This Pride month, Levi Strauss & Co. is joining the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and GLAAD, alongside other companies, to express our ongoing commitment to uphold LGBTQIA+ equality across our business practices. Whether through internal benefits for employees, how we market our products or our advocacy for equality legislation, LS&Co. will continue to support the LGBTQIA+ community, especially with the spread of anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric and legislation in the U.S.
We are proud to join the HRC’s Count Us In Pledge with more than 75 other companies. By joining, we commit to continuing to oppose legislation that would discriminate against LGBTQIA+ employees, families and consumers; raise up community voices in our storytelling; and provide access to health care for transgender and nonbinary employees and family members. LS&Co.’s participation in the Count Us In Pledge is a continuation of our longstanding advocacy in favor of equality, which we have also demonstrated by joining HRC’s Business Statement on Anti-LGBTQ State Legislation and participating in the Business Coalition for the Equality Act.
LS&Co. also joined GLAAD’s corporate commitment last week, along with more than 50 other companies. The commitment reaffirms our support for LGBTQIA+ people and rejects bullying and intimidation of any kind.
Our support for LGBTQIA+ equality is not new for us. We have been engaged in this effort since 1992, when we became the first Fortune 500 company to extend benefits to same-sex domestic partners. This year alone, we urged legislators in Kentucky to strike down a bill that would restrict gender-affirming care in the state, made a grant to the Campaign of Southern Equality to support increasing access to gender-affirming care in the South and encouraged our employees to participate in Pride events around the world.
We are proud of our long history of celebrating and uplifting the LGBTQIA+ community, and we commit to continuing to use our voice and platform to advance LGBTQIA+ equality in the U.S. and around the globe.
