Target Pulls Out Some of their 'Pride' Look Merchandise After Physical Attacks

2023 Target Pride Collection. Unless I was told it was gay I would not recognize it. Every story does carry a different style of setting up the props but the clothes are just colorful as far as I have seen. But the anti-gays might not be a majority but they hallow as if they were. All they need is an excuse to let their hatred out. I, as a man who spent all his teen years going to the seminary while also going to school will blame how far we have let religions control our physical lives. No not spiritual, most of them are not into that.
We let them play with politics even though there is supposed to be a separation. We pay for them by not charging taxes no matter what they buy and then on Sunday night they tell us who should we be voting for. Why? They need liberty against the rest of us. Faith is a beautiful thing, a dominant church is not.
Adam Gonzalez

Target’s annual Pride Month collection is something that’s both beloved and dreaded by queer people. While it’s nice to see the ubiquitous big box retailer support LGBTQ+ people with their annual display, the merchandise itself can be a mixed bag. Some of it can be affirming and functional, some pieces are cute or bizarre, and others just toe the line between kitsch and corny. 

Yet despite the mixed reaction it draws from the LGBTQ+ community, this year’s collection is under attack by conservatives who fear that Target is yet another company, like Bud Light or the Los Angeles Dodgers, that’s gone “woke.” This year, Target stores have faced a number of confrontations as a result of its Pride displays, with customers confronting employees, knocking down merchandise, and using Target’s aisles as their own personal stage to produce threatening social media videos. 

So, how did this all happen? 

What is the Target Pride collection? 

Target has been selling LGBTQ+ pride-themed merchandise for just over a decade. In 2010, the company landed in hot water among queer and trans people for donating to political action committees that supported a homophobic candidate for governor of Minnesota, where Target is based. A few months later, the Human Rights Campaign dropped the beloved chain from its Equality Buying Guide and, in early 2011, Lady Gaga backed out of a planned collaboration with the brand. Target responded by making donations to LGBTQ+ organizations and creating a committee to oversee political donations.

In 2012, the brand tried to lure back LGBTQ+ shoppers who’d fled to other stores by launching a “Wear It With Pride” line, with proceeds benefiting the Family Equality Council, an organization dedicated to supporting LGBTQ+ families.  And by 2014, the company was signing amicus briefs in support of marriage equality! 

Every year since, Target has released a collection of clothes and knick-knacks that sometimes garners headlines for its more bizarre entries (including, last year, a rainbow suit jacket that the world came together to hate). These days, that’s nothing special; it seems like nearly every brand releases rainbow-hued items around Pride in hopes of earning queer dollars.

Why makes this year different? 

This year, Target’s pride collection just so happens to coincide with a nationwide backlash against the LGBTQ+ community, both in rhetoric and in policy. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, over 490 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been filed in statehouses this year, many of them aimed at curbing access to gender-affirming health care. 

 

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As politicians have taken aim at queer and trans youth, so too has flagrantly transphobic and homophobic rhetoric become more acceptable. People on the right have attempted to link the entire LGBTQ+ community with pedophilia and “grooming” has exploded as a slur online. Conservatives have also begun to harass and target brands that so much as publicly acknowledge that LGBTQ+ people exist. 

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Earlier this year, Bud Light came under fire when trans-TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted a custom can of the beer she’d been sent to celebrate the end of her year-long video series “365 Days of Girlhood.” In response, upset conservatives embarked on a quest of mythic proportions to destroy every can of Bud Light they could find. Kid Rock shot cases of Bud Light with a machine gun. People walked into stores and filmed themselves destroying a bunch of perfectly meh American lager. 

Anheuser-Busch, the company that makes Bud Light, eventually put out a milquetoast statement that didn’t really stand up for Mulvaney; because it caved to the right-wing backlash, it was boycotted by some LGBTQ+ groups. 

The Los Angeles Dodgers also kowtowed to conservative backlash this month and disinvited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of queer activists who dress in drag as nuns, from being honored at their annual pride event. However, they have since re-invited the Sisters. 

Why are conservatives boycotting Target’s Pride collection?

The fuel that lit the MAGA fire began last week when members of the right-wing blogosphere — including self-proclaimed “theocratic fascist” Matt Walsh and the social media account Gays Against Groomers — began to spread the lie that Target was selling “tuck-friendly” swimwear to children. According to PolitiFact, Walsh blatantly lied and said that the swimwear was “available in kid’s sizes” on a May 17 episode of his podcast.

Though Target was indeed selling swimwear designed to conceal the genitals of the person wearing it, it was marketed and sold as an adult bathing suit. The claim that it was for children was fact-checked as false by the Associated Press and other outlets. Yet this didn’t stop some customers from entering Target stories to record themselves destroying pride displays and harassing employees, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

How did Target respond to the controversy? 

Earlier this week, Target announced that it would be pulling some of its Pride-themed merchandise from its stores to protect its employees’ safety. In a May 24 statement, the company said that “given these volatile circumstances,” it would be “removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”   

Target Will Remove Some Pride Merchandise After a Conservative Outrage Campaign

Some customers have confronted Target workers, knocked over Pride displays, and posted threatening social media videos inside stores.

As Pride displays have been dismantled in some Target stores in the United States, some LGBTQ+ employees told Business Insider that they feel alienated and frustrated by the company’s actions.