MINNEAPOLIS – US Retailer Target (NYES: TGT) announced that it be removing some of the items related to its “Pride Collection” to protect its employees from what it described as a “volatile situation.” Target’s Pride Collection is displayed usually toward the front of its stores in anticipation of June, Pride Month. Target has been offering its collection for about a decade.
Target’s logo seems to herald a new meaning. The trend against “woke” corporate behavior like Target Corporation offering its Pride Collection has ticked up in the past few months around the world. In Malaysia, where homosexuality is illegal, the government confiscated Pride collection Swatch watches yesterday.
“We strongly contest that our collection of watches using rainbow colors and having a message of peace and love could be harmful to whomever,” Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek Jr. said in a statement.
“On the contrary, Swatch always promotes a positive message of joy in life. This is nothing political. We wonder how the Regulatory and Enforcement Division of the Home Ministry will confiscate the many beautiful natural rainbows that are showing up a thousand times a year in the sky of Malaysia,” he said.
In March, Anheuser-Busch was boycotted by conservatives after the company partnered with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney and sent cases of Bud Light to celebrate her first anniversary of identifying as a woman.
“Anheuser-Busch works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics and passion points,” they said.
“From time to time, we produce unique commemorative cans for fans and brand influencers, like Dylan Mulvaney. This commemorative can was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public.”
Mulvaney’s post of drinking Bud Light on Instagram prompted immediate backlash, including violent outbursts from celebrities like Kid Rock releasing a video shooting a case of the beer.
In response to criticism, Target says it will move the 2,000 items of merchandise that range from clothes and music to home furnishings including rainbow-covered items, “Love is Love” t-shirts as well as “gender fluid” mugs, children’s books such as “Bye Bye, Binary” by Eric Geron, “I’m not a girl” by Jessica Verdi and Maddox Lyons, and “Pride 1 2 3” by Michael Joosten to the back of its stores.
“Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work,” Target said in a statement.
“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.”
Target said it is withdrawing a portion of the Pride Collection from its US stores and its website, the spokesperson told Reuters news agency. The removed items are by designer Erik Carnell, who is gay and transgender and partnered with Target on the collection. Carnell owns the London-based Abprallen brand that sells “pastel goth LGBT Pride” merchandise.
The offensive material receiving public criticism includes items with “demonic messaging” and an “embrace of satanism” on items with Pagan and Pagan-adjacent motifs which include images of horned skulls, pentagrams, and other “Satanic” imagery.
Matt Schlapp, the chair of the Conservative Political Action Coalition, wrote in a public letter to Brian Cornell, Chairman and CEO of Target Corporation, that “conservative and religious Americans have become deeply troubled by your partnership with an individual who practices satanism, along with your apparent embrace of radical gender ideology, which seeks to sterilize and brutalize the bodies of the youth.”
Carnell is not a Satanist.
Schapp added “Carnell openly flaunts his anti-Christian agenda posting that ‘Satan respects pronouns,’ selling items with phrases like, ‘Trans Witches for Abortion,’ and participating in a ‘satanic flea market’ in London called an ‘anti Christmas fayre.’ Someone like this should never be promoted by a company that purports to support families, especially not to create items geared toward children.”
Indeed Abprallen offers an item referencing pride for bisexual Witches and another is a pin that says, “Satan respects pronouns.”
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Abprallen also offers items that say, “Santa respects pronouns”, “Astrology made me Queer,” and “Wizards & Witches Love Trans People” complete with a pentagram.
“I wanted to ensure that any young people who saw Abprallen in Target would know that who they are is beautiful, purposeful, and worth expressing,” Carnell wrote in an Instagram post on May 9.
None of the Abprallen designs sold at Target referenced Satan. A search this afternoon on the Target website for “Abprallen” returned “We couldn’t find a match for your search.”
But, demand for Abprallen items has surged. Their website was down with a statement “Thank you all for your unrelenting support and love. The positivity and beautiful vibes you’ve sent my way this past week have been overwhelming and I can’t thank you enough! I am putting the shop on a short bread while I catch up on all of your orders! See you soon All of my love, Erik.”
A note on Carnell’s Etsy site echoed the statement “Thank you all for the unprecedented number of orders! Your support during this extremely difficult time means more than I can express. I am putting my shop on holiday mode and not accepting new orders until I catch up on the ones I currently have. Thank you so much for your understanding!”
But the controversy over Pride items was exacerbated by false social media claims that Target was offering “tuck-friendly” swimsuits for children. It was not.
Target has been selling adult bathing suits for trans women who have not received gender-affirming medical care. Carnell was not involved in the design of adult “tuck-friendly” swimsuits at Target.
In an interview with Pink News, Carnell, shared “I think it was anticipated that there would be pushback, I don’t think anybody anticipated that it would be quite this extreme.” He added that the company has not contacted him about their decisions which, while disappointing, he understood “from an objective standpoint” the company’s priority to keep “employees safe and keeping their finances safe.”
The designer was sympathetic to Target’s predicament. “If I lived in a country where gun violence was as prevalent as in America and I owned a corporation like Target, I might also do what they’re doing,” Carnell added.
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