As Disney Reels Over “Don’t Say Gay” Bill Response, Staffers Debate Whether to Take Public or Private Stand

Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family. That’s been an unspoken rule at Disney — as in much of corporate America — for generations. But, in a dramatic departure from the company’s long-standing culture of public positivity, some LGBTQ employees of the media giant have been breaking that rule to object to Disney’s handling of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

What in previous eras might have sparked internal employee grumbling about a company policy instead went public in spectacular fashion, thanks to mounting frustration over anti-gay legislation cropping up nationally, a generational change in how employees view their activism at work, and a tight job market in animation that means there are other attractive places besides Disney to make animated films and TV shows.

There isn’t monolithic agreement within Disney’s LGBTQ community about the decision to take their grievances public — some LGBTQ employees are frustrated that letters to leadership leaked, and say they plan to keep working within the company to advocate for change. Others say that while the company’s messaging around the Florida law was clumsy, they have largely felt supported as LGBTQ employees within Disney.

“I’m fucking tired of making Disney look good,” tweeted Dana Terrace, creator of the Disney Channel animated series The Owl House, which features multiple LGBTQ characters. In a video attached to that tweet with more than 2 million views, Terrace went on to criticize Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s March 7 memo to employees, which asserted that the company more effectively brought change through its inclusive content than speaking out in the political arena. Chapek, who sees himself as the guardian of a brand with fans in red and blue states alike, said that such statements are “often weaponized by one side or the other to further divide and inflame.”

Even after Chapek’s apologetic March 11 memo and pause of political donations to Florida politicians, employees were still organizing political actions designed to keep the heat on the company, including a series of walkouts beginning March 15, demanding that Disney permanently stop donating to 22 Florida politicians involved in the creation or passage of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and that it create an LGBTQ brand similar to the Onyx Collective, a content brand for creatives of color that Disney launched in 2021.

It is not clear how widespread the walkouts will be — they are not organized by any of Disney’s LGBTQ+ employee resource groups, but are being promoted by a Twitter account called @DisneyWalkout.

The bill, which Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign, bans classroom discussion on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, and Disney, which operates parks and cruises in Florida and employs some 77,000 people in the state, initially had declined to take a public stance on it.

Disney employees and creators with ties to the company began sharing their feelings about the company’s stance on social media using the hashtags #dontsaygay and #disneydobetter, and, in separate letters to Disney leadership that were shared publicly, employees of Pixar Animation, Disney TV Animation and Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution all expressed their disappointment. The Pixar letter argued that it isn’t just Disney’s role in Florida politics that troubles them, but the company’s role in its own content. “Nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney’s behest, regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and leadership at Pixar,” the letter said.

Some employees, often younger ones, have been emboldened to speak publicly about their concerns thanks to recent events that helped build solidarity, from the racial justice protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd in 2020 to Animation Guild bargaining. They also watched as hundreds of Netflix employees staged walkouts in October over Dave Chappelle’s comedy special at the streamer.

The stakes for speaking out are different than they once were, too, because there are new, deep-pocketed employers in the animation industry, including Netflix, which has leased a 171,000-square-foot space in Disney’s own backyard in Burbank to build its first dedicated animation studio, and Apple, which has signed a multiyear film and TV deal with Skydance Animation, the company now run by former Pixar and Disney Animation chief creative officer John Lasseter.

On March 11, after the public blowback, a shareholder meeting and internal campaigning by LGBTQ employees, Chapek issued an about-face, sending out a new memo announcing that Disney would pause political donations in Florida and increase support for advocacy groups to combat similar legislation in other states. “You needed me to be a stronger ally in the fight for equal rights and I let you down,” Chapek said to Disney staffers. “I am sorry.”

Disney’s decision to halt all political ad spending could have meaningful repercussions, as it was a major donor in Florida politics. According to a review of campaign finance data from the company and its affiliates, Disney donated about $4.8 million to Florida candidates and groups in the 2020 election cycle.

So far during the 2022 election cycle, the company has donated more than $2.1 million to candidates and groups. Among them are six-figure donations to the Republican Party of Florida, the Democratic Party of Florida, the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, and super PACs close to Republican candidates, including Floridians United for Our Children’s Future PAC and Floridians for a Stronger Democracy.

While the company has made substantial donations to both Republicans and Democrats, a majority of its giving in the 2022 election cycle has been to Republican candidates and groups in the state. (Sponsors of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, like GOP Rep. Joe Harding, also have received donations from Disney.)

Disney plans to hold a virtual conversation among its LGBTQ employees March 22, which will mirror recent conversations the company has held around topics like antisemitism, violence against the Asian American community and the Black experience, and on April 13 it will hold a “Reimagine Tomorrow Summit” on the topic of diversity and inclusion for all employees, with Chapek participating.

Alex Weprin contributed to this report.