words by James Alexander
It was a warm, sultry day in early June when I saw the sign. A circular ‘For Sale’ placard standing outside one of the houses on the high street. The bright white lettering glistened against a deep blue background: the logo of a local estate agent I’d passed a hundred times before.
But there was something different about this sign. As I strolled past, I turned back to admire the handsome Georgian townhouse. On the cool, shady side of the sign I noticed a rainbow. Faint, but unmistakable, the company’s branding had been reprinted in the hues of Pride, hidden in the shadows of a stone wall and ivy. While the sign was a small stop on my own quiet walk through the village, it felt like a marker on the much longer journey that Pride has been on for decades.
The irony of the scene came washing over me. Surely the estate agent couldn’t be turning away from the LGBTQ+ community? Why was their solidarity being directed towards an empty house? Although their efforts towards activism had made it as far as the top of a 7-foot picket, they still only seemed to show their colours (and support) from a safe distance behind the kerb. It was a journey they had started but not quite completed.
There is, of course, a word for this one-sided sort of solidarity: pride-washing. It refers to the tendency of corporations and individuals to adopt the language and imagery of LGBTQ+ pride without committing to the deeper work of advocacy, policy, or support. It’s aesthetics over activism.
The rainbow wave usually rolls in each year at the end of May, just before Pride Month in June. The shelves of supermarkets are adorned with polychromatic packaging. Social media profiles are transformed into technicolour emblems. Corporate declarations of love and inclusivity abound.
But when the 1st July comes around, standard rhetoric returns and palettes revert to monochrome. It is not the timing that jars, but the brevity, as though their queer allyship, much like the various pride-themed capsule collections rolled out by fast fashion brands, is a seasonal diversion before merging back into the main road of business as usual.
Of course, pride visibility matters. But when it appears in a corporate context, it raises questions. Like the sign on the high street, it asks: who is this really for? What are we showing and what are we shielding? Even greater irony emerges when we consider the fact that Pride began as a protest, where people marched, rallied, resisted, and inscribed empowering affirmations on homemade placards not dissimilar to that For Sale sign. That journey was not linear; it was generational, carried from Stonewall through the first AIDS marches to today’s Pride parades. It was cultural, shaped by music, art and film. Each step forward was bold and the direction was clear.
However, in a strange twist of the narrative, the same sentiments which were carried boldly on the frontline of Pride marches have now been carefully folded and tucked away. Risk and defiance have been replaced by safety and, at times, secrecy.
As such, the proverbial closet, so often associated with the queer experience, is now occupied by many corporations claiming to support the queer community. Some may peer out through the keyhole during Pride Month; others may adorn the hanging rail with rainbow-coloured garments; and others may even keep the door ajar long enough for a photoshoot. But when the season is over, the closet door is closed once again. It’s a step forward, then two steps back: a stuttering journey that stalls before it starts.
True activism does not hinge on timing. It does not emerge when colours are trending. It commits to the enduring and often invisible work required to make a difference. It takes the long road, even when the map is unclear and the terrain is challenging – because real allyship is a pilgrimage without shortcuts.
All of this is not to detract from the numerous corporations that continue to give vital support to charities and organisations which help improve the safety and welfare of LGBTQ+ youth. Converse, for instance, has consistently supported LGBTQ+ organisations since its first Pride collection in 2015, donating over $1.3 million to groups like It Gets Better and the Ali Forney Centre. Tesco became a headline sponsor of London and Brighton Pride in 2023, donating £90,000 across charities like Fighting with Pride and Switchboard. Vodafone, meanwhile, launched its Zoteria app in 2022 which enables LGBTQ+ individuals to safely report hate crimes and access support from charities like Galop and Stonewall.
Knowing that this kind of corporate activism is happening across the world makes it easier to imagine actual scenarios where a positive impact is being made: a young queer person downloading Zoteria to report a hate crime, or a parent calling Switchboard in the quiet of their kitchen, guided by the logo they glimpsed on a Tesco billboard. These might not look like grand gestures, but they are quiet checkpoints along the road to belonging.
It is largely because of organisations like these that many people embrace Pride marketing campaigns as signs of inclusivity and progression, especially when there is tangible work being done behind the scenes. Yet to some they still feel disingenuous and ornamental, despite the various financial contributions they yield.
If the For Sale sign has taught us anything, it’s that corporate allyship can have two sides: the side that is shown to the world – curated, performative – and the side that is kept facing inwards – quiet, uncertain. Change occurs when both sides match. That half-hidden sign is a waypoint on a much longer journey –– a stark reminder that gestures of allyship are only powerful when they’re visible, and only meaningful when they’re sustained.
Maybe next year, the rainbow will be printed on both sides.