A Utah businessman who volunteered his time to help an LGBTQ media company was forced off its board within two weeks, after employees discovered a year-old Facebook photo of him wearing a red Trump hat.
Jay Katari, a serial entrepreneur who runs businesses focused on autism and disability services, joined the board of equalpride as a strategic advisor for growth and innovation. The company owns some of the most recognized names in LGBTQ media, including The Advocate, Out, and Them. His tenure lasted roughly fourteen days before the staff ran him out.
The sequence began when Substack journalist Kevin Ortega-Rojas published a report noting that Katari had been "quietly" added to equalpride's board. Ortega-Rojas dug through Katari's social media history and surfaced a May 2024 Facebook photo showing Katari on a balcony with three other men, wearing a red hat that read "Trump" and "Keep America Great." The journalist flagged what he called a potential "conflict" with equalpride's LGBTQ mission.
That was enough. Equalpride's editorial staff marched to leadership demanding answers about Katari's role. They publicly distanced their work from him. And shortly after, Katari resigned.
The editorial team at equalpride did not mince words. In a statement provided to The Advocate, one of equalpride's own publications, the staff laid out their reasoning in explicitly political terms.
"As a small team of queer and trans journalists, we were deeply concerned by reports that an equalpride board member had a history of expressing support for Donald Trump and his MAGA agenda on social media."
They went further, as the New York Post reported, tying Katari's personal political expression directly to federal policy.
"Given this administration's attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, it was immediately clear to us that his involvement with the company was untenable."
Note what the staff did not allege. They did not claim Katari had mistreated anyone. They did not accuse him of discrimination, misconduct, or any action taken against LGBTQ individuals. They cited his apparent political views, and nothing else.
Ortega-Rojas's Substack investigation catalogued Katari's online activity. Beyond the Trump hat photo, Katari followed members of the Trump family on social media, posted content that appeared to criticize former President Joe Biden, and listed his pronouns as "dude/bro/guy/man/Jedi" in his bio. He also posted content showing support for Israel, described as one of the few explicitly political positions he had taken online.
Federal donation records on OpenSecrets showed Katari gave $10,000 to former Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and $2,000 to Kentucky politician Christopher Thieneman. Neither donation was tied to any anti-LGBTQ policy position in the reporting.
Born in Canada and raised in Florida, Katari built his career around entrepreneurship and, by his own company's description, centered much of his work on autism and helping people with disabilities. None of that mattered once the hat photo surfaced.
Equalpride CEO Mark Berryhill broke the news of Katari's exit in an email to employees. Berryhill shared Katari's resignation statement with the staff, though Berryhill himself offered no public comment on the matter. The company then removed Katari's name from its website entirely.
Katari, for his part, struck a conciliatory tone in his statement.
"My intention was simply to volunteer my time and experience to support the incredible team and the important work they do for the LGBTQ+ community. I never intended for my involvement to cause disruption within a community I hold dear and deeply respect."
The California Post attempted multiple times to reach both Katari and equalpride for comment. Neither responded.
Katari's board seat had not come through the normal channels. Equalpride's lead investor group held an agreement allowing it to appoint two board directors without approval from the CEO or management. That arrangement ended around the same time Katari departed. The identity of the lead investor group was not disclosed in the reporting.
The timeline raises an obvious question: did equalpride's leadership know about Katari's political leanings before his appointment? The reporting does not answer it. But the speed of the reversal, two weeks from appointment to erasure, suggests either the company failed to vet a board member or knew and hoped nobody would notice.
Strip the story to its core and the picture is stark. A man with no record of anti-LGBTQ conduct volunteered to help a struggling media company. A journalist combed his Facebook page. Employees saw a red hat. And the company showed him the door.
The editorial staff's own statement made the standard explicit: support for a sitting president, expressed on a personal social media account, disqualifies a person from serving on the board of a media company, even in a non-editorial, strategic advisory role. The staff did not argue Katari had done anything to harm LGBTQ people. They argued his political alignment made his presence "untenable."
That word does a lot of work. It transforms a difference of political opinion into a fireable offense. It says the price of participation in LGBTQ institutions is not just tolerance or even support, it is total political conformity.
Equalpride's editorial team applauded Katari's resignation. They got what they wanted. A man who listed his pronouns as a joke, wore the wrong hat, and followed the wrong people online was purged from a company whose stated mission is inclusion.
When an organization dedicated to acceptance cannot tolerate a board member's private political views, the word "inclusive" has lost whatever meaning it once carried.
