This article first appeared on the Buckeye Flame

The staff of The Buckeye Flame arrived at one of Ohio’s largest Pride celebrations in 2024 to find our table sandwiched between a cellphone company and a grocery-store chain. 

To our left, the cellphone company was giving out gift cards and T-shirts. To our right, the grocery store chain was giving out high-quality tote bags and industrial strength carabiners. The enthusiastic staffers, with Chappell Roan blaring behind them, beckoned Pride-goers over to their tables to grab their free stuff.

All throughout the day, people would come to our table straight from one of our corporate neighbors, totes open and at the ready.

“What do you have?” people would demand, truly without salutation or preamble. 

Our retorts of, “The truth!” or “Queer journalism!” never went over well. 

So we would point to the fishbowl of rubber bracelets, people would take one and immediately walk off to the next stop on their gay trick-or-treating experience. 

By the end of the day, we had signed up 56 new (free) subscribers for the Buckeye Flame.  The experience cost our scrappy queer newsroom close to $750 (table fee, Airbnb for our staff, food, gas).  

The following week, we staffed a table at a small, rural Pride celebration, no corporations anywhere in sight. 

Pride-goers there went from table to table collecting information from the assembled nonprofits and actually engaged: asked us what we were about, gave us story ideas and expressed appreciation for our work and presence at Pride that day. 

By the end of the day, we had subscribed 108 people, for an experience that cost our scrappy queer newsroom $14 (gas).

The conversation about corporations’ June pinkwashing – the sudden visible support of the LGBTQ+ community that often disappears on July 1 – has long been a topic of concern. 

But what is rarely mentioned is the negative effect that this pinkwashing has on our LGBTQ+ nonprofits, Pride-goers and the entire spirit of Pride. The efforts of our nonprofits to keep up with the (Edward) Joneses means we spend money we don’t really have to compete for Pride-goers’ attention. 

This ridiculous competition then moves Pride celebrations even further away from the act of protest that Pride was founded to be in 1970 when thousands of LGBTQ+ individuals gathered in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to demonstrate for equal rights on the one year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. Here in 2025, we clearly need that spirit of protest more than ever. 

Now keep in mind: the majority of Ohio LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations are hyper-local, small town events with zero corporate presence. But the celebrations in our bigger cities are an altogether different story with corporate logos everywhere you turn.

So as those Ohio organizers are deep into 2025 Pride planning, I present to you three ways to immediately change corporate presence at these events.

If a corporation is one of the many who have already announced they are backing away from their DEI initiatives, they should not be at Pride. Period. 

Send them a letter explaining why they are being denied a table and what they need to do to get their table back. 

Worried about losing Pride funding? Check out how Twin Cities Pride in Minneapolis dropped Target as a sponsor of their 2025 celebration after the retail giant rolled back DEI initiatives. The Minnesotan LGBTQ+ community then raised more than double Target’s $50,000 pledge to cover the gap.

Or, if you’re not willing to ban these corporations from Pride, give companies with affirming policies (Apple, Costco, Ben & Jerry’s, e.l.f Beauty, JP Morgan, etc.) prime table real estate and move those scaling back DEI efforts to less desirable table locations. 

And put color-coded, clearly-marked signs on corporate tables that indicate where the companies stand with their DEI support. Pride-goers should know if the table they’re visiting actually supports our community beyond the corporation’s mere presence at Pride. 

At one point during the day at that big Ohio Pride celebration, I took away the fishbowl as a social experiment. Traffic noticeably lessened and immediately returned when I returned the bracelets to their place of prominence. 

The money that The Buckeye Flame spends on swag for Prides truly prevents some LGBTQ+ Ohio stories from being created, but we don’t have a choice. If you look around one of the bigger Pride celebrations, the largest crowds are gathered by the spinning wheel giving out incredible free items. 

And the swag ante keeps getting upped every year, with word-of-mouth actually spreading around Pride. Pride-goers are likely to tell their friends, “Make sure you visit that table because they have amazing stuff!” and very much not, “Make sure you visit that table because they are doing amazing stuff!”

Much as it galls me, we have to have this (usually environment-killing) crap to give away to even get people to our table to talk about our nonprofit mission.

So ban swag. Tell corporations and nonprofits alike that they can give out fliers and information on how they are supporting the community (see #3 below), but that’s it.

Plexus LGBT & Allied Chamber of Commerce hosts an annual career fair in Northeast Ohio where dozens of corporations have tables with actual opportunities for the LGBTQ+ community. 

Attendees are able to meet with a diverse range of employers, organizations and professionals who are committed to creating an inclusive and welcoming work environment for the LGBTQ+ community. And they can leave the event with valuable insight into various industries, essential networking interactions and maybe even an actual job!

Demand the same for corporations at Pride. The only giveaways corporate tables should have are the list of opportunities they are offering the LGBTQ+ community. 

Look, with the Trump administration’s efforts to scrub LGBTQ+ people from the fabric of American life in full swing, Pride celebrations should feel different this summer. 

Pride 2025 should not feel like business as usual, which will start with our demanding that businesses be unusual in their actual displays of support. 🔥

• Reach out to your city’s Pride organizers to demand that they change corporate participation at Pride.