When the Internet Remembers

EqualPride, Investor Power, Qualifications, and the Harder Work of DEI

By DeAndre, Duke of Hanumanteshwar

I began looking at this story because of a photograph.

Jay Katari, an accomplished entrepreneur and investor who had joined the board of equalpride and was taking on a more active role as Strategic Advisor for Growth & Innovation, appeared publicly wearing a MAGA hat. Independent journalist Kevin Ortega-Rojas subsequently reported additional social media activity he characterized as supportive of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Editors and journalists working across The Advocate, Out, Them, Pride.com, Out Traveler, and Plus publicly asked their parent company for answers. On September 15, 2026, Katari resigned from the board. equalpride CEO Mark Berryhill said Katari's role had been limited to business growth, revenue, and the company's long-term sustainability.

At first, the controversy appears fairly easy to understand. A man associated publicly with President Trump was given authority inside one of America's most visible LGBTQ+ media organizations. Employees learned more about his political history, concerns followed, and the man resigned.

But the longer I looked at the story, the less interested I became in the hat.

Not because the photograph is irrelevant.

Because it began opening doors to questions much larger than one photograph.

Who was this man? Was he gay? Was he an ally? Was his political identity relevant to his professional qualifications? What did equalpride know about him before he joined the board? Who actually appointed him? What does an investor have to do with that appointment? And perhaps most uncomfortable of all, when LGBTQIA+ people ask others to judge us by our qualifications rather than one part of who we are, are we prepared to examine how we apply that principle when the person standing before us holds beliefs or affiliations that make us uncomfortable?

Somewhere inside those questions, this stopped being an article about Jay Katari.

It became an article about us.

Why Did I Need to Know?

One of my first questions was whether Katari himself was gay.

I could not find a reliable public statement in which he identifies his sexual orientation. His resignation statement said that the LGBTQ+ community was one he holds dear and deeply respects, but it did not define whether he considers himself part of that community or an ally.

Then I found myself sitting with a different question.

Why did that matter to me?

LGBTQIA+ people have made essentially the same argument in classrooms, workplaces, courtrooms, families, churches, boardrooms, hospitals, and government offices for generations: I have the experience. I have the education. My qualifications are in place. I can perform the responsibilities. Why does this other part of who I am matter?

That argument has always carried something larger than sexual orientation or gender identity inside it.

It asks people to distinguish who someone is from whether someone can do the work.

That sounds simple until the principle has to travel in both directions.

I am gay. Someone else is straight. I may be spiritual in one way while another person practices a completely different faith, or no faith at all. Someone eats meat, someone is vegetarian, another is vegan. One person votes Republican, another Democratic, another refuses to identify with either political party.

Very little about those facts, standing alone, tells me whether someone can read a financial statement, negotiate a contract, build a company, understand technology, lead a marketing strategy, develop partnerships, or create sustainable revenue.

An LGBTQIA+ accountant should never have to explain why being LGBTQIA+ makes them a better accountant.

A Christian should not have to prove Christianity improves a spreadsheet.

A vegetarian should not have to explain dinner before walking into a boardroom.

And knowing how someone voted does not automatically tell me whether that person understands business.

But that cannot be the end of the conversation either.

Because a board seat is not only a job.

It is authority.

Qualifications May Get You to the Door. Governance Asks Something More.

equalpride's public description of Katari emphasized substantial business experience. Its leadership page described him as an entrepreneur, investor, and strategist with more than two decades of work across healthcare, retail, real estate, media, and consumer services. His expanded role was supposed to focus on reach, partnerships, innovation, and recurring revenue. Even after the controversy became public, Berryhill emphasized that Katari's involvement concerned business growth and long-term financial sustainability rather than editorial decision-making.

Those qualifications should not disappear because somebody finds a political photograph.

But professional qualifications and institutional suitability are not exactly the same thing.

A person can be exceptionally skilled at finance and still be the wrong person to govern a particular institution. Someone can possess an extraordinary professional network and still not understand the mission they have agreed to steward. And someone can disagree politically with most people inside an organization while still respecting its mission and performing their responsibilities properly.

That is why I think relevance becomes more useful than assumption.

The question is not simply whether Katari supported Donald Trump.

The question is what, if anything, that support told equalpride about his ability to exercise authority responsibly inside an LGBTQ+ media institution.

Those are not the same question.

What Does a MAGA Hat Actually Tell Us?

