Trump administration crackdowns on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies have gutted federal funding for LGBTQ groups and had a chilling effect on corporate support for Pride. Trump’s slate of anti-transgender executive orders have strained LGBTQ organizations, often demanding they self-censor in order to grasp for funds. Corporations have scaled back DEI initiatives to comply with those same orders, with Pride programs among the many losses. Now, Trump’s federal budget proposal threatens $2.67 billion in cuts to LGBTQ programs, alongside $800 million in research cuts that have already occurred. [San Francisco Chronicle, 5/6/25; CBS News, 6/28/25; Them, 5/7/25]

Extremists threatened Pride events with vandalism, harassment, and violence in 2025. The Radical Reports podcast mapped out threats to Pride across the nation this year, showing at least eight anti-LGBTQ threats or acts of violence and 46 instances of anti-LGBTQ vandalism. In Pennsylvania and Georgia, Pride flags were stolen and vandalized from both public and private property. [Radical Reports, 5/23/25; The New York Times, 6/24/25; CBS News, 6/11/25]

In spite of threats and financial setbacks, Pride festivities still took place in abundance across the country. For many, local businesses helped fill the gap left behind by corporate pullback, and some Pride organizations even outright rejected corporate sponsorship to signal their own protests. [CBS News, 6/6/25; The New York Times, 6/10/25; Axios, 6/3/25]

Meanwhile, efforts on the right to replace Pride month remained unsuccessful. The Idaho bar shilling “Beers for Breeders” shirts in 2024 doubled down this year by hosting a “Heterosexual Awesomeness Fest” in late June. Only 50 people attended, and the event’s organizers accidentally allowed a pro-LGBTQ protester to perform a song about a transgender man onstage. [Media Matters, 6/28/24; PinkNews, 6/25/25]

The Daily Wire has cheered efforts to erase the trans community. Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, who in 2023 declared, “There can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. … Transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely,” used that same “logic” to call for the dissolution of same-sex marriage earlier this year. The outlet credited host Matt Walsh’s 2022 attacks on the Vanderbilt University Medical Center for the recent Supreme Court decision upholding Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban, calling the decision “a crushing defeat for the gender cult that would not have existed without The Daily Wire’s reporting.” [Conservative Political Action Conference, 3/4/23; The Daily Wire, The Michael Knowles Show, 6/6/25; The Daily Wire, 6/18/25]

Walsh insisted Pride Month and the LGBTQ community are “collapsing.” In an early June opinion piece, Matt Walsh claimed that “irrelevant and low-energy” Pride events had nothing to do with the Trump administration slashing funds and intimidating corporations out of support. Rather, Walsh baselessly accused the LGBTQ community of sexualizing children, saying that “millions of Americans are very aware of what the so-called ‘LGBT Pride movement’ actually stands for at this point.” He echoed this rhetoric just over a week later, claiming that “the Pride movement, so-called, the quote-unquote ‘gay rights movement,’ the LGBT movement, whatever label you want to put on it, is itself collapsing, and it’s been exposed for what it is. … I think a critical mass of people just aren’t buying it anymore." [The Daily Wire, 6/2/25; The Daily Wire, The Matt Walsh Show, 6/10/25]

Knowles celebrated “the good news” that “we successfully canceled Pride parades” and claimed “I think we reached peak LGBT somewhere around 2019 and I think we have been declining ever since.” On his June 9 show, Knowles claimed “the LGBT ideology reached its apotheosis with transgenderism,” adding, “People found that the most repulsive, the most extreme version of LGBTism, and they said ‘we don’t want this.’” [The Daily Wire, The Michael Knowles Show, 6/2/25; 6/9/25]

