Cracker Barrel Has Problems, But at Least It Doesn’t Cover Child Mutilations

As has been seen over the past month-plus, Cracker Barrel has quickly spun up a number of correctives following the online backlash against its decisions to sanitize its logo, sterilize its dining rooms, and support woke causes like Pride parades. And now it is supposedly fixing its biscuits.

The fierce criticism was deserved, but it appears at least that the restaurant chain did not fully pursue the LGBTQ appeasement agenda that nearly every other U.S.-based major corporation has followed. From Fox Business earlier this week:

“The company does not have DEI team-member positions or DEI quotas/requirements. It hires, promotes, and rewards individuals based only on skills and performance—full stop,” a company spokesperson told FOX Business. “It does not treat employees or guests differently based on race or any other protected class.”

 

Cracker Barrel also says it will no longer sponsor events that do not directly relate to business needs, including Pride events.

 

The company also highlighted that its employee benefits programs have never covered sex reassignment or “any affiliated care.”

I cannot find what the company’s previous years’ scores have been, but this year Cracker Barrel’s grade on the pro-LGBTQ Human Rights Campaign‘s Corporate Equality Index is 30 out of 100. In the realm of the business world’s trans affirmation aspirations, that’s not good. HRC has a series of criteria upon which it assesses each company’s friendliness to homosexuality and transgender priorities, and among the human resources policies needed to elevate a company’s score are “inclusive benefits:”

To secure full credit for benefits criteria, each benefit must be available to all benefits-eligible U.S. employees. In areas where more than one health insurance plan is available, at least one inclusive plan must be available.

a. Equivalency in same- and different-sex spousal medical and soft benefits (10 points)

b. Equivalency in same- and different-sex domestic partner medical and soft benefits (10 points)

c. Equal health coverage for transgender individuals without exclusion for medically necessary care (25 points)

• Equal health coverage for transgender individuals without exclusions for medically necessary care

  • Insurance contract explicitly affirms coverage and contains no blanket exclusions for coverage

  • Insurance contract and/or policy documentation is based on the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care

  • Plan documentation must be readily available to employees and must clearly communicate inclusive insurance options to employees and their eligible dependents.

  • Other benefits available for other medical conditions are also available to transgender individuals. Specifically, where available for employees, the following benefits should all extend to transgender individuals, including for transition-related services:

    • Short term medical leave

    • Mental health benefits

    • Pharmaceutical coverage (e.g., for hormone replacement therapies)

    • Coverage for medical visits or laboratory services

    • Coverage for reconstructive surgical procedures related to sex reassignment

Failure to offer the above benefits can cost a company up to 50 points on its CEI score. On this criteria, Cracker Barrel earned only 10 of a possible 50 points.

In contrast, in recent years (including this year) other major corporations, year after year, have boasted about their 100-percent scores on HRC’s index. Of course, that means these companies offered gender mutilation “transition treatment” benefits to employees’ dependents, including children. Every year’s release of the CEI would be followed by many companies’ press releases that trumpeted how LGBTQ-friendly they are, including Disney, McDonald’s, and JPMorgan Chase. There are dozens more corporate press releases of this nature I could link here.

Over the last couple of years NLPC has sponsored shareholder proposals at Disney, PepsiCo, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft and Visa, that criticized the companies’ inclusion of such “gender transition” coverage in health plans for their employees’ children. For example, here is the proposal we presented at Disney’s annual meeting last year, with remarks delivered by detransitioner activist Chloe Cole:

Now, in 2025, when the “trangender science” has been significantly discredited and many clinics and hospitals have ended their gender mutilation treatments under threat of lawsuits from federal and state governments, as well as victims similar to Chloe, many companies still maintain their 100-percent CEI scores. These include Disney, and PepsiCo, and Johnson & Johnson, and Microsoft, and Visa.

Feel free to keep slamming Cracker Barrel for being woke, but these companies and many others still support and fund the mutilation of children in the name of the gender change fantasy of the HRC. No one is holding them accountable.