A major U.S. defense contractor that supplies aircraft equipment to all five branches of the U.S. military, Lockheed Martin, was front and center at the 2023 Capital Pride Alliance parade in Washington, joining Amazon and Target as a corporate sponsor for pride events.
Charlie Kirk, founder and CEO of Turning Point USA, shared a video on Twitter of Lockheed Martin’s sponsorship of the event, claiming Lockheed Martin’s participation is evidence of the military contractors going “woke.”
“Lockheed Martin, enriched by Washington’s love affair with bombing far off lands, sponsors a Pride March in DC,” Kirk said in the post. “The woke Military Industrial Complex strikes again.”
In response, customers boycotted the company, and Target’s revenues fell from $72.52 billion to $58.61 billion between May 1 and June 9.
However, unlike Target, whose primary customers are suburban parents, Lockheed Martin’s primary customer is the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).
President Joe Biden has made it clear that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts are a major part of his administration’s agenda. Just recently the DOD awarded Lockheed Martin a $7.8 billion contract modification for 126 F-35 aircraft.
Besides sponsoring the pride march in Washington, Lockheed Martin also sponsored a recent pride festival in Dallas.
The company has its own global diversity and inclusion department that employs “inclusion councils” to ensure that the company is meeting its DEI goals.
According to the defense company’s 2020 report, they had a “60% increase in Business Resource Group (BRG) forum participation and supported over 80 Courageous Conversations on Race.”
Courageous Conversation is an organization that conducts trainings and events to promote equity. The organization was founded in 1992 by Glenn E. Singleton, who said his goal is to achieve racial equity in the United States and beyond.
According to PowerToFly, a diversity recruiting and retention platform, Lockheed Martin is one of the top 12 companies for supporting transgender employees.
Lockheed Martin’s transgender policy aligns with the Biden administration’s LGBT agenda.
The company groups transgender women with biological women by allowing employees to “self-identify” their gender, regardless of their biological sex. The company said 23 percent of employees “self-identify as female,” and 8 percent “self-identify as a person of color.”
Moreover, Lockheed Martin’s human resources department supports employees who want to transition to another gender and has “a written plan which provides specific steps and actions to ensure a smooth transition that addresses areas such as badge updates, potential security clearance changes, employee profile updates and developing individualized communication and transition plans for future coworker-management interactions,” according to PowerToFly
The company also trains employees in “trans awareness, gender identity and expression, policy statements, terminology, communication-building exercises, restroom use guidance, roles, and responsibilities as well as support resources.”
