AARP Continues Embrace of Far-Left Gender Ideology During Pride Month

Amid mounting public backlash over men competing in women’s sports and adults engaging in perverse sexualized acts in front of children, many corporations are reportedly pumping the brakes on their support for “Pride Month” events this year. But AARP – despite purporting to be a nonpartisan organization – is still going full steam ahead on its Pride Month messaging, continuing a years-long pattern of embracing far-left gender ideology.

An article published on AARP’s website on May 30 titled “Pride Month 2025: Making Connections Through Community” makes clear that AARP has no intention of backing down from its full-throated endorsement of LGBTQ ideology – and exposing children to it. That article encourages readers to “join forces for celebration and advocacy” and quotes from Jackie Lees, who is on the board of directors for the AARP-affiliated Generation Plus Committee, a group that describes itself as “dedicated to serving members of the LGBTQ+ community who are 55 and older.”

Lees, who identifies as transgender, specifically says that Pride Month should be used to close the “generational gap” and that “we’re here to help the young ones.” Lees was featured on AARP’s “Rainbow Inspirations” video series in 2024.

In the same article, like in years past, AARP also highlighted several Pride Month events for 2025 and encouraged readers to attend. Many of those events, despite containing overtly sexualized content, are advertised as “family friendly.” One of the events, the Hartford Pride Festival in Connecticut, will feature grandparents talking “about supporting their trans granddaughter,” AARP notes.

Attendees at several of the pride events will even see AARP representatives there. The group boasts that it plans to have a booth at Sacramento Pride “to discuss Social Security and caregiving.” It will also be at the Twin Cities Pride Festival in Minnesota to promote the theme of “Queer Joy Is Resistance.” In St. Louis, AARP will take part in an event called “Queer Writes” at the Missouri History Museum.

As AMAC Newsline has previously reported, this is not the first time AARP has encouraged its members – and their children and grandchildren – to attend events that are potentially inappropriate for young people.

Ahead of Pride Month 2021, for instance, as the LGBTQ movement’s cultural power was reaching its zenith, AARP published an article encouraging “drag queen story hour” as a way for “the whole family” to celebrate Pride Month. That article specifically mentioned the “beloved Drag Queen Story Hour NYC,” which “brings drag performers to read stories to children in libraries, schools, bookstores, museums and more, with virtual livestreams opening up the experience to anyone who wants to tune in.”

Four months later, AARP published another article titled, “The 9 Most Fabulous TV Shows and Movies About Drag Queens,” noting that “these aren’t just movies and shows that use cross-dressing as a plot device – these works truly celebrate the art of drag in all its gender-subverting, over-the-top, glamorous glory.”

Both of those articles now appear to have been removed from AARP’s website.

In 2024, AARP published another article instructing readers on “How to Gracefully Handle Your Grandchild Changing Pronouns.” Instead of encouraging grandparents to affirm the biological reality of the gender binary, AARP fully endorses far-left gender ideology, demanding that grandparents “educate” themselves and praise their gender-confused grandkids for their “courage.”

Grandparents should also, according to AARP, “refrain from expressing judgment and instead show support” and should think “of the new pronoun the same way you’d think about a new nickname.” In one case cited in the article, AARP applauds a grandparent who embraced her grandchild’s identity as “genderfaun,” which they describe as “a form of gender fluidity that flows between multiple genders but does not include female or feminine genders.”

In another article published last year, which is still up on the website, AARP also honored Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician in California. Milk, who is a hero in the LGBTQ community for his activism in public office, allegedly engaged in multiple sexual relationships with teenage boys while he was in his 30s. According to his biographer, Randy Shilts, who was also gay, in one case, a 34-year-old Milk lived with a 16-year-old runaway in Greenwich Village. That boy later committed suicide. (Relatedly, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently ordered the Navy to strip Milk’s name from an oil tanker named after him.)

AARP is, of course, free to support whatever causes it chooses. But its members deserve to know exactly where the organization stands – especially on deeply controversial social issues. AARP shouldn’t hide behind a “nonpartisan” label while openly endorsing events, curricula, and ideologies that many Americans find inappropriate and even dangerous.

In stark contrast, AMAC unapologetically stands against exposing children to sexualized content in schools or public venues. AMAC firmly rejects the core tenets of radical gender ideology and believes it has no place in the classroom, no place in public policy, and certainly no place in organizations claiming to represent the best interests of American families.

Shane Harris is the Editor in Chief for AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.