Luxury vehicle brand Lexus has apparently continued supporting LGBT activist group the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) despite its parent company retreating from sponsoring similar initiatives last year.
Toyota — Lexus’ parent company — sent a memo to employees last year announcing it would cease sponsoring LGBT events, refocus its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and stop participating in the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI) survey and other similar surveys, Bloomberg reported in October 2024. Despite its parent company halting support of certain LGBTQ-related initiatives, Lexus is presently featured on the HRC’s website as one of the group’s gold level corporate partners.
A Lexus spokesperson did not respond to three separate requests for comment by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Some of the other major companies currently listed as the HRC’s corporate partners include Target, Nike, United Airlines, Amazon and Apple. The HRC’s website states that all of the corporations listed as its partners “have demonstrated a high level of commitment to equality.”
Ahead of its annual National Dinner event in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, the HRC had also been promoting a raffle where people can purchase tickets for the chance to win a new 2025 Lexus RZ 300e.
“The relevant decision-makers have a fiduciary duty to make such decisions on a fully-informed basis, including the expected impact on the bottom line,” Stefan Padfield, executive director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project, told the DCNF. “When it comes to supporting [the] HRC, ending up with different answers for Lexus and Toyota at least suggests there is a problem with the decision-making process.”
“First, when it comes to ridding corporate America of the neo-racist and neo-Marxist agenda that is DEI, we’ve only achieved the WWII equivalent of having landed on Normandy Beach, and we must now double-down on all our efforts to complete our own march through these institutions in order to restore them to the business of making great products and services as opposed to dividing us on the basis race, sex, etc.,” Padfield continued. “Second, the decision to support [the] HRC must be a fully-informed one, including the expected impact on the bottom line. Accordingly, stakeholders should be able to expect the CEO and the board to state clearly whether the corporation supports the notion that a child can be born in the wrong body, etc. Supporting [the] HRC without having reached a conclusion on that issue is arguably a breach of duty.”
Since 2002, the HRC has released their annual CEI survey, which ranks corporations based on their “policies, practices, and benefits” pertaining to LGBTQ employees. The activist organization previously urged corporations to provide insurance coverage for child sex change drugs and genital surgeries.
In 2023, Toyota notably notched a perfect score on the HRC’s CEI survey, according to a January 2024 press release. This marked the 16th consecutive year in a row the Japanese automaker gained a perfect score on the HRC’s survey.
Similarly, Toyota Motor Corp. was ranked in first place on the Rainbow PUSH Automotive Project’s 2024 Automotive Diversity Scorecard. In 2025, Toyota scored 90 points on the HRC’s CEI survey.
A Toyota spokesperson did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Lexus has notably promoted various LGBT events in recent years, including the annual Lexus International Gay Polo Tournament, and hosting a panel event alongside Austin FC in August 2021 to celebrate Austin’s LGBTQ community.
Many large corporations have been retreating from sponsoring gay “pride” events and halting supporting DEI initiativesamid the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle diversity programs and gender ideology across the nation. Still, some experts had previously told the DCNF that certain companies may be attempting to simply rebrand their DEI policies in an attempt to skirt President Donald Trump’s push to crack down on DEI in corporate America.
“There is no doubt many companies are working hard to skirt the Trump administration’s DEI crackdown,” Padfield told the DCNF. “I’ve seen repeated incidents of corporate executives and directors feigning repentance in the face of Trump while seemingly simultaneously winking-and-nodding to their leftist allies that nothing’s actually changed.”
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