As it has done for years, Disney released a new collection of bright and bold merchandise and confections to celebrate LGBTQ Pride Month. The Disney Pride Collection features kaleidoscopic rainbow colors adorning T-shirts, hoodies, plushes and more.
There are Mickey Mouse ear headbands featuring the colors of LGBTQ flags, a set of rainbow-hued Star Wars droids, and pins that celebrate queer Marvel characters Loki, America Chavez and Valkyrie. There’s also a Star Wars Pride shirt, accessories that say “Belong, Believe, Be Proud!” and Mickey icon pins with the colors of the lesbian, transgender and bisexual flags.
Then there's the veritable smorgasbord of Pride treats at the Disney Parks, resorts and Disney Springs — from rainbow cinnamon rolls, cake and cake pops to pastry tarts and sparkling cocktails.
And this year, there are several offerings featuring the colors of the transgender flag. The Pride float at Pineapple Lanai at the Polynesian is a vanilla pink and blue soft serve float in Fanta pineapple with white chocolate Pride Mickey icon. And the Pride mousse dome at Animal Kingdom’s Creature Comforts features lemon chiffon cake with raspberry lemonade mousse and a white chocolate glaze striped with pink and blue.
There are Pride-themed treats at every Disney World park, the BoardWalk, several resorts and Disney Springs restaurants — all available starting June 1-30. The rest of the Pride Month merchandise is available at shopDisney.com.
It’s no surprise that Disney engages in the typical “rainbow capitalism” during Pride Month, but this year feels particularly poignant amid the hostile political climate in Florida and the ongoing feud between the company and Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Disney vs. DeSantis fight has been escalating since January 2022, when the legislature introduced the Parental Rights in Education Act — aka the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which banned discussing gender and sexuality in classrooms before the fourth grade.
A couple of months later, Disney spoke out against the legislation. During the company’s annual shareholders meeting, then-CEO Bob Chapek said the company would be “reassessing our approach to advocacy — including political giving in Florida and beyond.”
Ever since, DeSantis — who recently announced his campaign for president in 2024 — has been making moves to punish Florida’s largest taxpayer.
Most recently, Disney has been fighting back against DeSantis in a federal lawsuit. In it, the company’s lawyers called the governor’s actions part of a “targeted campaign of government retaliation.”
Two pieces of legislation specifically pushed Disney to sue — one that overturned Disney’s longstanding development agreement with the Reedy Creek Improvement District and the other that moved monorail inspections to the state.
The Reedy Creek special district was created in the 1960s, and since then has allowed Disney to be largely self-governing. While the monorail inspections were part of a broader transportation bill, the lawsuit said it was also “precision-engineered to target Disney alone.”
On top of the expanded lawsuit, Disney also recently canceled the $1 billion employee campus project, which would have brought more than 2,000 employees to Lake Nona.
The fiery feud between Florida’s governor and one of the largest companies in the world shows no signs of ending soon. During an investor call earlier this month, CEO Bob Iger asked, “Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people and pay more taxes or not?”
But Florida and Disney aren’t the only ones facing controversy in the ongoing fight to protect the rights of the LGBTQ community.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, over 500 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legislatures so far this year. Dozens have been made law, including ones targeting drag shows, transgender health care and bans of books from school libraries.
In Florida, DeSantis recently signed into law a “slate of hate” bills that target the LGBTQIA+ community under the guise of “protecting children.”
Then Target released its new Pride collection, and days ago announced some products would be removed from stores amid threats against employees.
In a statement, Target said: “Since introducing this year's collection, we've experienced threats impacting our team members' sense of safety and well-being while at work. Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”
It’s a shocking move from one of the largest retail brands in the U.S. Many LGBTQ advocates worry Target’s removal of the products will have the opposite of the intended effect.
Talking to NPR, Southern Poverty Law Center spokesperson and investigative report Michael Edison Hayden said, “As soon as you back down like this, you send a message that intimidation works.”
As for Disney, celebrating Pride Month both officially and unofficially goes back over 30 years to the first Gay Days in 1991. Since then, roughly 150,000 LGBTQ people flock to Disney each year to celebrate Gay Days, with this year’s festivities running through June 4.
Just last year, Disney rebranded its annual Rainbow Collection as the Pride Collection, with merchandise including specific language highlighting and celebrating members of the LGBTQ community. Profits from that collection went to advocacy nonprofits including The Trevor Project, PFLAG and GLSEN.
With Disney’s long — and yes, complicated — history of highlighting and supporting the queer community, and the ongoing fight with Florida’s governor that started with a disavowal of anti-LGBTQ legislation, it’s pretty safe to assume the company won’t give in to any backlash that comes with its Pride collection and advocacy efforts. At least, for now.
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