The public record gives us evidence that Katari expressed support for Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. The Washington Blade published reporting around the photograph, and Ortega-Rojas reported additional pro-Trump social media material. Staff at equalpride's publications said they had not previously known about his background or past political statements.

The photograph therefore tells us something real.

But I am uncomfortable allowing it to tell us things it cannot prove.

Supporting Donald Trump does not, by itself, establish agreement with every policy pursued by his administration. Supporting a Democratic politician would not establish agreement with every Democratic position either. Political identities frequently contain contradictions. People choose candidates because of economics, foreign policy, taxes, immigration, religion, cultural concerns, personalities, party loyalty, a single issue, or combinations that may make perfect sense to them and very little sense to somebody else.

That does not mean political decisions are without consequence.

For an LGBTQ+ publication, government policy affecting LGBTQ+ people is not theoretical. equalpride's journalists have extensively covered Trump administration actions affecting transgender Americans and other LGBTQ+ communities, and those policies formed part of the concern expressed by staff when Katari's political activity became known.

But there is still a space between “This man publicly supported Donald Trump” and “Therefore I know everything this man believes about LGBTQIA+ people.”

The first can be documented.

The second requires evidence.

That distinction should matter in journalism.

It should also matter in DEI.

The Internet Remembers. We Never Finished the Lesson.

For years, adults have warned young people about social media.

Be careful what you post.

A photograph can travel.

A joke can lose its context.

Something funny at twenty may look different to an employer at forty.

Do not assume deleting something means it has disappeared.

We became very good at teaching the permanence of the digital record.

I am no longer convinced we became equally good at teaching what human beings should do with that permanence.

The internet can preserve an old version of a person forever.

Human beings do not work that way.

People learn. People mature. People become more conservative. People become more liberal. People find religion. People leave religion. People change the language they use. They make mistakes. They reconsider friendships. They discover communities they previously misunderstood. They apologize. Sometimes they refuse to apologize. Sometimes they change completely. Sometimes they do not change at all.

A digital archive usually cannot tell us which one happened.

That does not make the archive meaningless.

A person should not be able to say “I have changed” and expect every question about the past to disappear. Nor should “that was taken out of context” become a magic sentence that eliminates accountability.

But accountability cannot mean pretending that human development does not exist.

We tell young people that the internet never forgets.

The harder question is one adults still need to answer:

What are we going to do with everything it remembers?

Does Someone Owe Us an Explanation?

Katari's resignation statement did not explain his support for Trump. He said that he had intended to volunteer his experience in support of equalpride's team and work, that he never intended his involvement to disrupt a community he respected, and that he wished the company well.

That leaves unanswered questions.

But silence should not become evidence.

Katari does not automatically confirm every interpretation others have made simply because he did not provide a political autobiography while resigning.

At the same time, accepting institutional authority can reasonably bring questions that private citizenship does not.

If I am simply your neighbor, you are not entitled to know every political belief I possess.

If I accept a seat governing an organization created to serve a particular community, some questions about my understanding of that mission may become relevant.

What do you believe about the people this organization serves?

Can you separate your personal politics from the responsibilities you have agreed to perform?

Can you protect editorial independence?

Do you understand why employees might have concerns?

And if something from your public history appears to conflict with the institution's purpose, can you explain it?

Those questions are different from demanding ideological purity.

They are questions about stewardship.

Then I Learned Katari Wasn't Simply Chosen by Management.

This is where the story changed for me.

After the resignation, Berryhill disclosed that under equalpride's investment agreements, its lead investor group had the right to appoint two directors without a separate vote or approval by the CEO or management. Katari joined the board through that process. Berryhill said the investor group has now given him the right to make future board appointments.

Now we were no longer discussing only one person's social media history.

We were discussing power.

There is nothing automatically improper about investors negotiating board representation. Businesses need capital. Investors frequently negotiate rights intended to protect their interests.

But journalism is an unusual business.

The product is not merely advertising inventory.

It is trust.

It is information.

It is institutional memory.

It is the historical record.

For LGBTQIA+ people in particular, publications such as The Advocate, Out, and Them do more than sell media products. They record lives, politics, health, art, discrimination, progress, setbacks, culture, and people who might otherwise disappear from the larger historical record.

So I began asking another question.

Who was the lead investor group?

I still cannot give readers its name.

And that absence may be one of the most important parts of this story.

What Is Not Being Talked About?

Berryhill told employees that equalpride came to know Katari through a private-equity fund that had helped finance the company for several years and that Katari was an investor in that fund. Public reporting I reviewed does not identify the legal name of that private-equity fund. Berryhill has separately referred to equalpride's “lead investor group,” but the available information does not establish conclusively whether the fund and that investor group are precisely the same entity.

