On April 23, 2025, I attended the Goldman Sachs shareholder meeting as a representative of the National Center for Public Policy Research (I’m the Executive Director of its Free Enterprise Project). While there, I asked the following question of CEO David Solomon:
“Transgenderism is one of the most divisive issues today, including questions about whether a man can become a woman simply by saying so, whether children can be born in the wrong body, and so on. The divisiveness of that issue likely explains why many corporations have severed ties with the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index (HRC’s CEI), which promotes transgenderism. Yet the HRC still lists Goldman as a Bronze Partner that scores 100% on the CEI. Arguably, a corporation must decide which side of the transgenderism issue it is on before deciding whether to continue with the HRC or not. Accordingly, my question is: Does Goldman support the proposition that a child can be born in the wrong body?”
(I submitted similar questions at the Citi and Coca-Cola meetings, but they were not answered. This highlights one of the problems with virtual meetings: the greater ability to silence shareholder voices in biased ways.)
While I have been unable to track down a transcript or recording of the meeting, to the best of my recollection Solomon was audibly flustered by the question but ultimately answered that Goldman takes no position on that issue (or words to that effect) but values “inclusivity.”
Some might argue that partnering with an overtly pro-transgender organization while taking no position on the most basic questions underlying transgenderism constitutes a breach of duty. Allow me to explain.
The decision to partner with HRC is likely best characterized as a business decision. Certainly, the decision to cooperate with the data collection for HRC’s Corporate Equality Index should fit that characterization. And even if Goldman somehow tried to characterize these actions as charitable contributions, that wouldn’t absolve Goldman from engaging in sufficient due diligence to properly weigh the reputational and market risks of doing so. Accordingly, these decisions must be fully informed – and trying to properly weigh the relevant costs and benefits without first deciding where Goldman stands on the issue of transgenderism seems like a fool’s errand.
Let’s take an example. One of President Trump’s first acts upon taking office was to sign an executive order titled, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” It declared that the U.S. would no longer “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another,” clearly representing a rejection of core tenets of transgenderism. In doing so, it likely reflected of the attitudes of a majority of Americans. In light of this growing backlash (otherwise known as a return to sanity), how could Goldman possibly assess the risks of partnering with HRC without first deciding whether it would respond to any direct criticism of that partnership by doubling-down on transitioning children or not? To not think this through arguably amounts to willful blindness.
At this point, a possibly obvious criticism of my argument is that I am undermining the call, oft repeated by the National Center and its allies, for corporations to get “back to neutral.” However, whatever neutrality looks like in this context, overtly partnering with an organization that pushes transgenderism on children while claiming to take no position on whether a child can be born in the wrong body is certainly not a neutral position. Perhaps the hoped-for neutrality could be satisfied by voicing neutrality on the issue while partnering with both HRC’s CEI and the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index. Or perhaps neutrality could be properly satisfied by committing to do no more than follow relevant applicable law while declining to partner with any organizations primarily focused on either side of the issue. And to the extent a company wants to try to justify more aggressive support for transgenderism, without taking a formal stance, on the basis of employee retention and recruitment – that decision likewise should be fully informed, including documented good faith attempts to calculate the costs of alienating (and perhaps being accused of discriminating against) conservative applicants, employees, customers, and other stakeholders.
All of which brings us back to the question Goldman and all similarly situated corporations should be able to answer if it insists on continuing to partner with HRC: What is a woman?
