How does your board compare?
OutQuorum tracks board diversity disclosure — including LGBTQ+ representation — across 10 global stock indices and 7 dimensions. Search any covered company for its 2024 vs 2025–26 disclosure record from the OutQUORUM 2026 report cycle.
The board diversity conversation this site measures? Out Leadership started it.
When Out Leadership launched OutQUORUM in 2015, LGBTQ+ people were not part of the board diversity conversation. So we read every Fortune 500 proxy statement by hand and counted the companies that included them: exactly 2. In 2017 — nine years ago — we published, with KPMG, the first LGBTQ+-inclusive board diversity guidelines in the United States, then put them to work: with pension funds representing roughly $3 trillion in assets, and with companies one boardroom at a time, backed by BoardFit and a database of 3,000+ board-ready LGBTQ+ leaders.
“Companies told us they didn’t have LGBTQ+ inclusive diversity policies, so we wrote them for them.” — Todd Sears, Founder & CEO, Out Leadership
We worked with Nasdaq on its board diversity listing requirement — the 2021 rule cited OutQUORUM research seven times — and supported California’s board diversity laws, SB 826 and AB 979, the first law in the world to name LGBTQ+ people. The courts have since struck down both California laws, and in 2025 the Nasdaq rule was repealed. By 2024, those 2 Fortune 500 companies had become 155.
We measured what followed — and what’s being unmeasured now.
- 2015
OutQUORUM launches
The first count of the Fortune 500: 2 companies include LGBTQ+ people in board diversity.
- 2017
First US guidelines
With KPMG, the first LGBTQ+-inclusive board diversity guidelines published in the United States.
- 2021
Visibility Counts & the Nasdaq rule
The first public OutQUORUM report; Nasdaq’s board diversity rule is approved, citing OutQUORUM research seven times.
- 2023
UK & Australia guidelines
FTSE 350, ASX 200 and Hang Seng mapped for the first time; UK and Australian guidelines published.
- 2024
Hong Kong guidelines — and the Fifth Circuit
The guidelines reach Hong Kong; in December, the Fifth Circuit vacates the Nasdaq rule.
- 2025
The repeal
The SEC approves the rule’s withdrawal in February. No stock exchange listing rule in any developed market now includes LGBTQ+ people; only Brazil’s B3 still does.
- 2026
This report
Ten indices, 6,010 companies — and the first measured decline.
Where mandates held, disclosure held. Where they were dismantled, it collapsed.
In markets whose rules stayed in place — Hong Kong, the UK, Australia — board diversity disclosure held or grew (non-US gains partly reflect this cycle’s broader source coverage). In the United States, where the Nasdaq rule was repealed, it collapsed: the four US indices lost 2,947 LGBTQ+-inclusive boards in a single cycle. Each tile is a stock index, colored by the share of its companies disclosing board diversity in 2025–26 filings — click through for the market’s full briefing.
The retreat, index by index
The headline finding: LGBTQ+-inclusive board disclosure fell 71% across the ten indices in a single cycle — from 3,847 index constituencies in the 2024 baseline to 1,117 in the 2025–26 filings — and the entire net decline came from the four US indices. 8,130 constituencies across 10 indices (6,010 distinct companies — some appear in multiple indices); click an index for its full dashboard.
United States NASDAQ
United States Fortune 1000
United States NYSE 100
United States Russell 3000
United Kingdom FTSE 350
Australia ASX 200
Hong Kong Hang Seng
Europe Euronext 100
Japan Nikkei 225
Canada S&P/TSX
155 policies — and less than 1% of the seats
By 2024, 155 Fortune 500 companies included LGBTQ+ people in their definition of board diversity — up from 2 in 2015, driven by measurement, guidelines, and the Nasdaq rule that cited OutQUORUM research seven times. And yet openly LGBTQ+ directors still held just 0.83% of Fortune 500 board seats. The policy won; the placement work is unfinished.
Now the rule that anchored it is gone. Since the Nasdaq rule’s repeal in February 2025, LGBTQ+-inclusive disclosure on the Nasdaq has fallen from 1,971 boards (the re-verified 2024 baseline; 1,691 as originally published) to 301. Every dimension fell this cycle, but LGBTQ+ fell furthest — and hundreds of companies deleted it while keeping gender and race in the same document. Companies are not abandoning board diversity; they are abandoning LGBTQ+ people specifically. Which is exactly why we keep counting.
“It is a story of what happens when you pull the scaffolding away from a building and find out whether the foundation holds.” — Todd Sears, Founder & CEO, Out Leadership
Explore the region briefings See the guidelines & policy landscape
My coming out was also about the young people who work in the company. If they suspect a senior leader is gay but not out, what does that say to them about the culture of the company?
For boards & general counsel
See exactly what your company discloses today, how it changed year over year, and how peers in your index compare.
How we measure →For investors
Index-level disclosure rates and per-dimension trends, built from primary filings — not surveys.
See the trends →For your market
Regulatory frameworks, what changed this cycle, and our published guidelines — market by market.
Read the region briefings →Know an out director?
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