That distinction may sound technical.

It is not.

Because if an investor group possessed contractual authority to appoint two directors to the company, then understanding who holds that authority is part of understanding who governs the institution.

Public securities records provide another piece without completing the picture. A June 2022 SEC Form D filed by Equal Entertainment LLC, equalpride's corporate parent, reports a $3.2 million private securities offering. The company reported that the securities consisted of debt and an option, warrant, or other right to acquire another security. The filing says all $3.2 million had been sold to seven investors, with the first sale occurring June 9, 2022. It also explicitly states that the offering was not being made in connection with a merger, acquisition, or other business-combination transaction. The seven investors are not named in the filing.

That last point matters.

The financing happened close in time to the 2022 acquisition that created today's equalpride, but a nearby date is not proof of a connection. The SEC filing itself says the offering was not made in connection with a business combination.

So I will not connect dots the documents do not connect.

But I will ask what the documents make reasonable to ask.

Was the current lead investor group among those seven investors?

Was the private-equity fund through which equalpride knew Katari among them?

What investment later created the two-director appointment right?

Who was entitled to the second seat?

Was that seat ever filled?

And what governance authority does the investor group still hold now that Berryhill says future board appointments have been transferred to him?

Those are not accusations.

They are unanswered questions about power.

Ownership Adds Another Layer

A March 31, 2026 federal court opinion involving Equal Entertainment gives us another unusual piece of information. For purposes of establishing federal jurisdiction, the court recorded that Equal Entertainment LLC had two members, one domiciled in Florida and one in Oregon. The decision does not identify those members by name.

That should not be confused with the seven investors in the 2022 offering.

An LLC member is not automatically the same thing as a lender, outside investor, fund participant, or holder of contractual governance rights.

This is exactly where careless reporting can create a story that does not exist.

So I will leave the names blank where the public record leaves them blank.

But the fact that we have to work this hard to understand how ownership, investment, and governance intersect inside one of America's largest LGBTQ+ media companies raises a transparency question worth considering.

Especially because equalpride has publicly emphasized LGBTQ+ ownership as part of its institutional identity.

Michael Dru Kelley, a cofounder who has repeatedly described himself publicly as a principal LGBTQ+ shareholder, wrote as recently as July 2025 that he remained an enthusiastic shareholder in equalpride. The company's current leadership page now identifies him as “Co-Founder.”

Then another public record appeared.

On July 22, 2026, a Broward County civil-filings report listed Michael Dru Kelley as plaintiff and Equal Entertainment LLC as defendant, under case number COCE26054829.

I have not reviewed the underlying complaint.

So I do not know whether that lawsuit concerns ownership, compensation, debt, corporate governance, a contract dispute, or something unrelated to everything being discussed here.

I will not invent the answer.

But this is precisely what I mean when I ask what is not being talked about.

A cofounder and publicly identified shareholder suing the parent company weeks before a controversy over an investor-appointed director is something worth understanding.

It is not evidence that the events are connected.

It is a reason to continue asking questions.

There is an important difference.

Then Due Diligence Became More Interesting Than Politics

While examining Katari's business history, I found another public record.

In 2013, the Ohio Attorney General announced an agreement with Katari, Nicole Leve, Go Green For the Cause, Bin Boy Management, and Presidential Clothing Recyclers following an investigation involving charitable clothing solicitations. According to the Attorney General's office, approximately $19,000 worth of recycled clothing was collected under representations that it would benefit environmental causes, while most proceeds instead went to Katari's for-profit businesses. Under the Assurance of Discontinuance, Presidential Clothing Recyclers agreed to pay $44,000, Go Green For the Cause agreed to dissolve and distribute its assets for environmental-preservation purposes, and the parties agreed not to participate in charitable solicitation in Ohio.

That was thirteen years ago.

It should not be used casually to define the person Katari is today.

It also has no demonstrated connection to equalpride.

But once the question becomes how a board member was vetted, it becomes relevant for a different reason.

Did whoever appointed him know?

That question interests me more than whether someone could locate an old MAGA photograph.

Because due diligence is supposed to look beyond the photograph.

equalpride's own published Code of Business Conduct and Ethics applies to members of its board of directors. The document addresses conflicts of interest, legal compliance, ethical judgment, fair dealing, and situations that might appear improper to an outside observer.

