Target is giving in to anti-LGBTQ bullies – it’s time to fight back

LGBTQ people belong at the heart of American society. We must refuse to go back into the closet and punish those who seek to force us back in

Nothing is more all-American than a big box store. In our increasingly fragmented and isolated society, Target is still a place Americans of all walks of life gather – a place where our collective national values are represented. Capitalism is our national religion, and big box stores are our local churches.

The first time I saw Pride merchandise in Target, my heart soared. People like me, so long excluded from mainstream American society, were being not only represented but celebrated. Pride being in a mainstream big box store like Target marked a cultural shift from the 90s and 00s where being gay was so verboten that brands wouldn’t dare market to us so openly, especially in colorful displays prominently placed in the store. It signaled a mainstream acceptance.

It is unsurprising, then, that the far-right would target LGBTQ inclusion in what is one of the last universals in American life. In a video posted yesterday by the Twitter account @PatriotTakes, an unhinged extremist harasses Target employees after destroying a Pride display. “Your kids can’t be gay!” he shouts at a family shopping with their children as he is escorted out of the store.

This is not an isolated incident. In Montana, a transgender couple was harassed by a far-right thug who destroyed a Pride display at a Target in Missoula, telling the couple to “enjoy [the merchandise] while you can.” And last year, another far-right extremist in Arizona threatened to “hunt” LGBTQ people and their allies in Target stores, warning that we are “not safe.”

It certainly feels that way – which, of course, is the point. These attacks, driven by the stochastic terrorism of far-right ideologues like Tucker Carlson and Chaya Raichik who regularly peddle irrational and unfounded hate towards the LGBTQ community, have now led to actual hate crimes in Target stores. While the victims (so far) have been merchandise, and not people, the goal and the result are the intimidation and threatening of the LGBTQ community and our allies – the very definition of a hate crime.

None of this is Target’s fault. They did not invite the far-right into their stores. They did not ask to be the latest battlefield in the MAGA culture war against gay and trans people.

I feel some sympathy for the company, which finds itself between a rock and a hard place. “For more than a decade, Target has offered an assortment of products aimed at celebrating Pride Month,” a statement from the company reads. “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.”

Target certainly has a responsibility to protect its employees, a responsibility we should all appreciate. None of those minimum wage workers signed up to be harassed, threatened, or worse for doing their job. This, however, is the wrong move. Rather than standing up to the very people who are threatening their employees and causing a hostile work environment, Target is capitulating to them. The far-right demagogues have won.

Target’s actions serve only to encourage further acts of violent intimidation from the far-right, who now sees that such actions can work in their favor. Far from making their employees or customers safer, they’ve put them all in more danger of further attacks from extremists. By giving in to the demands of people who use tactics which are comparable to those used by the black shirts, Target is emboldening 21st century fascists to continue intimidating and threatening our community and emboldening them towards full-on violence.

None of this is about brands, corporate allyship, or rainbow capitalism. I am under no illusion that Target actually cares about LGBTQ people, despite marketing to us. They care about their bottom line, just like any corporation.

What this is about, though, is LGBTQ people’s right to exist in the public sphere. Our inclusion in these stores represents our integration into mainstream, respectable society. To people who despise us and want to force us back into the closet, this is wholly unacceptable. Seeing Pride prominently displayed in a Target store enrages them because it signals a level of acceptance they cannot stomach. It means the hate and disgust they feel towards us, which for so long they felt justified in because the rest of society also shared that same hate and disgust, is increasingly unacceptable. Where we were once the pariahs, they now fear they will be.

Rather than abandoning their prejudices, they resort to intimidation and brute force to impose their worldview on the rest of us. They plan to force us out of public life and back into the closets where they won’t have to see us. This is not, then, about anything being “forced down their throats” but rather about our very presence in the public sphere – in this case, at the heart of the American civic religion.

In that way, the psychology behind this far-right backlash is no different than the psychology of the men and women who poured soup and milkshakes over the heads of those brave Civil Rights demonstrators sitting in at lunch counters in the 1960s. This is about preserving a social order in which LGBTQ people are subordinate to the extreme Christo-fascists, in which our very existence is predicated on following their parochial and authoritarian rules.

We are not free, in the far right’s ideal world. We do as they say. Just like Target is doing now.

Target giving in and removing Pride merchandise rather than punishing and pushing back against the violent customers and their threats is thus not just about our ability to buy rainbow goods. Rather, this is about signaling that if the far-right gets aggressive and threatening enough, they can force LGBTQ people out of polite society and eventually out of the public sphere altogether.

I, for one, will not go quietly. The LGBTQ community and our allies must fight back. We must understand these attacks as what they are – attacks on our right to exist in public – and take them seriously. We must organize and stand in solidarity against any attempt to erase us. We must flex our own muscles while remaining peaceful.

If that means sit-ins in Targets, if that means boycotts of other companies that likewise capitulate to the far-right, if that means marches on corporate headquarters and state and national capitals, so be it. These actions, however, must be targeted, organized, unified, and sustained. It can’t be down to individuals. We need national organizations like HRC, GLAAD, and others to step up and lead. We need allies to join us and remain with us in our collective action, even when it hurts.

LGBTQ people belong at the heart of American society, just as any other group belongs. We must refuse to go back into the closet and punish those who seek to force us back in or through cowardice or greed give in to those who would. It is time to show the world that we are here, we are queer, and we’re not going anywhere.