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?
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 is 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.
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.”
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.
“The communication provided to us explicitly said the decision to move these items was to replace them with swimwear to better meet our sales goals,” one worker told the outlet. “Not once was safety mentioned.”
Another employee who identifies as LGBTQ+ said that they were tasked with moving merchandise to another area of the store in the back, where there is lower foot traffic.
Business Insider also pointed out that several people who allege to be employees have been writing about the controversy on the Target subreddit. Insider was unable to verify the commenters’ employment.
"A place that I work at that supposedly cares about my labor and safety is back-peddling and putting me in harms' way to maximize profit," one user wrote. "Either you care about the safety and well-being of marginalized people, or you don't. This will make the current climate much worse.”
Some creators who collaborated with Target to make this year’s Pride Collection have taken to social media to discuss the results of the backlash.
Erik Carnell, the designer behind the brand Abprallen, told the Daily Dot that he’s received over 500 threats in his DMs as of the May 23 interview, including threats of gun violence and death. However, he also mentioned on the brand’s Instagram that he’s been “completely overwhelmed” with support on their Etsy store since being pulled off Target shelves, and even had to temporarily pause orders to be able to catch up with the backlog.
Reuters reported that Carnell was targeted not because of the items featured in the collection, which includes a sweater that said “cure transphobia not trans people,” but because his brand also produces items that feature pentagrams, horned skulls and other witchy imagery conservatives have branded “Satanic.”
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Another queer and trans-owned brand, Ash + Chess, wrote on Instagram that the majority of their contribution to the collection had been pulled from Target stores “due to threats from domestic terrorists.”
“Emotionally, we do not currently have the bandwidth to comment further on this,” a May 26 Instagram post said. “We appreciate your support and love. Queer and trans people exist in the past, present, and future, and we are stronger together.”
JZD, a queer- and Latina-owned brand in Texas, posted on Instagram about their merchandise being removed as well. “The past few days have been emotionally draining,” the post said, while noting that their DMs are "filled with love and support.”
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Following reports that Target employees felt alienated after the company decided to nix or move its Pride Collection displays, CEO Brian Cornell wrote a company-wide email, obtained by Insider, in which he defended the decision and attempted to show solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community.
He called the situation “well beyond discomfort” and said watching his employees deal with the backlash has been “gut-wrenching,” while thanking his employees for their “patience and professionalism” in the face of harassment and abuse.
Cornell also spoke directly to LGBTQ+ employees in his letter.
“To the LGBTQIA+ community, one of the hardest parts in all of this was trying to contemplate how the adjustments we’re making to alleviate these threats to our team’s physical and psychological safety would impact you and your wellbeing and psychological safety,” he wrote. “We stand with you now and will continue to do so - not just during Pride Month, but each and every day.”
Cornell said the controversy has put into conflict two of the company’s missions.
“Those were the two guiding principles when it came time for us to act: do all we can to keep our team safe, and do all we can to honor our commitment and connection to the LGBTQIA+ community,” he wrote.
Spoiler alert: poorly. A recent report from right-wing media watchdog Media Matters found that from May 23 through May 30, Fox News spent two hours and 12 minutes discussing Target’s Pride merchandise. The majority of that coverage consisted of over-the-top concern trolling about children being “exposed” to LGBTQ+ affirming messaging, with Fox News host Jesse Watters even claiming that you could dress “little Johnny” in a “‘Satan respects pronouns’ shirts over his tuck-em swimsuit.” (Target does have tucking briefs for adults, but sadly, no “Satan respects pronouns” shirts.) By comparison, the network aired a measly 22 seconds (seconds!) of coverage of the bombshell report that found that 450 Catholic priests had abused nearly 2,000 children in Illinois since 1950. Almost like putting Target on blast isn’t really about “protecting children” after all, huh?
In addition to media backlash, at least nine Target locations in the Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Salt Lake City metropolitan areas received false bomb threats during the last week of May. While it’s unclear whether the bomb threats all came from the same person, various Target locations received emails from an anonymous email address claiming to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community taking revenge on the big box store for catering to “homophobic right-wing redneck bigots.” Law enforcement has since concluded that the bomb threats were all hoaxes, and the FBI is currently working on identifying who sent them. (It’s worth noting that right-wingers have increasingly been scapegoating LGBTQ+ identity itself for acts of terrorism.)
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