Nothing in the evidence I reviewed establishes that Katari violated that code.

But the existence of the code makes the process worth asking about.

Who was responsible for reviewing an investor-appointed director?

The investor group?

Management?

The board?

Counsel?

All of them?

None of them?

A serious organization can have an impressive code of conduct.

The larger question is how that code lives when somebody enters the room with authority.

DEI Looks Different When You Follow the Power

This is where the article became something else for me.

We talk about DEI most visibly around employees.

Who gets hired?

Who gets promoted?

Who receives an interview?

Who appears in the photograph?

Who gets invited to speak?

Who is represented in advertising?

Those questions matter.

But they are not the only places where inclusion lives.

Look higher.

Who owns?

Who invests?

Who lends?

Who negotiates the agreement?

Who receives board rights?

Who appoints directors?

Who decides how money will be spent?

Who decides what happens during restructuring?

Who controls the strategy when an institution becomes financially vulnerable?

And who determines what qualifications are necessary for someone to sit at that table?

That may be where DEI becomes considerably less comfortable.

Because representation among employees is visible.

Capital is harder to see.

Does the Seat Need to Be LGBTQIA+?

I do not think the useful question is whether every seat governing an LGBTQ+ company must be occupied by an LGBTQ+ person.

That would reduce diversity to another identity test.

LGBTQIA+ people themselves do not all possess the same experiences, political beliefs, professional skills, economic backgrounds, racial identities, religions, disabilities, gender identities, or understanding of every part of the community.

Being gay does not automatically make someone qualified to govern an LGBTQ+ media company.

Being straight does not automatically make someone unqualified.

The more meaningful question is whether the person possesses what the particular responsibility actually requires: professional competence, judgment, ethics, independence, an understanding of the mission, an ability to respect communities different from themselves, and the capacity to use authority without undermining the institution they have agreed to serve.

That standard is more difficult than checking a demographic box.

But it may also be more equitable.

Then the Mirror Turns Toward the LGBTQIA+ Community

This is the part I have sat with the longest.

LGBTQIA+ people know the experience of being reduced to one thing.

Someone learns you are gay and begins making assumptions about your values.

Someone learns you are bisexual and decides what your relationships must look like.

Someone learns you are transgender and suddenly believes your gender is the only relevant fact about you.

Someone sees a disability and begins deciding what you cannot do before asking what you can.

We have spent generations asking society to see the whole person.

So I believe there is value in asking ourselves whether that discipline survives when we encounter someone whose politics make us uncomfortable.

That does not mean political disagreement is the same as discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, race, disability, sex, or another personal characteristic.

It is not.

It does not mean criticism of Donald Trump or criticism of someone who supports him is automatically discriminatory.

It is not.

And it does not mean LGBTQ+ organizations should ignore political decisions that materially affect the communities they serve.

They should not.

The question is narrower and more difficult.

When we know one thing about another human being, how quickly do we allow that one thing to explain everything else?

A MAGA hat.

A rainbow flag.

A cross.

A hijab.

A pronoun.

A wheelchair.

A political party.

A marriage.

A divorce.

A social-media joke from ten years ago.

Labels help human beings organize information.

They can also become shortcuts that prevent us from gathering any more.

Difference Is Easy Until We Actually Disagree

There is a version of diversity that is easy to celebrate.

Different foods.

Different music.

Different clothes.

Different holidays.

Different backgrounds.

Different faces around the conference table.

Then there is another kind.

Someone thinks differently.

Someone believes differently.

Someone votes differently.

Someone interprets the world differently.

That is when diversity stops being a photograph and becomes a leadership challenge.

Not every difference belongs inside every institution.

Mission matters.

A person who actively works against an organization's purpose may not be appropriate to govern it, regardless of how impressive their résumé may be.

But discomfort and mission conflict are not automatically the same thing.

That distinction requires judgment.

And judgment requires information.

Which returns me to the problem at the center of equalpride's controversy.

What did Katari actually believe about LGBTQIA+ people?

What questions was he asked?

What did equalpride know?

What did the investor know?

What qualifications were considered?

What potential conflicts were reviewed?

And if the answers existed internally, why did employees seem to be learning so much only after outside reporting?

Those questions take us much farther than:

He supported Trump.

The Restructuring Context Still Matters

All of this unfolded during a period of considerable change at equalpride. Earlier in 2026, the company laid off journalists and editors across several publications shortly before acquiring Them from Condé Nast. Several Them staff members were also cut during the acquisition process. Berryhill attributed the earlier layoffs to major advertising cancellations and financial pressures.

