Disney Shareholders Reject Anti-Trans Policy In High-Stakes Annual Meeting

Anti-trans advocates failed to pass a measure at Disney’s annual shareholder meeting Wednesday amid the company’s largest, most expensive and contentious proxy contest in recent history.

Today, Chloe Cole, a 19-year-old who has spent much of the last two years testifying in support of legislation to ban gender-affirming care for minors, urged Walt Disney Co. shareholders to vote for a proposal to force the company to pay for services for people who choose to detransition.

Cole spoke as an advocate for Do No Harm , a group of conservative medical professionals who are skeptical of gender-affirming care, and presented the proposal on behalf of the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative group that challenges what they see as abuse and corruption in government and business.

“Disney pays for gender transition interventions, but not detransitioning care,” Cole said at the meeting. “Therefore, the company discriminates based on gender identity, under [federal] regulations.”

The proposal was just one of a series of proposals from both right- and left-wing groups. One shareholder proposal targeted the company’s contributions to politicians who support anti-abortion laws and former President Donald Trump’s stolen election claims. Another from the National Center for Public Policy Research, a Disney shareholder, urged the company to disclose its charitable contributions of $5,000 or more and criticized Disney for pursuing “radical gender ideology” by contributing to organizations that support the LGBTQ+ community, such as GLSEN and the Trevor Project.

The board quickly voted against all of these proposals. In company documents, the board recommended rejecting the National Legal and Policy Center’s proposal because it