pinkwashes

Verb

pinkwash (third-person singular simple present pinkwashes, present participle pinkwashing, simple past and past participle pinkwashed)

1. (transitive, uncommon, literal) To cover in a coat of pink paint.
   • […] I see, twenty yards away, workmen pinkwashing the newly laid, badly stained, cheap-looking brick cladding of a newly built apartment house called — well, something ridiculous: Nepal, let's say.1986 December 29, Susan Lardner, “Lotus Blossum”, in The New Yorker
2. (transitive) To promote consumer goods and services using support of breast cancer-related charities.
   • They see such corporate involvement as exploitation, making profits on the backs of ill women. […] They claim these campaigns trivialize the disease, "pinkwashing" its real nature.2008, Penelope Williams, Breast Cancer: Biography of an Illness, BPS Books, published 2008, →ISBN, page 162
3. (transitive) To tout the gay-friendliness of something in an attempt to downplay or soften aspects of it considered negative.
   • Pinkwashing not only manipulates the hard-won gains of Israel’s gay community, but it also ignores the existence of Palestinian gay-rights organizations.2011 November 22, Sarah Schulman, “Israel and ‘Pinkwashing’”, in New York Times

   Synonyms:

   rainbow-wash