A petition from the American Family Association (AFA) reached 1 million signatures for boycotting Target due to transgender bathroom policy on Sunday. The chain’s perception dropped significantly as well after their statement, from 42% to 38%, as measured by the YouGov BrandIndex.
The AFA started an online application for boycotting the retail stores nationwide because the institution considered that Target’s statement, where they offered a safe environment for transgender people to use the bathroom that matches their identity, was unsafe to wives and daughters, according to a statement from the AFA.
“Target’s policy is exactly how sexual predators get access to their victims,” the AFA said. “And with Target publicly boasting that men can enter women’s bathrooms, where do you think predators are going to go?”
The institution encouraged people who agreed with them to call Target “and let them know how much money they are losing”. However, they advised to do it in a firm but polite way. The line of opinions came from an actual debate being held in North Carolina, which prohibits transgender people from using the bathroom according to their sexual identity.
According to Target, everyone deserves to be protected from discrimination and treated equally and with that in mind, the chain announced its support for the federal equality act, that provides protections to LGBT individuals and opposes action that enables discrimination.
Later in the statement, the company stated that they welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity, Target published on its website on April 19.
Support for the LGBT community
Even though the law has taken the attention of target, the company is not the first to ever raise concerns over the implications the law could have. The bill has been having an impact even on the economics of the northern state.
Business and political leaders like executives at Starbucks, Facebook, Google and even Citibank have condemned the law and signed a public letter asking the state’s governor, Pat McCrory, who is running for reelection, to repeal the law.
More recently, an important company against the bathroom law, Paypal, has canceled its plans to open an operations center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The implications in the economics are losses of about 400 jobs in the state and about $3.6 millions of investment, as reported by the New York Times.
Source: The American Family Association
No way 1 million people signed that crap. Inflated numbers. You know, like “one million moms”. LOL
Most of the bozos who signed the petition either don’t shop at Target anyway or will sneak in and spend money despite their phoney indignation because, hey, accumulating stuff, amassing material possessions is what conservatism is all about. In the end, none of this will amount to a hill of beans.
This issue has nothing to do with Conservative vs. Progressive. It’s an issue relating directly to the security of women and children.
Normally if progressives boycott something conservative, the conservatives will negate the boycott. Same when conservatives boycott a progressive business.
However, this one is different. Even though the boycott was started by a conservative (religious) organization, both sides see the snag in this effort.
But it’s a fix for a problem that doesn’t exist. There isn’t a long history of transgender people molesting children or raping women. In fact, more conservative politicians and evangelical preachers have been convicted of those types of crimes than have transgenders . And what is to stop real child molesters and rapists from dressing up like the opposite sex and going into the “wrong” bathrooms and doing mischief? Are we now going to have genital checks at every public bathroom door?
Here in NC, I think the law was merely a red herring meant to distract from the fact that Republicans, in the same bill, tried to remove all workplace discrimination laws, at least at the state level. Just another Republican subterfuge to screw over the working man.
These laws are like the voter ID laws Republicans have been passing by the dozens. They don’t address real problems but have a sneaky, underhanded agenda intended to harm certain classes of people of whom right wingers don’t approve. It’s chickens _ _ t and cowardly any way you look at it.
If you read my post, you’d see that we are not in disagreement. The issue is NOT with transgendered people, it’s with sexual predators.
Sorry, Larry, if I was preaching to the choir, but I’m having a little trouble getting your point. I’m certainly against sexual predators, too, but I don’t see how these laws really do much to thwart them.
It’s easy to identify a scenario where a predator would simply claim gender identity discrimination and would not only be able to sue the store, but “get away” with it.
Targets policy will cost them millions. The deconstruction of society hits a bump in the road.
Well, look at this way, if a transgender (male identifying as female) went into a “men’s” bathroom, they would probably get the s**t beat out of them by the macho males. So, where do they go then? Maybe they just feel more secure in the ladies bathroom. Maybe everyone needs to add a third bathroom for people that are afraid to use the men/women bathrooms. That would be costly but, alleviate all the fighting and arguing that is occurring in this nation.
If those macho males don’t beat up the most effeminate gay men, I don’t think the transvestites have much to worry about.
I suppose someone wants to stand outside every bathroom to make sure they approve of who enters. And someone inside to check people’s plumbing? Peeping Tom camera’s in the stalls?
There are laws against that.
Target is stuck. They had no good way out of this. Had they spoken against it there would also be a boycott from the other side.
A boycott from “the other side” wouldn’t have hurt them financially, but this will. The vast majority of Target’s customers don’t care about the store’s stance on social issues, but they do care about their personal safety.
They should have put their shareholders and profits first by doing nothing. Instead, they chose to try something controversial and trendy that benefits a miniscule fraction of their customers, but alienates the majority. They are a business, not a social organization, and they forgot that. Doing anything at all was a bad business decision. A million signatures on a petition is nothing. For every signature on that petition, there are at least 10 people who will simply shop elsewhere now. The silent majority.
This is similar to the naive, misguided campaign by Starbucks a while back to start a “conversation” with their customers about race. That backfired too, but the financial impact to Starbucks was nothing compared to what you’ll see from this Target fiasco.
That Starbucks thing was hilarious. Some bozo serving over priced coffee is really going to lecture a business professional on how the world works.
Hopefully the revenues this quarter will really take a dive. If the earnings per share drop significantly, the CEO will be sacked. It would be a quite fitting end.