While fights rage over big brands like Bud Light and Target, other companies have stepped back and are quietly improving LGBTQ+ representation from the inside

• Big brands from Bud Light to Disney to Starbucks have recently been entangled in the culture wars.
• Their involvement in LGBTQ+ representation has made waves among advocates and conservatives alike.

It sounds like a perfect weekend: Bud Light. Chick-fil-A. Disney. Cracker Barrel. Starbucks.

But instead of some guide to suburban Americana, these are some of the companies that have been dinged, to varying degrees, in the culture wars — this time over LGBTQ+ representation.

But these public feuds aren't all that's happening on the representation front. While conservatives who accuse big business of engaging in corporate wokeism trade salvos with LGBTQ+ supporters, more large companies have been quietly redirecting their work on LGBTQ+ issues inward, focusing on their employees and their boards.

It's a shift that was already underway before the latest fights that have drawn in Adidas, the LA Dodgers, and now country music icon Garth Brooks.

Out Leadership, an advocacy and advisory group focused on LGBTQ+ issues, said in April that the number of Fortune 500 companies with what it called LGBTQ-inclusive board-diversity policies had more than quadrupled to 112 from just 23 in 2022. Among these same big companies, the number of LGBTQ+ board members rose to 39 from 26 last year.

Some of the shifts are because of rule changes. New measures at Nasdaq, for example, will require companies listed there to report diversity stats for their boards. About half of Nasdaq companies now have policies for including LGBTQ+ board members, up from 3% in 2022, according to Out Leadership.

Companies' turn inward also reflects corporate chiefs' assessments that they'd already staked out public positions on many social issues and that much of the work on these topics needed to be done among employees, said Paul Washington, the executive director of the ESG Center at the think tank The Conference Board.

Washington said that at a recent Conference Board gathering of large companies, about one in four business leaders said their companies had increased their internal communications on environmental, social, and governance issues, while about one in five had cut back on what they've said publicly on ESG matters. Issues like workforce diversity — including LGBTQ+ representation — can fall under the ESG rubric.

"Companies are shifting to talk more internally, less externally, about social issues," Washington said. "Companies are not backing away from the commitments they've made. But I think they are expressing them differently from the way they used to."

Washington said it's a shift that was on display when the Supreme Court threw out the right to abortion nearly a year ago by overturning Roe v. Wade. Washington said about 10% of big companies made public statements about the high court's decision, but about a third of companies addressed it internally.

Research from Farient Advisors, a compensation-advisory firm, and Global Governance and Executive Compensation Group found that among S&P 100 companies, 63% now tie ESG metrics to executive pay, up from 53% two years ago. ESG metrics can include inputs such as the proportion of LGBTQ+ workers.

Brian Bueno, the ESG leader at Farient Advisors, told Insider that companies see the benefit of efforts such as diversifying their workforce. "But they are aware of some of the politics and some of the noise that's out there. And so they are being careful in terms of what the message is that's getting out," he said.

When messages are sent, companies can sometimes run into trouble. In the case of Bud Light, which ran afoul of conservative activists over a promotion with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, the company's response to the dustup then angered some LGBTQ+ activists. The fracas has now pushed Bud Light from atop the list of best-selling beers in the US.

"Their sales fell off because they lost their extremists and they lost the LGBTQ community," Sarah Kate Ellis, the head of the LGBTQ-rights group GLAAD, recently told Insider. She said brands like North Face and Nike that hadn't backed down from what she called "a small group of extremists" fared better.

While these public debates might feel shallow to some, they can influence public consciousness. Ellis said about 30% of Americans know someone who's trans. "So 70% of America is filling that information gap with what the media is reporting." Some of that reporting highlights conservative voices, including among elected officials, critical of the LGBTQ+ movement, she said. An ad featuring a trans TikTok star from a beloved brand provides a counterbalance.

The stakes, Ellis noted, are high. She said there have been more than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills proposed in legislatures across the country.

Bueno said that while work on issues like LGBTQ+ representation is still being done inside companies, there's a risk that by going quiet on some of those efforts, consumers might be less clear on where a company stands.

"It's tough to find the right balance for a lot of companies," he said.