Chevron and other big oil companies exploit the Lgbtqia+ cause to gain social approval. Yet they fund discriminatory laws. This is rainbow washing.
Drew Springer is known for his discriminatory policies towards transgender people. A former governor of the state of Texas, in the United States, Springer is today a senator in his state, where he has advanced two bills intended to ban transgender students in public schools from playing on sports teams corresponding to their gender identity.
It is the oil and gas industry that helped give Springer the power he holds today: the same companies that spend words (not money) on social media in support of the Lgbtqia+ cause (the acronym used to identify lesbians, gay people, bisexuals, transgender people, queers, intersex people, asexuals and anyone who does not identify as heterosexual) while, on the other hand, sponsoring the electoral campaigns of transphobic politicians. For example, the American oil company Chevron paid 2,500 euros to Springer, while recently posting a tweet celebrating 30 years of commitment in support of its own Pride network, the internal network of events and activities that celebrate "intersectionality" (meaning the overlapping of multiple gender identities) and the uniqueness of its employees.
This is a typical case of rainbow washing: on one hand the oil company attempts to gain approval around a cause shared by millions of its followers, and on the other it finances the politics that discriminates against that cause through restrictive laws. The neologism rainbow washing derives from pink washing, which refers to all those communication techniques that promote realities apparently in favour of women's emancipation. Rainbow washing is more specific and is used for those campaigns that present a product or brand as being close to the Lgbtqia+ community.
Springer ranks second on the Equality Texas list of the ten worst members on Lgbtqia+ issues. Yet, according to Follow the Money, Springer has received a total of 124,500 dollars (just over 100,000 euros) in contributions for his electoral campaigns, and some of these come from oil companies, including Chevron.
Chevron is in good company: Bp posted a tweet – later deleted on 2 June – congratulating itself as "a company where all employees have the freedom to bring their best selves to work" and promising "more content during the month to show our support for the community" (Bp had already tweeted on the occasion of Pansexuality Day on 24 May). But Bp also funds the anti-Lgbtqia+ world.
The state of Louisiana passed a bill banning transgender girls from playing on women's sports teams. Behind this law is state senator Beth Mizell, who received 6,500 dollars from Chevron for her electoral campaign, 3,500 dollars from Phillips, another American oil company, and 2,700 from Bp.
Also in Texas, a bill was passed to revoke the medical licence of anyone who prescribes hormone therapies to young transgender people. The bill was authored by Republican Bob Hall, who received around 260,000 dollars from fracking magnates such as Farris Wilks and, again, from Phillips and Chevron.
These are not always enormous contributions, but they represent the tip of the iceberg of a broader trend. Republican lawmakers across the United States are proposing a record number of laws to restrict the freedoms of transgender people: we are talking about more than a hundred bills in a single year, and some of these are becoming actual laws.
Even the bills that do not become law produce real consequences for the Lgbtqia+ community: more than 1 in 5 transgender people have stated that they have attempted suicide, while, more broadly, 85 per cent of young Lgbtqia+ people report a negative impact on their wellbeing from anti-trans policies.
Among the laws is also one by North Carolina state senators Ralph Hise, Norman Sanderson and Warren Daniel, who are the primary sponsors of the bill known as the Youth health protection act, which, had it passed, would have been one of the most restrictive pieces of anti-trans legislation introduced in recent history. The law intended to make it illegal for doctors to provide healthcare to adolescents seeking to transition to the other sex, and would have obliged schools to assign such young people to guardians. The law would also have introduced "conversion therapy", compelling queer young people to become heterosexual (or cisgender, meaning making their gender identity correspond to their biological sex and gender).
"The bill did not pass," writes journalist Emily Atkin, "but it laid the groundwork for the influx of anti-trans laws we are witnessing today." The sponsors of this bill are all strongly backed by Duke Energy, an electricity and gas company that on its website proclaims itself pro-lgbt. Duke Energy paid a total of 62,700 dollars to the three Republican senators behind the bill.
"Big oil companies fund the legislators behind these laws because they want transgender people to suffer," Atkin added. In the journalist's view, those who are transphobic generally also oppose climate policies. On closer inspection, the step between green and rainbow washing is shorter than one might think.
