As corporations debut more rainbow-streaked merchandise each year for Pride Month, small businesses and LGBTQ advocates want buyers and sellers to think more about where dollars are being spent and who benefits.
Target Corp. may be offering a rainbow suit this month — plus rainbow candles, a rainbow dog bandana and “Love is Love” T-shirts, but there’s also a community of small-scale, LGBTQ-owned entrepreneurs and artists in metro Detroit with gear for June who are trying to make a living and want to be seen.
“If you’re celebrating a heritage month or observation month you’ll want to do business within that community,” said Kevin Heard, president of the Detroit Regional LGBT Chamber of Commerce. “We want to make sure the money that you and I go and spend … is actually going back to an LGBT-owned business.”
Heading toward the 52nd anniversary of the historic June 1969 Stonewall uprising — a major origin of the fight for American LGBTQ rights — the way Pride Month is commemorated has been up for discussion for years. Participants have been reckoning with the inclusion of corporate interests in what originated as protests against violations by police and mainstream culture writ large; to what extent it’s OK that Pride Month has for many become a huge party; how to honor the many deceased activists of the movement, and more.
Huge, for many, is self expression: clothes, flags, patches, earrings and so-on.
So, who corners that market? It’s big: LGBTQ Americans’ buying power neared $1 trillion as of 2016, according to LGBT Capital. That is the most recent data readily available.
Small enterprises aren’t uncommon: The National LGBT Chamber of Commerce’s 2016 America’s LGBT Economy report, its latest, found that of certified LGBT-owned businesses, more than 40 percent were either sole-proprietor businesses or single-member LLCs.
But reporting statistics about LGBTQ-owned businesses and employment is challenging because data collectors like the U.S. Census Bureau gather little information on sexual orientation and gender identity issues.
Milford resident Jasper Richter has been making LGBTQ merchandise full time for more than three years, since they graduated college. They first started while “wrangling with my own identity as a queer person” in their late teens, seeking pride apparel that met their needs at the time as nonbinary and pansexual and finding little.
“So I said screw it, I will make this myself,” Richter said.
While growing their shop, Queerest Gear, Richter has watched pride fashion expand over the years.
They call increased rainbow representation in big-box and designer collections a “double-edged sword.”
“It’s great, right, we’re seeing representation,” Richter said. “We’re being recognized as a group, but we are being recognized because we can be capitalized off of.”
Frankie Nuñez, a southwest Detroit native who designs pride merchandise, said he sees it as “disingenuous.”
“To me I always look at it, did they have queer people make this?” the Dearborn resident and artist said. “… They’re selling back to us what they think our experience is.”
Other than queer creators getting monetary support during pride, Nuñez said, what’s also important is what they bring to their products: an intimacy factor.
“I guess I can only speak for me, but I feel like when queer people make things, it comes from a certain part of them,” he said. “They understand what being gay is, or being nonbinary …”
Nuñez started selling his art in 2017, but ramped up the business with marketing, rebranding and regular product releases after he lost his job at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. His shop, Chunkysequins, offers cheeky prints like “My Gay Agenda” on a notebook, as well as enamel pins, stickers, earrings and more. “I can reclaim (certain words) and process. ‘This is how I was treated,’ but ‘This is me showing I have power over it,'” he said.
Richter added that their entrepreneurship isn’t just a profession, it’s a way to connect with members of the community. Because of that, they are entrenched in these circles and have a line in to listen to what potential customers want, and how that changes over time.
Entrepreneurship is an essential facet of LGBTQ economic success, said Curtis Lipscomb, executive director of nonprofit LGBT Detroit.
LGBTQ Americans, and especially those who are Black, trans or other people of color, are especially vulnerable to economic instability. The pandemic, unsurprisingly, hasn’t helped. More LGBT Americans report they or someone in their home has lost a job during the pandemic than non-LGBT: 56 percent vs. 44 percent, a March Kaiser Family Foundation report found. Employment can be tough, between discrimination in hiring practices and difficulties faced in the workplace.
“So highlighting people who have talent who can make things is important to me, so we are highly interested in making sure those people have an economic opportunity to thrive,” Lipscomb said.
A question for many when it comes to pride commerce is: Where do the dollars go?
One local example is Detroit-based Shinola announced last week a special pride watch that’s $450, and the company is selling 1,969 of them (that number is the year of the Stonewall uprising). So the luxury goods maker will take in $886,050 from those sales, and plans to give the equivalent of around 13 percent of those profits, or $120,000, to nonprofits SAGE Metro Detroit and the Ruth Ellis Center, according to a news release.
“The Detrola Pride watch, and partnership with Shinola, will not only have an incredible impact on the hundreds of young people served by Ruth Ellis Center each year, but it honors the legacy of (namesake and lesbian activist) Ruth Ellis, who lived each day with pride,” said Mark Erwin, Ruth Ellis Center’s director of development and advancement.
Kate Spade, a designer brand with three metro Detroit retail locations, released a limited-edition selection and is giving 20 percent of profits to suicide prevention nonprofit The Trevor Project. Other brands debut pride-themed products then partner separately with advocates.
“If these big-box retailers are going to have a pride line, which I completely embrace, where are the proceeds going? The visual aspect of it is great but where is the humanitarian aspect in it? Where is the equitable aspect in it?” Heard asked. “Are they going to an LGBT nonprofit to fill in the gaps where government policy stops? Are you going to donate this to an LGBT homeless shelter?”
Retailers can also direct dollars back to the community by using LGBTQ-owned companies as suppliers, Heard said.
Activists and critics of corporate pride, like those in a 2019 Washington Post opinion piece “Pride for Sale,” also point to other considerations like how the corporations treat their LGBTQ employees.
While some companies make substantial contributions, Richter pointed out, the entrepreneur also sees single-proprietor businesses giving back. They called it frustrating seeing praise for a large company giving what Richter considers a smaller ratio of their earnings compared with how that company is benefiting.
Richter’s shop has grown through word of mouth, events and social media. They sell online through a website and Etsy, and at fairs. They’re best-known for their hats, including snapbacks with colorful brims displaying various identities: blue, pink and white for transgender pride, for example.
Richter doesn’t believe shopping at a big-box store is “automatically evil.” They’ve heard from youth whose parents won’t let them shop online, for example, or they don’t have a credit card, or the mall is more convenient.
“It’s very complicated and I don’t think (corporations selling pride merchandise) can or should be stopped … but I think just being aware and consuming from small queer creators when and where we can,” they said. “If possible, holding the big corporations responsible and pushing them a little bit.”
