HRC drops weapons manufacturers as sponsors following pressure from LGBTQIA+ activists
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has ended its financial partnerships with two weapons manufacturers.
On 11 November, the long-running advocacy organisation confirmed to Adalah Justice Project and the Gender Liberation Movement that it had dropped Northrop Grumman and RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon Technologies) as sponsors.
The move comes after two years of pressure from LGBTQIA+ activist and advocacy groups – including ACT UP NY, Writers Against the War on Gaza, and No Pride in Genocide – who expressed concerns that the HRC was complicit in Israel’s war in Gaza, which human rights activists and organisations, the United Nations, and scholars have described as a genocide.
Before parting ways with Northrop Grumman, the weapons company was listed as a “Platinum Partner” on the HRC’s website.
According to the Action Center for Corporate Accountability, the Falls Church, Virginia-based company is the third-largest military contractor in the world.
From 2008 to August 2024, Northrop Grumman Corp held contracts worth over $173 billion with the US Department of Defense.
“Northrop Grumman supplies the Israeli military with a wide variety of weapons, including various missile systems,” the investigative site revealed. “The company’s technologies are also integrated into Israel’s main weapon systems, including its fighter jets, missile ships, and trainer aircraft.”
Based in Arlington County, Virginia, RTX Corporation is the second-largest military company in the world.
Like Northrop Grumman, RTX Corporation has supplied the Israeli government with a range of weapons, including various missiles and bombs, for years, per the Action Center for Corporate Accountability.
In a statement to The Advocate, a spokesperson for the HRC confirmed that the two weapons companies no longer sponsor the organisation.
“What’s happening in Gaza and throughout the region is devastating. The starvation of children and families, the violence to its people and aid workers is horrific,” they told the LGBTQIA+ news outlet.
“And while our focus is on LGBTQ+ equality in the United States, we have spoken out about the crisis, the rising cost of extremism in the United States and around the globe and how Islamaphobia, anti-semitism and anti-LBGTQ hatred are globally linked.
“Our national corporate partners represent companies that have demonstrated a high level of commitment to equality. When it comes to corporate advocacy, our responsibility is to make the places where LGBTQ+ people live and work safer and more inclusive.”
While Northrop Grumman and RTX Corporation no longer serve as sponsors for the HRC, Adalah Justice Project and the Gender Liberation Movement have noted that the advocacy organisation has not committed “to divesting permanently from these or other weapons companies,” and has also “failed to call for an arms embargo on Israel, despite these being the explicit demands from queer and trans organisers.”
“Queer and trans folks in the US and across the world have been at the forefront of the movement to end the Israeli genocide and occupation. We have made it clear that there is no pride in genocide and that LGBTQ people will not be used as cover for violence. The fight for queer and trans liberation is the same fight against the war machine that is killing our communities here at home, in Palestine, and across the world,” the two advocacy organisations said in a statement.
“It is our responsibility to continue to push the organisations and institutions that claim to serve and represent our communities to divest from weapons manufacturers and institutions complicit in genocide, settler colonialism, and apartheid. And it is these organisations’ responsibility, as the leading LGBTQ+ human rights organisation, to heed our demands.”