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By Marni Rose McFall
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Google has removed Pride Month, along with Black History Month and Holocaust Remembrance Day, from Google Calendar. In an email from Google shared with Newsweek, the company called its previous calendar process "unsustainable."
Google Calendar will now show only public holidays and national observances.
Why It Matters
The move comes amid a broader cultural and political debate about the value of policies on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). President Donald Trump signed an executive order to dismantle federal DEI programs upon his return to office on January 20 and ordered what he called the "Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing."
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Since this order, multiple high-profile companies, including Meta, McDonald's, Walmart, Target and Google, have stepped back from their DEI goals. Critics have expressed fears about LGBTQ+ rights under the new administration, and in particular concerns about the U.S. Supreme Court potentially overturning its landmark ruling that established a right to gay marriage.
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What To Know
The update was confirmed by a Google spokesperson to The Verge, which first reported the change.
The spokesperson said that the Calendar team had manually been adding what they described as "a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world." The spokesperson said that maintaining this consistently on a global scale wasn't sustainable.
Google donated $1 million to Donald Trump's 2025 inauguration, and its CEO, Sundar Pichai, was in attendance at the ceremony.
Google has also recently renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, in accordance with one of Trump's first executive orders. Google announced on January 27 that it would be "quickly" updating its maps system in accordance with the order, as soon as the federal Geographic Names Information (GNIS) was updated.
What Events Have Been Removed?
- Pride Month
- Black History Month
- Indigenous Peoples Month
- Hispanic History Month
- Jewish Heritage Month
- Holocaust Remembrance Day
What People Are Saying
A Google spokesperson in an email shared with Newsweek: "For over a decade we've worked with timeanddate.com to show public holidays and national observances in Google Calendar. Some years ago, the Calendar team started manually adding a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world. We got feedback that some other events and countries were missing — and maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn't scalable or sustainable. So in mid-2024 we returned to showing only public holidays and national observances from timeanddate.com globally, while allowing users to manually add other important moments."
Cathy Renna, director of communications of the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund told Newsweek: "Google removing Pride, Black History Month, Indigenous Peoples Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day and more is another egregious example of companies caving to the biased and exclusionary attacks of the Trump administration. One of this country's greatest strengths is its diversity—and the rise of Christian nationalism, white supremacy and political leaders strong-arming this kind of exclusion should alarm all of us.
"Google is just one of several companies caving to pressure and acting against the values of their workers and customer base. Google will be on the wrong side of history for this and any other actions that bow to the extremism of the Trump administration. Fair-minded people who understand the reality and value of diversity will stand with those companies who will not give in to hate and exclusion."
A comment in a Google support forum about the changes: "Dear Google. Stop sucking up to Trump."
Another comment in the forum: "Embarrassing. Another example of the fast descent into fascism. There's no reason users should have to add these dates themselves. You could have maintained the same list as always.
"Wonder why it's just now that it has become unsustainable? Y'all had time to add Gulf of America to the map though...despite it only applying to the US."
Another comment in the forum: "It's a calendar, just add it back if you want. Google Calendar can be edited to suit your every desire."
What Happens Next
How companies will manage their DEI goals, and approach culture more generally, in the wake of Trump's executive order and amid pressure from conservative consumers remains to be seen.
Update 2/11/25, 12:55 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Cathy Renna.
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