Does Target Believe in LGBTQ Rights or Not?
The retailer's annual Pride month collection is drawing transphobic criticism and misinformation. It's an opportunity to show what the brand stands for.
Taking a stand.
Photographer: ALLISON DINNER/AFPTarget Corp. has been rolling out a new Pride Month collection for several years. The annual limited-time collection has been criticized in the past for pandering to LGBTQ shoppers with cheesy and tacky apparel such as a polyester rainbow short suit or a tank top with an image of drag star Rupaul. But this year’s collection has been greeted with a more violent backlash among right-wing commenters online, underscoring how there’s no such thing as a humdrum annual marketing event at a time when gender-affirming teachers, doctors and other people are being pushed underground by the anti-trans wave sweeping parts of the country.
What Target has that these doctors and teachers don’t is a whole corporate infrastructure to withstand the political furor over its Pride collection. That’s if it accepts that there is no middle-ground to play anymore.
Just weeks after launching its Pride collection this year, Target announced Wednesday that it is removing certain items altogether and moving the remaining merchandise to the back in some Southern stores because of “threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work.” The collection this year includes a series of T-shirts with LGBTQ-related images like a rainbow-colored brain with the words “Sorry, can’t think straight” and home decor such as a pillow designed by independent LGBTQ artists among other items.