(RNS) Less than a week after Target, the nation’s second-largest discount retailer, announced that transgender customers may use the restroom that “corresponds with their gender identity,” nearly 500,000 people have signed a #BoycottTarget online petition launched by the conservative American Family Association.
In its April 19 announcement, the Minneapolis-based retailer with 1,802 outlets said, “We believe that everyone — every team member, every guest, and every community — deserves to be protected from discrimination, and treated equally.”
The retailer, which had $74 billion in revenue last year, said it was motivated by legislation in about 15 states that would require individuals to use the restroom that corresponds with the sex listed on their birth certificate. The William Institute, a think tank based at UCLA, estimates there are 300,000 transgender people (13 or older) in those 15 states.
I support Target’s inclusive stance because it mirrors Jesus’ inclusive love.
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Supporting target! Makes me want to shop there even more!
If Target has the product I want at the price I want I will shop there. There is a greater chance of harm from a person carrying a gun or someone texting while driving than transgender restroom access. But there is a good chance that forcing a transgender person in to a restroom that is the opposite of their gender identity will result in harm to that person.
Target’s stance represents sanity in this national discussion. HB2 and similar measures represent serious confusion, both about what transgender means and how likely it is that allowing trans people to use the bathroom that fits their identified gender will result in a rash of assaults by cis men posing as trans. The choice is clear.
Read an update on this issue today, apparently thousands of protesters turned up at the North Carolina capitol to support HB2. We can turn out in force by the thousands, literally, about bathrooms, and demonstrate remarkable apathy about refugees or the hungry. This makes me so sad. We have power and we’re using it for all the wrong things.