Target was forced to remove its Pride-themed displays following protests from conservative parents.
The retail giant released a statement on Wednesday, saying that it has withdrawn some Pride-related items over threats that were “impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being” on the job.
“Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior,” the company said, adding that it is still committed to celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community.
According to several reports, Target is taking products made by the LGBTQ brand Abprallen, which sells some items with spooky, gothic iconography, including skulls and Satan, in pastel colors, off of its shelves and website.
The company has recently been under fire from conservative activists and the media for selling “tuck-friendly” women’s swimsuits that enable some transgender women to conceal their genitalia. Contrary to misleading web allegations, however, Target has only been offering tuck-friendly swimsuits created for adults and not for children or in child sizes.
Additionally, videos of people throwing Pride displays to the floor in a Target store have been making the rounds on social media.
“Extremist groups want to divide us and ultimately don’t just want rainbow products to disappear, they want us to disappear,” Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a tweet. “The LGBTQ+ community has celebrated Pride with Target for the past decade. Target needs to stand with us and double-down on their commitment to us.”
Michael Edison Hayden, a senior investigative reporter and spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that tracks hate crimes, also said that Target’s reversal would only serve to encourage more violent threats.
“If [Target is] going to wade in on this, and they’re going to put support out there for the LGBTQ+ population, I think once they enter that fray they have a responsibility to stand by that community,” Hayden said. “As soon as you back down like this, you send a message that intimidation works, and that makes it much scarier than if you had never started to begin with.”
