Company, which operates roughly 2,000 stores, declined to disclose number of stores where merchandise will not be available

Target confirmed Friday that it won’t carry Pride Month merchandise at all stores in June after the discount retailer experienced a backlash and lower sales over its collection honoring LGBTQ+ communities.

Target, which operates roughly 2,000 stores, said decisions about where to stock Pride-themed products, including adult apparel, home goods, foods and beverages, would be based on “guest insights and consumer research”.

A Target spokesperson declined to disclose the number of stores where the merchandise will not be available, but the company said its online shop would offer a full assortment. The moves were first reported by Bloomberg.

  • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Let’s be honest. This collection isn’t supporting the LGBTQ+ community, it’s exploiting it. They don’t donate the profits to HRC, and they don’t feature designers from the community. It’s all cheaply made, high margin, bottom line padding.

  • seaQueue@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Oh neat, now we’re letting fundamentalist extremists dictate what can and can’t be sold in stores. Surely this can’t go wrong.

    • DeadWorld
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      6 months ago

      I guess we do negotiate with terrorists in america

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Haven’t we always?

      IMO, the only difference between the past and now is that they have to actively fight against it instead of it just being suppressed by the dominant culture (that felt the same way, but didn’t have to openly enforce it).

  • HuddaBudda@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    “I bet your target is missing a pride section,” is going to be a low-key burn to some folks.

    I bet $100 to donuts that conservatives will still drive out of town to other targets to make it a big deal anyway.

    • slurpinderpin@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      They live “out of town”, the in city Targets are likely the ones carrying it. These fucks won’t even step a foot in a big city because they’re so “full of crime” and “those people”

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Best burn I ever heard needs some background. It came from one of two high school friends (but in our mid-20s at the time), both of who were (and are) queer, and both of who identified as gay and male in high school. But after high school, one of them got in a long-term relationship with a woman (they were even my roommates for a while). After they broke up, he said he identified as gay again. So the three of us were in a diner and the two of them got into a heated argument and finally, one of my friends says to the other:

      “Yeah? Well at least I didn’t turn straight for a while!”

      I don’t know how long I laughed for, but a pretty long time.

      • Curiousfur@yiffit.net
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        6 months ago

        It’s funny in the context, but as a bisexual guy in a poly relationship, it really bums me out when other queer people treat the appearance of heterosexual as a demerit (see gold star lesbians, etc…). Humans aren’t binary in any way, but we act like we can only be attracted to genitals and not have exceptions to a general rule because of an emotional connection.

          • Curiousfur@yiffit.net
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            6 months ago

            I know, and I’ve known gay men who think the same thing, I’m just contributing my 2¢. Bi-erasure is something that I deal with fairly routinely as a blue collar worker, and I feel that gay folks having an anti-hetero bias is more hurtful than straight people having a hetero bias because I expect to find more community from other LGBT people because I can’t always expect it as a baseline from straight people.

  • theblackbox@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    What is particularly despicable about this business strategy is that they are going to pull all of the LGBTQ+ merchandise from areas which are hostile toward that population and only sell it in areas where it is embraced/non-controversial. Meaning that the folks who would most benefit from the normalizing of showing pride in their identity are left without it. I can only imagine how extra painful it is for closeted gay kids in these areas to see that the local Target knows and is essentially telling them that their community is anti-LGBTQ+ and not worth them risking showing a speck of rainbow during June.

  • Dagwood222
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    6 months ago

    MAGoo logic.

    We believe in freedom and capitalism. We’ll boycott any store that sells things that honors freedom.

  • xpinchx@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Ultimately they’ve pissed off both sides with how they handled pride this year and last year.

  • 🔰Hurling⚜️Durling🔱@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Well I guess those who support LGBTQA should also protest by boycotting those Target stores. There should be no room for these closed-minded idiots for their backward thinking.

  • modifier@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    An interesting prospect to consider is what customer data was used to determine locations, and how it was collected.

  • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 months ago

    I think the backlash they got is terrible but I can also understand why a business wouldn’t waste time selling products in a market that doesn’t want said products. That’s valuable floor space and other resources that could be used for something that will sell there. Target is not the bad guy here.