Pride, but no budget: LGBTQ+ creators hit by ad spend drop

As advertisers curb their Pride marketing spend, some LGBTQ+ influencers are seeing their brand partnership revenue for June’s Pride Month — which is often their most active month — dwindle to almost nothing. These creators are among the individuals whose livelihoods are directly impacted as big businesses rush to distance themselves from DEI initiatives.

Advertisers’ growing pullback from Pride marketing is likely a result of political pressure from the Trump administration, according to Gravity Research chief strategy officer Kendall Seketa. 

“From this survey, we found that most executives are concerned about the executive orders and actions we’ve seen from the federal government; that’s the driving force here,” Seketa said. “In our data, these changes are more pronounced amongst federal contractors, because of the threat to their business. That, obviously, was not a dynamic that companies were working with in 2024.”

The key numbers

• Of the 49 brand executives who responded to Gravity Research’s 2025 Pride Pulse Poll, 39 percent said they planned to reduce their spending on Pride-related marketing in 2025, compared to 9 percent in 2024.
• No respondents said they planned to increase their spending in the area.
• Gravity Research’s survey tapped into the opinions of senior leaders from Fortune 500 companies in industries such as consumer goods, healthcare, utilities and information technology, with 69 percent of respondents representing companies with at least $10 billion in annual revenue.
• 37 percent of respondents said they plan to decrease their sponsorships of external Pride events, like festivals.
• As brands shy away from Pride-related activations, LGBTQ+ consumers are growing wary of Pride marketing that falls short of genuine support for their communities. A 2025 Social Lens survey of 124 LGBTQ+ consumers in 42 states found that respondents were universally encouraged by seeing brands work with queer creators and hire queer influencers and designers to create their Pride collections. “I’ll buy it if a queer artist designed it and can show how the sales help our community,” said one anonymous respondent.

Dropping off

Six LGBTQ+ creators told Digiday that they had experienced a significant downtick in Pride-related partnerships, with many more speaking out about the downturn on social media. 

Lesbian creators Ashley and Malori Anthony said that they had experienced a significant dropoff in Pride Month brand partnerships, with brand interest falling somewhat in 2024 and cratering in 2025. The couple made about $6,000 in Pride-related Instagram sponsorships last year, and $14,000 the year before. This year, the Anthonys have signed one Pride Month sponsorship — with the mattress company Big Fig — amounting to $1,500.

“Last year, we made about $40,000 [through sponsorships], which was amazing — that’s close to what I make as a teacher,” Ashley Anthony said. “We’ve made about $3,000 this year — and I know we’re only halfway through the year, but usually, around this time of year, we should be making quite a bit more. So, it makes us nervous, because we do rely on the supplementary income.”

Last year, queer influencer Alysse Dalessandro signed three Pride Month brand partnerships. In 2025, Dalessandro said that she has signed only one brand partnership for the month of June so far.

“In 2023, I was like, ‘this is different.’ It was kind of quieter, and people who had reached out [for partnerships in past years] would say, ‘oh, that — we switched directions,’” Dalessandro said. “Right now, brands are being loud about not supporting the LGBTQ community.”

Dalessandro and the Anthonys are far from the only LGBTQ+ influencers to have experienced a steep decline in sponsorship activity in June 2025. Trans creator Christopher Rhodes said that he had signed 20 partnerships in 2023, 10 in 2024 — and only one so far this year, with no partnerships specifically around Pride. Queer influencer Gena Jaffe said that June was typically her most lucrative month of the year, but that she had signed only one Pride-related brand deal in 2025.

Other LGBTQ+ influencers such as Katie Brooks, Mana Shaw-Rodriguez, Dolly Jaye and Barrett Pall have also taken to social media to speak out about their precipitous decline in Pride-related sponsorships this year.

A necessary pivot

With their brand partnership businesses dropping off in 2025, LGBTQ+ creators have had to pivot to alternative revenue streams to stay afloat — or have had to reconsider their approach to partnerships. Dalessandro, for example, is focusing on other revenue methods such as affiliate marketing on her blog and her secondhand clothing business, while the Anthonys are looking to find representation for the first time, in the hopes that it will help them secure more partnerships. And Rhodes has taken on a full-time social media management job to pay the bills, with plans to more aggressively court potential sponsors.

“In my five years of doing content creation and getting brand partnerships, I almost never approached a brand; they all approached me,” he said. “So, if you ask me how I’m going to change, I’m actively pitching brands and reaching out now.”

Downstream effects

Although the most visible way advertisers are pulling out from Pride is by ending their sponsorships of large Pride festivals and cutting their Pride merchandise lines, these decisions have a downstream impact on individual LGBTQ+ creators’ ability to make a livelihood. 

Pride merchandise lines often hire LGBTQ+ creators to design items. Creator Rhodes’ streetwear brand, Flavnt, was formerly part of Target’s Pride line — which featured a wide range of products celebrating LGBTQ+ identities. Target also hired LGBTQ+ influencers to promote and sell its Pride line using affiliate links. When Target reduced the size of its Pride line in May 2023 and May 2024 — and then cut its diversity initiatives in early 2025 — the decision halted a key revenue stream for Rhodes.

“Unfortunately, where they are placed in the marketing mix means that if a big, integrated above-the-line campaign that would have had some kind of influencer amplification as part of it is reduced or eliminated, then there’s no pathway then to work with said influencers,” said Chris Dunne, the CEO of LGBTQ+ marketing and advertising advocacy organization Outvertising. “It generally comes from whatever the bigger initiative is, first.”

An opportunity to lean in 

Although queer influencers of all kinds are experiencing a decrease in Pride-related sponsorships, transgender creators, in particular, say that they have seen brands turn away from them amid a broader cultural shift to the right. Trans creators are on the front lines of the LGBTQ+ community’s battle for acceptance — and given advertisers’ wariness around Pride-related marketing was sparked by Bud Light’s decision to sponsor a trans influencer, it isn’t surprising to see controversy-averse marketers shy away from this facet of the queer community.

“There was a shift of kind of wanting to work with trans creators before this — there was this big cultural conversation, and at least relatively positive media representation, and it seemed like brands were trying to branch out,” Rhodes said. “Now, it’s like they don’t want to touch trans creators with a 10-foot pole, unless they are an overtly queer brand, or a super advocacy-based, values-forward brand.”

In spite of the culture shift away from Pride-related marketing, some savvy media buyers see opportunities for brands that are aligned with the LGBTQ+ community and continue to support them during this difficult period. Indeed, 2025 has been a hard year for queer creators, but it has also created opportunities for advertisers to build loyalty among this increasingly marginalized community.

“What that creates is an opportunity for the brands that remain to really double down and scoop up loyalty and deeper engagement with those audiences, because it creates a vacuum,” said Raul Rios, head of strategy for the creative agency Saylor. “I think brands that continue to show that emphasis and that commitment to the audience are really set up to win very well.”