I read this excellent post by Niléane: Are Pride Wallpapers and a Watch Band Enough in 2025?…

At a time when some trans people are actively seeking to flee the U.S. to preserve their fundamental right to a healthy, safe, and decent life free from the threat of President Trump’s actions, Apple doesn’t seem to be stepping up to its professed values to the extent that the situation requires.

…and then I just so happened to read this post from Nilay Patel about Jeff Bezos saying that his immense wealth protects him ("my wealth and business interests as a bulwark against intimidation"):

What we have here is one of America’s richest men, insisting that his wealth and principles will protect his newspaper from intimidation while it pursues an advocacy campaign for free markets, all while the White House calling the mere idea that Amazon might display pricing information a “hostile and political act” causes his company to cave. It seems like that same wealth and power might serve to protect Amazon, no? And definitely seems like a man so committed to free markets that he’s willing to burn down his newspaper has no choice but to look the bully in the eye and really put his money where his mouth is.

Do I like that Apple publicly supports Pride and consistently creates products that people can buy to support both visually and financially LGBTQ groups? Absolutely. Do I believe that most people at Apple, up to and including Tim Cook, genuinely want to support LGBTQ people? I do. Do I recognize that Cook is in a challenging spot, politically in the Trump era? I do as well.

But that said, Bezos said that his immense wealth protected him from government pressure to go against his morals, and Tim Cook is in a similar situation. Well gents, this is your time. This is your challenge. Did you amass all this money and power to wilt in the face of an attack on democracy which includes an attack on LGBTQ rights? Given you both have expressed more public support, both verbally and financially, to Trump than any other administration under your tenures, it seems from the outside that you want to hold onto that power more than exercise it to support marginalized people. Here's a question: have you donated more of your personal money to support LGBTQ people in the past year or on a party for the guy who is actively attacking those people's rights and disappearing people without due process?

Again, I appreciate the public support of Pride, and I appreciate that this is a hard situation given the abhorrent executive we have right now, but if you don't stand for what you believe in when things get tough, it's hard for others to think you actually believe those things. For my part, my support of the LGBTQ community is unmoved by the whims of the current administration or public opinion.

Also, for all you small government, free industry folks out there who voted for Trump, consider what it means if your opinion on this is that Cook has no choice but to play the game and voice fealty. Supporting LGBTQ rights isn't an economic thing, so surely Cook could voice opposition to those policies without risking economic punishment from the administration, right? Oh, any public dissent is met with punishment? Great, that's some good small government you've got there.