Target has betrayed LGBTQ+ communities yet again, limiting their Pride collection to only "select" stores this year—caving to extreme, right-wing bigots who opposed their collection last year. But even worse, once the collection was unveiled, it was drastically reduced, shrinking from 2,000 items last year to only 75 this year!¹ With thousands of stores and millions of customers, Target has a tremendous impact and reach—we must come together and demand they do better for LGBTQ+ employees and customers!

Visibility matters—especially in places where hateful legislators and conservatives are attacking LGBTQ+ rights. By shrinking and limiting their Pride collection, Target is sending a harmful and scary message that instead of showing up to protect and celebrate LGBTQ+ people and their loved ones, places like Target will abandon them. We refuse to go back into the closet or be shoved in the back corner of "select" stores. LGBTQ+ people deserve to be celebrated loudly and abundantly not just during Pride, but all year long.

P.S. See our email below from last month to read more about Target's shameful scaling back of their Pride collection.

News just broke that a few weeks before Pride 2024 is set to begin, Target is abandoning the LGBTQ+ community AGAIN by not selling Pride Merch in HALF of its stores this year.² Unfortunately, this isn't new. This is a pattern of Target's caving to bigots, homophobes, and transphobes. Just one week before Pride Month was set to begin in 2023, Target caved to an orchestrated attack by anti-LGBTQ+ bigots and pulled items from its 2023 Pride merch collection—which featured items produced by small businesses owned by queer and trans creators, designers, and artists—off their shelves.³It is completely unacceptable for Target to abandon these communities to appease right-wing extremists.

Right-wing extremists have said themselves that their goal is to make Pride toxic for companies.⁴ That they want to eradicate LGBTQ+ people from public life.⁵ We won't let them. We are here, and we aren't going anywhere.

Just this year alone, across the U.S., Republicans have introduced 515 (and counting) violent, abusive, and hateful anti-LGBTQ+ bills in state legislatures, many of which have already passed.⁶ Our community is under attack every single day. LGBTQ+ people, especially trans and nonbinary people, have faced rising threats and acts of violence due to the constant dehumanization at the hands of Republican legislators across the country.⁷

Target can't claim to support its LGBTQ+ team members and customers only when it's convenient or profitable to them. By removing Pride merch from its stores, Target is enabling bigots and emboldening right-wing extremists. And it's are sending a very clear and harmful message to LGBTQ+ communities that the company will abandon us when it counts, and that we should hide our identities when confronted with bigotry. Pride is about living and loving boldly and unapologetically, and if Target wants to continue to boast about supporting their LGBTQ+ team members and customers, reinstating its Pride merch is the floor, not the ceiling.

Last year, Target's Pride collection featured, uplifted, and amplified LGBTQ+ small businesses, creators, artists, and designers, many of whom were so excited that their work and products would be featured by a household name like Target. But the second that anti-LGBTQ+ bigots pushed back, Target caved and abandoned these creators and our communities.

Corporations like Target participate in "rainbow capitalism" to sell their products to the LGBTQ+ community, but then they abandon our communities the minute they are faced with backlash from right-wing extremists. It's unacceptable.

By removing Pride merchandise, Target is sending a message that bigots are welcome at Target and that LGBTQ+ people and their family, friends, and loved ones are not. The decision further puts Target's LGBTQ+ employees and customers at risk of harassment and danger by drawing a line of who is protected, who is supported, and who is heard. LGBTQ+ Target employees and customers should not have to worry if Target will have their back if they experience discrimination and bigotry in its stores.

This is a major step backward in terms of making sure LGBTQ+ people are safe and celebrated in public, and we cannot and will not allow bigots, homophobes, and transphobes to viciously erase LGBTQ+ people from this country. We all have to be in this together, in solidarity with all LGBTQ+ folks—especially Black, brown, and Indigenous LGBTQ+ people. The LGBTQ+ community deserves the right to feel safe and supported everywhere. Target has a responsibility to do what is right, starting with reinstating its Pride merch NOW.

You're receiving this petition because we thought it might interest you. It was created on MoveOn.org, where anyone can start their own online petitions. You can start your own petition here.

Want to support MoveOn's work? The MAGA movement's book bans have forced teachers and librarians across the country to remove books from their shelves and censor what young people can learn. MoveOn is fighting back, including by filling a "Banned Bookmobile" with books that the far right has banned and driving it to key cities and towns to raise the visibility of book bans, hand out banned books for free, and bring people together to stop censorship. To keep up the fight against book bans and the MAGA politicians who support them, we need your help.

Will you start a monthly gift to power and sustain MoveOn's critical work?

Yes, I'll chip in $5 a month.

No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.

PAID FOR BY MOVEON POLITICAL ACTION, https://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. MoveOn Political Action - PO Box 96142, Washington, D.C. 20090-6142.

This email was sent to John xxxxxx on June 11, 2024. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. MoveOn's privacy policy was recently updated. To read our new privacy policy, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.