‘Corporations are finally getting the message’: Longtime LGBT promoter suddenly losing influence

The Human Rights Campaign long has been one of the biggest LGBT agenda promoters in America.

It assembled a ranking system and corporations jumped to meet its requirements in pursuit of that elusive 100% rating from HRC.

But its agenda got more and more extreme, and American society realized the down side of promoting the alternative lifestyle choices involved – many millions of Americans didn’t support the ideology – and now the HRC influence is plunging.

According to a report at the Washington Stand, the group previously rated 377 Fortune 500 companies for their ideological agenda support.

That was for 2025.

But for 2026, the company list is down “to just 131.”

That’s a plunge of 65%.

“The rankings, which started back in 2002, have been the best indicator of a business’s political leanings for two decades. These days, to get within striking distance of a perfect score, employers have to agree to wild concessions like covering the cost of gender-transition procedures for staff and their families, publicly advocating for pro-LGBTQ legislation, forcing employees to undergo multiple ideological trainings, opening restrooms to both sexes, introducing a pronoun sharing guide, recruiting employees based on sexual orientation and gender identity (not merit and experience), and more,” the Washington Stand explained.

HRC was, in fact, “once feared by corporate boardrooms and executives alike.”

Now, the report said, it “intimidates no one.”

The report attributed part of the change to “six beer cans.”

“One of the best things that’s ever happened in this century will also go down as one of the worst business decisions ever made. When Bud Light plastered Dylan Mylvaney’s face on a pack of cold ones, a switch flipped in this country — sparking a grassroots revolution that’s still turning woke brands on its head. And while it’s gratifying to see the power shift from cocky CEOs to the people, what’s even better is seeing the bully behind it all crumble,” the report said.

“Gone are the days when businesses raced to contort their internal policies to the radical demands of HRC’s Corporate Equality Index. Now, the old shine of a 100% score, of being perfectly aligned with the most outspoken pro-trans, pro-gay agenda in the world, is more damaging than desirable,” the report noted.

The result is that most CEOs see taking themselves out of the index altogether is the best answer, since “A low score would open them up to public shaming by HRC, and a good score would put them at odds with an army of Americans who could tank their revenue. It’s a lose-lose.”

Will Hild, of Consumers’ Research, said in an interview with the publication that “The number of Fortune 500 companies abandoning participation in HRC’s radical activist index is yet another sign that ESG and woke capitalism were never about profits.”

“The more consumers learn about companies’ advocacy for bizarre, fringe LGBTQ politics, the less they think of the brands. And corporations are finally getting the message. Hopefully, the companies still participating will soon concede that their job isn’t to tell Americans how to live or what to believe, but to simply serve their needs.”

The impact is real, the report said, with HRC laying off 20% of its staff over recent months.

Stephen Soukup of the Heritage Fondation’s Free Enterprise Initiative, explained to the Washington Stand, there was a “near-simultaneous realization among individuals in an oppressed population that they are not alone — that they are not the only ones who have been putting on a brave face and pretending not to detest the ‘regime’ for fear of public reprisal.”

The agenda quickly fell.

It was Tractor Supply that first conceded it felt pressure to participate in the HRC plans, but when it quit, John Deere, Harley-Davidson and other corporations quickly followed.

He said today, “HRC’s entire corporate pressure movement is on the verge of complete collapse.”