Those facts do not prove a connection to Katari's appointment.

They do not prove investor interference in editorial decisions.

They do not prove some coming political transformation.

But they do provide context for why growth, revenue diversification, and new business relationships were important to management.

And they also explain why journalists might become particularly attentive when an investor-appointed director suddenly begins taking a more active role across the company.

Financial sustainability matters.

Journalistic independence matters.

Neither one makes the other disappear.

The real leadership work is holding both.

Capital Can Save a Mission. It Can Also Shape One.

It is easy to speak suspiciously about investors.

That would be too simple.

Media organizations need money.

Journalists need salaries.

Websites need technology.

Magazines cost money to produce.

Healthcare benefits need to be paid.

Travel, reporting, editors, lawyers, designers, photographers, servers, subscriptions, insurance, offices, marketing, and distribution all require resources.

An LGBTQ+ publication that cannot survive financially cannot protect representation by principle alone.

Capital can preserve institutions.

Investors can bring knowledge.

Business people can build revenue models that allow journalism to continue.

That needs to be recognized.

But capital is never entirely abstract when contractual rights accompany it.

When investment comes with the authority to appoint directors, capital has entered governance.

And when capital enters governance, transparency becomes more important.

That may be the piece of DEI we discuss least.

We are comfortable asking whether employees are diverse.

We are less accustomed to asking whether the structure of power itself reflects the mission being advertised below it.

Qualifications Should Matter

After everything I found, I still return to the principle that started this inquiry.

Qualifications should matter.

A great deal.

I do not want a society where an employee has to hold the correct political opinion to demonstrate professional competence.

I do not want religious identity turned into a résumé requirement.

I do not want vegetarianism, spirituality, sexuality, marriage, gender expression, political affiliation, or any other personal label doing the work that evidence of ability should be doing.

LGBTQIA+ people understand better than many why that principle matters.

But qualifications cannot do all the thinking either.

Professional experience does not automatically establish integrity.

Success does not eliminate the need for due diligence.

A powerful network does not demonstrate mission alignment.

And belonging to the population being served does not automatically produce good leadership.

We need to hold more than one idea at a time.

That may be what mature DEI eventually requires.

Identity Cannot Do All the Thinking for Us

Maybe this is what I have been trying to understand since I first saw the photograph.

Identity matters.

Representation matters.

History matters.

Political choices matter.

Professional qualifications matter.

Conduct matters.

Context matters.

Mission matters.

Growth matters.

Change matters.

But none of those things should be allowed to answer every other question by itself.

Jay Katari resigned.

That resolves the board seat.

It does not resolve the questions that the board seat exposed.

We still do not publicly know the identity of the private-equity fund through which equalpride says it came to know him.

We still do not have a clearly identified lead investor group in the reporting I reviewed.

We still do not know the story behind the investor's second board appointment right.

We still do not know what process was used to vet Katari before his appointment.

And we still do not know what the Kelley lawsuit against Equal Entertainment concerns.

A missing answer is not proof of misconduct.

But a missing answer can still be worth asking about.

That is the difference between suspicion and inquiry.

What Will We Do With Everything the Internet Remembers?

I began with a photograph.

I expected to write about a businessman, a MAGA hat, an LGBTQ+ media company, and a resignation.

Instead, the story took me into private investment, board authority, ownership, restructuring, due diligence, DEI, digital memory, human change, and the uncomfortable question of whether we consistently apply to other people the standards we have asked them to apply to us.

And maybe that is where I want to leave it.

Not with an answer.

With a responsibility.

We have taught generations that the internet never forgets.

We should continue teaching that.

People should understand that public actions can return years later and that leadership carries consequences.

But perhaps we need to teach the second half too.

How do we hold someone accountable without pretending people are incapable of change?

How do we examine the past without allowing it automatically to become the entirety of the present?

How do we distinguish a belief from a qualification?

A private identity from a public responsibility?

A difference of opinion from a conflict with institutional mission?

And when does something about a person become genuinely relevant to the work they are being asked to do?

Those questions become harder when politics enters the room.

They become harder when money enters the room.

They become harder when the institution exists because generations of people fought to be seen as something more than a label.

Maybe that is exactly why we should keep asking them.

Because the internet has already learned how to remember everything.

The more difficult task still belongs to us:

learning how to understand what we remember, deciding what is relevant, and leaving enough room for a human being to remain human while an institution remains accountable for the power it chooses to give them.