DEI.
“We will no longer sponsor cultural events such as festivals and parades that are not related to Stem [science, technology, engineering and maths] education and workforce readiness,” the memo read.
According to Bloomberg, Toyota will also no longer participate in cultural surveys, and will end their participation in the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) annual Corporate Equality Index, which once gave them a perfect score for their DEI efforts.
The car-makers will refocus employee resource groups for professional development, networking and mentoring with a “clear alignment to driving the company’s business”.
John Deere
Tractor manufacturing John Deere was targeted by the ‘anti-woke’ brigade. (Getty)
In a post on social media in July following a Starbuck campaign, agricultural manufacturer John Deere confirmed it was rolling back its corporate inclusion efforts.
The statement read: “We will no longer participate or support external social or cultural awareness parades, festivals or events. Business resource groups will exclusively be focused on professional development, networking, mentoring and supporting talent recruitment efforts.”
All company-mandated training materials and policies would be audited to ensure the absence of socially motivated messages while being in compliance with federal, state and local laws, the company promised while reaffirming that “the existence of diversity quotas and pronoun identification have never been and are not company policy”.
However, the statement also noted that the company “fundamentally believe a diverse workforce enables us to best meet our customers’ needs, and because of that, we will continue to track the advancement of the diversity of our organisations”, adding: “Your trust and confidence in us are of the utmost importance to everyone at John Deere, and we fully intend to earn it every day and in every way we can.”
Stanley Black & Decker
Stanley Black & Decker became the focus of another right-wing campaign group. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Toolmakers Stanley Black & Decker have been accused of “scrubbing” all mentions of DEI from its corporate website.
This time though, the backlash came from Consumers’ Research, a right-wing campaign group that prides itself on targeting “wokeness” in business.
The pressure group’s executive director, Will Hild, believed Stanley Black & Decker might continue to undertake DEI activities “albeit more surreptitiously than before they were caught”.
Molson Coors
Despite a history of supporting LGBTQ+ causes, Molson Coors scrapped progressive policies. (Getty Images)
Molson Coors Brewing Company reportedly began restructuring its corporate training programmes in March, according to an internal memo.
Despite once being “refreshingly proud”, the brewer added that it will do away with DEI programmes and diversity quota because of the “complicated” rise of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
Human rights groups struck back, with GLAAD shaming the company for deciding to “walk away” from supporting marginalised groups “when it gets noisy and hard”.
Ford
Ford will focus on employees and customers rather than “polarising issues of the day”. (Getty Images)
The car manufacturer announced in August an intention to leave the HRC’s CEI. Chief executive Jim Farley wrote in a memo that the company would focus on taking care of employees and customers “versus publicly commenting on polarising issues of the day”.
Farley also sits on the corporate board at Harley-Davidson.
While Starbuck publicly celebrated another win, the HRC condemned the move, saying: “Today, Ford abandoned its values and commitments to an inclusive workplace, cowering to MAGA weirdo Robby Starbuck.”
Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson was another big name to bow to the anti-woke brigade. (Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images)
The motorcycle maker succumbed to the anti-woke brigade after Starbuck accused the company of taking on DEI initiatives. “I don’t think the values at corporate reflect the values of nearly any Harley-Davidson bikers,” he wrote on X.
“Do Harley riders want the money they spend to be used later by corporate to push an ideology that’s diametrically opposed to their own values?”
Despite a long history of supporting LGBTQ+ causes, Harley-Davidson said they hadn’t had a DEI function since April and “no longer have supplier diversity spend goals”.
In addition, all employee training would only be business-related and “absent of socially motivated content.”
Jack Daniel’s
The parent company of Jack Daniel’s axed initiatives because the “world has changed since 2019”. (Getty Images)
Another well-known brand, Jack Daniel’s, announced the scrapping of all DEI initiatives because “the world has evolved” since 2019 when the business, owned by Brown-Forman, first introduced the policies.
Starbuck considered this a big win, writing on X that he received the news before he could expose the company and bragging: “We are winning… one by one we will bring sanity back to corporate America”.
Despite the new “strategic framework”, including leaving the HRC’s CEI index, the company will still foster an inclusive culture where “everyone is welcomed, respected and able to bring their best self to work”.
Tractor Supply Co
Rural farm supply store Tractor Supply was one of the first companies to scrape DEI policies. (Getty Images)
The rural America retail chain specialising in agricultural wares was the first domino to fall under Starbucks’ scrutiny. In a lengthy tweet exposing Tractor Supply for having “woke priorities”, including donations to charities that support LGBTQ+ youngsters, the company faced an intense backlash on social media.
The firm quickly relented, promising to eliminate their DEI programmes and climate change goals, saying: “We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart.”
In addition, the company will no longer provide data to the Human Rights Commission’s (HRC) Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a bench-marking tool that rates American businesses on policies and practises that affect their LGBTQ+ employees.
