Target has been promoting LGBTQ+-themed merchandise for over a decade, but this year social media posts about the gear led to widespread calls for boycotts across the country.
Among the merchandise promoted by Target during June were adult women’s-style swimwear intended to help transgender-identifying men conceal their genitals as well as a children’s swim skirt with a tag describing itself as fit for “multiple body types and gender expressions.”
One of Target’s Pride merchandise partners, U.K.-based brand Abprallen, was discovered to also have produced apparel depicting satanic imagery and messages promoting violence against “homophobes.” Though these items were not sold at Target, the brand’s partnership with the store added to the anger fueling the boycott.
In a video recording taken in June, conservative commentator Benny Johnson showed Target’s Pride merchandise and said that the “Target brand needs to be toxic” among “people that believe in common sense and among people that are just basic anti-grooming, anti-sex-cult, and anti-satanism.”
Until now, it had not been clear what effect, if any, the boycott had on Target’s sales.
“As it turns out, working with Satanists to push transgenderism on children was not a wise business strategy,” Michael Seifert, founder and CEO of the conservative Amazon alternative PublicSq., commented on X.