The Daily Wire uplifted right-wing efforts to replace Pride Month. The website promoted a “Family Month” resolution authored by Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) and backed by extreme anti-LGBTQ groups including the Family Research Council. Likewise, the outlet celebrated when the Department of Education proposed June to be “Title IX Month” in lieu of Pride and subsequently launched probes into schools that allow trans athletes. The outlet also cheered when the Trump administration declared there would be no White House proclamation for Pride Month. [The Daily Wire, 6/3/25, 6/2/25, 6/2/25, 6/3/25]

Right-wing media cheered businesses backing out of supporting Pride and championed President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI and anti-LGBTQ policies. Leading up to June, right-wing media celebrated as Pride organizers from Seattle to San Francisco to St. Louis announced cuts to funding. Megyn Kelly credited right-wing pundits Chris Rufo and Robby Starbuck for winning a “huge victory in an important battle we’ve all been fighting.” [Fox News, 4/25/25; The Post Millennial; 4/27/25; The Megyn Kelly Show, 3/27/25; The Daily Signal, 3/21/25]

Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin framed the rollbacks as a lifted burden rather than the result of intimidation, saying, “Corporations seem to have had enough of virtue signaling and, under President Trump's DEI crackdown, they seem to be seizing on the opportunity to dial it back.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 6/6/25]

The Daily Signal reflected on the right’s Target boycott as the retailer shrank its Pride collection in stores, suggesting America is “ditching LGBTQ,” while Benny Johnson claimed the boycott efforts “changed this country.” [The Daily Signal, 6/6/25; The Benny Show, 6/3/25]

Podcast host Patrick Bet-David argued that corporate support for Pride “is criminal.” [PBD Podcast, 6/3/25]

Right-wing media continued targeting brands, admonishing the MLB, NFL, and a litany of corporations for supporting Pride. [The Will Cain Show, 6/3/25; The Daily Wire, 6/2/25; The Daily Signal, 6/8/25]

Right-wing media berated Pride flags, which were vandalized across the country last month. Allie Beth Stuckey disparaged the Pride flag as “so wrongly and wickedly used as a symbol of depravity” and said she chooses to call June “Noahic Covenant Month” instead. The Daily Wire published conservative backlash to Missoula, Montana’s decision to make the Pride flag the official city flag in order to thwart recent statewide legislation banning them from government property. Right-wing media even came to the defense of Atlanta teens who vandalized Pride flags. [Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey, 6/2/25; The Daily Wire, 6/3/25; PJ Media, 6/24/25; The Daily Wire, The Matt Walsh Show, 6/26/25]

Charlie Kirk Show guest host Andrew Kolvet called for eliminating Pride completely, saying, “It's a cultural tyranny of sorts, and I think we should just get rid of it altogether. I mean, that's where I'm at. I do not want Pride Month anymore in my country. I find it corrosive.” [The Charlie Kirk Show, 6/3/25]

Three days into June, The Daily Signal claimed “things are already getting weird and wild,” criticizing WorldPride’s drag events in Washington, D.C., alongside snarking at Gov. Tim Walz for Minnesota’s trans refuge law and recent ban on conversion therapy. The outlet then sent an intern to snap photos of what she saw at the D.C. parade, including “corporate presence,” religious groups, international diversity, and drag queens. While alleging that “some photos could not be included,” images of two fully clothed people made up the “obscene costumes” section. [The Daily Signal, 6/3/25, 6/9/25]

The Daily Wire and National Review attempted to undermine WorldPride in D.C. by highlighting incidents of crime in Dupont Circle, a landmark to the local LGBTQ community that was temporarily closed by the National Park Service. National Review quoted a local security guard that “they should’ve never opened it back up to the public,” and The Daily Wire cited a police letter which cherry-picked three examples of crimes over five years and suggested they were correlated to Pride events because they happened around the same time. [The Daily Wire, 6/6/25; National Review, 6/8/25]
 

Libs of TikTok targeted Pride events at least 21 times throughout the month. Bomb threats have occurred following the account’s online posts numerous times in the past. [Radical Reports, 5/23/25; Media Matters, 11/2/23, 4/5/24]