LGBTQ+ charities facing ‘incredibly tough environment’ in UK amid Trump’s DEI attacks

LGBTQ+ charities in the UK are facing an increasingly difficult environment to operate in following the ripple effects of the Trump administration’s attacks on diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) and freeze on foreign aid, increased running costs and decreased donations.

“Globally, the LGBTQ+ movement is experiencing a period of significant turbulence including a pushback on rights and freedoms. There are significant reductions in funding for the movement,” a spokesperson for Stonewall, the UK’s biggest LGBTQ+ charity, told The Guardian.

The concern comes as Stonewall’s yearly accounts revealed the charity’s income dropped from £6.9million in 2024 to £4.7m last year, with just £92,000 left in its cash reserves, alongside a decrease in corporate donations from £348,636 in 2024 to £143,149 in 2025.

In response to these economic pressures, Stonewall said a restructuring of the charity had “reflected in positive financial results in the first half of the financial year 2025–26”.

However, this is not just a situation impacting Stonewall, as across the third sector, LGBTQ+ charities are seeing a reduction in support that is impacting their day-to-day operations and ability to support the community.

Heather Paterson, the head of partnerships and development for LGBT+ Consortium, said it is an “incredibly tough environment” for LGBTQ+ charities at the moment.

This has been exacerbated by US president Donald Trump’s attacks on DEI and his administration shutting down USAID, the world’s largest foreign aid agency which supported many LGBTQ+ initiatives around the world, including HIV prevention.

Shortly after his inauguration in January 2025, Trump signed an executive order eliminating DEI programmes and policies in the US government, military and wider American society, after he claimed he had gotten rid of “the woke c***” in government. This, alongside pressure from anti-DEI campaigner Robby Starbuck, resulted in several big-name US businesses – including Walmart, Target, Ford, Lowe’s, Harley-Davidson and Jack Daniel’s – dropping their long-standing DEI policies, programmes and targets.

In response to this, research has found more than half of UK businesses are changing their approach to DEI following Trump’s attacks, with Philippa Dempster, senior partner at Freeths, saying the truth of the matter is “that a drive for profit can significantly impact or impede ethical decision-making” and there is a “significant gap between principle and practice” where UK firms are abandoning DEI “in response to outside influence”.

Alongside the pressure from Trump, some organisations in the UK are also pulling back on their DEI and LGBTQ+ commitments due to legal pressure in the wake of the controversial Supreme Court judgement from April, in the case of For Women Scotland vs Scottish Ministers, which decided the protected characteristic of “sex” for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act means “biological sex” only and does not include trans people.

Organisations such as Girlguiding and the Women’s Institute (WI) recently announced they would no longer allow trans women and girls to join following legal threats in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement.

These bans resulted in protests across the UK, including a hugely attended one in central London.

“The majority of the sector are small, grassroots organisations, which are especially vulnerable to threats of costly legal action,” Heather Paterson, the head of partnerships and development for LGBT+ Consortium told The Guardian.

Patrerson added LGBT+ Consortium works with funders who have reported being subject to “increasing negative feedback when donating to LGBTQ+ causes in recent years”, meaning firms who may have donated to LGBTQ+ charities and causes in the past and becoming more nervous about doing so in the future.

Commenting on this fact, the head of the Kaleidoscope Trust – Alex Farrow – also told the outlet: “I saw less money coming from corporates in the UK last year than I have in previous years, in particular from global businesses, who want to maintain commercial relationships with the US.

“At the same time, we see a very emboldened, anti-rights movement, including evangelical Christian conservatives in the US, who have an almost unlimited amount of money.

“As an LGBTQ+ charity leader, it’s a huge concern because we are operating in a hostile environment that is significantly worse than even five years ago.”