US corporate LGBTQ+ board disclosures fall 86% in new OutQUORUM report

Out Leadership says nearly nine in ten US companies that disclosed LGBTQ+ board diversity in 2024 have stopped doing so in 2025–26, erasing visibility for a group that makes up about 1% of board seats. The report says the rollback is happening as shareholders, regulators and companies reset board diversity rules and disclosure norms.

Why it matters: - LGBTQ+ directors are already undercounted in corporate boardrooms, where they make up about 1% of seats. - Out Leadership says disclosure is the main way investors, employees and the public can tell whether LGBTQ+ people are reaching top leadership. - The report argues that when companies stop counting LGBTQ+ board diversity, they send a signal to workers and investors about whether LGBTQ+ people belong at the top. - Out Leadership says the decline also coincides with the first-ever drop in LGBTQ+ career confidence in its 2026 workforce study. - The disclosure retreat comes as companies prepare next spring's board nominations and 2027 shareholder proposals.

What happened: - Out Leadership reviewed board documents from 3,599 US public companies. - In 2024, 1,874 companies named LGBTQ+ people in board diversity policies or composition reports. - In the 2025–26 proxy season, only 270 companies did so. - That is a net decline of 86%, according to Out Leadership's OutQUORUM 2026 Global Board Diversity Report, Visibility Counts: The Rollback and the Road Ahead. - Of the companies that named LGBTQ+ people in 2024, 1,619 stopped doing so. - Fifteen companies started naming LGBTQ+ people in the latest proxy season. - The full report is available at the interactive report site.

The details: - LGBTQ+ disclosure fell the most among the seven categories Out Leadership measured: LGBTQ+ people, gender, race, ethnicity, age, national origin and veteran status. - Disclosure of gender fell by half. - Disclosure of race fell 59%. - Among Nasdaq-listed companies, LGBTQ+ disclosure fell from 1,602 companies to 206. - Outside Nasdaq, 79% of companies that had named LGBTQ+ people stopped doing so. - Four hundred forty-three companies removed LGBTQ+ people while still naming gender and race or ethnicity. - Another 202 companies removed LGBTQ+ people and no other group. - Across the Russell 3000, companies naming LGBTQ+ people fell from 1,206 to 178. - Out Leadership says 23 Fortune 500 companies still name LGBTQ+ people in their board disclosures. - A few companies added LGBTQ+ people to their latest proxy statements, and one added an LGBTQIA+ row to its board diversity table. - Canadian disclosure fell from 78 companies to 66. - British disclosure fell from 52 companies to 37. - Australian disclosure held at 24 companies. - That compares with an 86% drop in the US, a 15% drop in Canada and a 29% drop in the UK. - BlackRock's 2026 US guidelines continue to name LGBTQ+ identity among backgrounds relevant to board oversight. - CalPERS and Glass Lewis still include LGBTQ+ identity in board guidance.

Between the lines: - The rollback appears tied to three pressures that emerged within about a year, even though company filings do not spell out a single reason for each change. - A federal appeals court struck down Nasdaq's board diversity rule in December 2024. - The Trump administration issued an executive order targeting private-sector diversity, equity and inclusion programs in January 2025. - Activist shareholders pushed companies to stop considering sexual orientation when choosing directors. - The legal risk appears focused on preferential mechanisms such as quotas or reserved seats, not on voluntary board diversity reporting. - Out Leadership says Nasdaq's former disclosure framework helped lift LGBTQ+ representation on Russell 3000 boards from 0.2% to 1.0%. - A UC Berkeley study in August 2026 found that S&P 500 companies that kept broader diversity programs performed as well in stock returns and revenue as companies that rolled them back. - Todd Sears, founder and CEO of Out Leadership, said: "What isn't measured doesn't count. When the most powerful companies in America stop counting LGBTQ+ people at the top, every LGBTQ+ employee below gets the message."

What's next: - Nominating committees are now deciding who joins boards next spring. - Shareholders are also preparing 2027 proposals. - Out Leadership recommends that boards keep counting through voluntary self-identification, broaden searches to qualified LGBTQ+ candidates and explain any disclosure changes to shareholders. - The organization says Todd Sears is available for interviews and analysis. - OutQUORUM, launched in 2015, will continue comparing board disclosures and publishing company-by-company lists and methodology.

The bottom line: - Out Leadership's new report says corporate America has sharply reduced public LGBTQ+ board disclosure at the exact moment when visibility, investor scrutiny and board nomination fights matter most.