As LGBTQ Americans celebrate Pride Month in June, companies are expressing their support for the queer community -- yet some of those same companies regularly advertise on Fox News, funding the outlet’s hateful rhetoric and baseless misinformation against LGBTQ people.
Fox News has spent years demeaning and misinforming about the LGBTQ community. So far in 2021, Fox personalities and guests have said that trans people are “a challenge to the perpetuation of the species,” called the Equality Act “the gay and transsexual supremacy act,” lied that trans athletes competing “spells the destruction of women's sports,” and repeatedly compared best-practice medical care for trans youth to child abuse.
In fact, a Media Matters study found that the network aired 86 segments about trans people from January 20, the day President Joe Biden took office, through March 18 -- coverage primarily aimed at attacking best practice health care for trans youth and trans athletes. Furthermore, Fox aired more segments on trans athletes in the first three months of 2021, at 72, than it did in 2019 and 2020 combined.
Fox’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda has helped fuel the rise in right-wing attacks on trans people -- including discriminatory bills being considered and often passed in state legislatures across the country. Media outlets and advocates have noted that these attacks have increased in 2021 -- which comes as the GOP seeks to make up ground lost in the last election.
Fox News’ leading advertisers celebrating Pride Month
The following companies which have celebrated Pride Month are also some of Fox News’ leading advertisers that remain on the network while others flee because of its toxic programming, which fuels conspiracy theories, extremism, and attacks on democracy. In fact, Media Matters and more than 40 nonprofits have penned a letter urging advertisers to drop Fox and not buy advertisements on the network.
