Following a years-long campaign from supporters and detractors, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the countrys largest LGBTQ+ advocacy group, has dropped arms merchants Northrop Grumman and RTX (formerly Raytheon Corporation) from its list of donors.A statement from HRC provided to The Intercept said that the two weapons manufacturers no longer sponsor the group, but refrained from addressing when or how the relationships ended. Related This years Pride parades met a new opponent: pro-Palestinian LGBTQ+ protestors HRC described the change as in keeping with the advocacy groups long-held stances against extremism.Northrop Grumman and Raytheons financial support for the Human Rights Campaign extends back decades. In 2025, Northrop held the groups highest rating of 100 on the HRCs Equality Index, while HRC praised Raytheons track record on trans protections as far back as 2005. Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today The companies and HRCs financial ties to them came under renewed scrutiny in 2023 with Israels invasion of Gaza following Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. More than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals died in the terrorist assault, with 251 taken hostage.Groups advocating for Palestinians accused HRC of complicity in Israels brutal response in the war on Gaza. Both Northrop and Raytheon are major arms suppliers for Israel. Virginia-based Northrop, the worlds third largest arms manufacturer, supplies the Israeli military with a wide variety of weapons, including various missile systems, according to theAction Center for Corporate Accountability, a project of the American Friends Service Committee.Nearly 70,000 Palestinians have died in the Gaza conflict, based on estimates from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and at least 20,000 children are among the dead. A tenuous ceasefire negotiated in September hasnt stopped the killing.HRC referred to the Gaza conflict and the Trump administration in its statement addressing the breakup with the companies.While our focus is on LGBTQ+ equality in the United States, we have spoken out about the crisis, the rising cost of extremism in the United States and around the globe and how Islamophobia, anti-semitism and anti-LGBTQ hatred are globally linked, a spokesperson for HRC said. We have also championed the right to protest here in the United States, as it and other pro-democratic principles are being undermined and threatened by this administration. Two groups associated with the pressure campaign to end HRCs ties to the companies praised the concerted effort and its result.The Gender Liberation Movement and Adalah Justice Project commended the work of ACT UP New York, Writers Against the War on Gaza and many others in the LGBTQ+ community, including former HRC employees in the two-year campaign, and declared, Organizations like HRC can no longer prioritize proximity to power over the well-being of our people, nor center inclusion in the very systems that are killing us.Freedom, equality, and justice for our queer and trans siblings here can only be achieved when we collectively confront the systems that are harming communities everywhere, the groups said. These are tools of state-sanctioned destruction and death, not of human rights or equality, and they do not distinguish between queer and straight lives. Critics had accused HRC of complicity in pinkwashing for Northrup and Raytheon, publicly burnishing the arms makers reputations domestically while they provided Israel with weapons of war and Palestinian subjugation.Queer celebrities joined the pressure campaign to stop HRC from taking the arms merchants money, and for Israel to stop the killing.Initiatives that are meant to benefit us are being funded by a weapons manufacturer. Not cute, not queer, actor Indya Moore told a crowd of demonstrators at a February 2024 protest outside HRCs annual gala. Referring to Northrop, they added, Their bullets, their bombs, and their missiles are massacring Palestinians who are also queer and trans and deserving of a human rights campaign.Bisexual actress and stand-up Hannah Einbinder used her Emmy acceptance speech in March to call for a free Palestine, and then joined a boycott of Israeli film institutions implicated in the Gaza war and apartheid against the Palestinian people.Until last year, Northrop Grumman was listed as a Platinum Partner with HRC, the groups highest level of corporate sponsorship.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.