Target pulling 2024 pride collection in select stores

[PartySick 172,975]

Target has announced that it will only sell their Pride Month collection in select stores after suffering a backlash and boycott last year during the 2023 Pride season.

The company says that instead of offering their Pride Month collection merchandise across all stores, they will be “offering a collection of products including adult apparel and home and food and beverage items, curated based on consumer feedback. The collection will be available on Target.com and in select stores, based on historical sales performance,” the company said in a statement on their website on Thursday.

Target suffered a backlash and boycott last summer during Pride season which prompted the chain to pull some of the LGBTQIA+ merchandise, which, in turn, caused a separate backlash against that decision as they became the center of a culture battle.

“For more than a decade, Target has offered an assortment of products aimed at celebrating Pride Month,” Target said in May of 2023 amid the fury. “Since introducing this year's collection, we've experienced threats impacting our team members' sense of safety and well-being while at work. 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. Our focus now is on moving forward with our continuing commitment to the LGBTQIA+ community and standing with them as we celebrate Pride Month and throughout the year.”

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[PartySick 172,975]

Wbk corporate pride was fake but it's still gut wrenching to see them cater to the bigots. I just know my local (Florida) Targets will be rainbow free

[ALGAYDO 35,182]

****ing spineless pussies 

[Bling 31,681]

The sad thing is that the collection will more than likely only appear in more diverse/metro areas, where the rural area need representation the most...

[Quentin 6,786]

Targots!

[REALITY 80,176]

Everyday I feel like we’re going backwards. This is so exhausting 

[PEZ 6,599]

So they chose the option that will disappoint everybody... to the community, they come off as cowards and fair-weather allies by not offering it everywhere, and to bigots -- well, they're still gonna be mad it's offered at all. I'm unimpressed

[Bonkers 30,860]

It's the truth they can't win.   Sometimes taking a break to let things cool down is the best strategy.

We can just be extra gay and mock them for cancel culture.  

[Anderson123 42,740]

It's exhausting having to go through this every year but understandable. It's so scary to put their employees in danger every time they want to do this because of how triggered conservatives get at this. And that's only from the couple of videos we see on Twitter.

[Gaga2645 2,299]

32 minutes ago, BlingNotTheMusic said:

The sad thing is that the collection will more than likely only appear in more diverse/metro areas, where the rural area need representation the most...

Very much this part! 
I live in a small town in Houston called Baytown and when I worked there I would wear rainbow accessories during pride month and the customers would always complain. This was around 2018, ans the management always had my back. 
When the backlash happened last year, our pride collection (which mind you it was only the first or second year our store actually got pride) was taken off the floor after not even 2 weeks of being there. 

[high culture 2,362]

Beside pride merch being gaudy, this is a prime example that corporations are not our friends and only pander for us when it serves their wallets

[PartySick 172,975]

3 minutes ago, Gaga2645 said:

Very much this part! 
I live in a small town in Houston called Baytown and when I worked there I would wear rainbow accessories during pride month and the customers would always complain. This was around 2018, ans the management always had my back. 
When the backlash happened last year, our pride collection (which mind you it was only the first or second year our store actually got pride) was taken off the floor after not even 2 weeks of being there. 

Ugh that's so sad.

I work in a bakery in a smaller, ultra conservative Florida town. We have a little counter with a bunch of single serving sized desserts and one of them is a rainbow slice of cake (each layer is a different color).

One time, a little boy and his mom (assuming it's his mom) grabbed one of them and kept browsing the rest of the store. A few minutes later, an older man brought that cake back and got a regular slice of plain white cake. And I can only imagine how disappointing and confusing that was for the kid

I get slurred on the weekly here but things like that really get under my skin.

[RAMROD 117,257]

Disgusting and spineless 

[AsleepOnTheCeiling 6,976]

20 minutes ago, high culture said:

Beside pride merch being gaudy, this is a prime example that corporations are not our friends and only pander for us when it serves their wallets

To be fair, Target was one of the early supporters of the LGBT community before it could even really make money off of it. I understand why people are upset, but I do believe them when they claim that employees were receiving threats. I think they could have done better at explaining what team members went through though. 

[SHALLOW 16,469]

Unpopular opinion but maybe it's fine. 

Like, it's not like we should really believe they care about LGBT. It's always been about business for them