Booz Allen Hamilton — the huge multi-billion dollar Washington-based consulting firm and a longtime recipient of federal contracts — has abruptly withdrawn its sponsorship of the upcoming WorldPride festival in the nation’s capital.

The exit follows President Donald Trump’s executive order erasing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts across the federal government. In response, the firm — which provides consulting, analysis, and engineering services to Washington agencies — announced that it was ending all of its DEI programs, removing diversity goals from management priorities, and scrapping use of the now-toxic DEI acronym from all company communications.

Related

Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of Kennedy Center inspires protests & resignations
Hundreds marched and stars are fleeing the renowned arts organization as Trump installs loyalists.

Previous posts celebrating Pride events on the company’s social media were apparently deleted, Politico magazine reports.

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

In a two-sentence statement addressing the move, Booz Allen claimed the company was still supportive of the LGBTQ+ community, without identifying it by name.

“We are committed to supporting all our employee communities and celebrating tribute months,” the statement read. “Our decision not to be a headline sponsor of the WorldPride Parade this year does not reflect any pullback of support to this community.”  

Like DEI, the acronym LGBTQ+ has become a target of administration efforts to erase inclusivity from the public sphere. Agencies across the federal government are cleaving transgender, “queer” and nonbinary people from the community moniker as they erase all mentions from their outgoing media and internal materials.

“They have a lot of federal contracts,” Ryan Bos, the organizer of WorldPride in Washington and leader of the local Capital Pride Alliance, told Politico. He said the company indicated sponsoring WorldPride could put it out of compliance with Trump’s DEI order.

“They made the decision that to protect their business, they did not want to risk the backlash,” he said.

Bos said he was astonished by the withdrawal. Booz Allen was an active participant in past Pride celebrations and sponsored company floats. They also donated the economic impact analysis that helped bring WorldPride to Washington.

“It’s disheartening, at a time when it feels like we’re getting hit from all sides, that the things that we were able to rely on for years are endangered, to see businesses cower to this,” he said.

A longtime Booz Allen employee agreed, saying, “Internally, the LGBT community feels almost betrayed.”

“For so long, the company had been a trailblazer in LGBT rights before it was popular.”

Booz Allen’s withdrawal from WorldPride Washington coincides with Trump’s assault on another institution formerly participating in the international LGBTQ+ gathering.

Last week, Trump was installed as chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts by a handpicked board of directors. Soon after, a concert associated with WorldPride, featuring the National Symphony Orchestra and the Gay Men’s Chorus, was canceled by Ric Grennel, a gay alum from Trump’s first administration and the center’s newly-installed executive director.

While Booz Allen is out, other Beltway-based sponsors are holding the line, Bos said, including hotel giants Marriott and Hilton. WorldPride has a goal of raising $15 to $20 million in corporate sponsorships.

But challenges for the festival remain.

Egale Canada, one of Canada’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, announced last week that it was preemptively withdrawing from the Washington festival and other LGBTQ+-related events scheduled to take place in the U.S., citing concerns about trans members’ safety.

That’s the reaction some advocates fear the most.

“I honestly think the long game is, we want to get you all so scared that you cancel it on your own,” said Hope Giselle, onetime executive director of the National Trans Visibility March.

“At this particular moment, we need to speak up and speak out and do the things,” she said.  

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.