Targeting Target over Transgender Kowtow

Target is facing a storm of criticism for its transgender bathroom policy, and nearly a quarter of a million people have signed a petition pledging to boycott the retail chain.

The petition was launched by the American Family Association in response to Target’s decision to allow “transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity.”

The petition to currently has over 718,000 signatures and is gaining thousands more by the hour.

In a press release announcing the petition, AFA president Tom Wildmon asserts that such bathroom policies embolden sexual predators and put women and girls at risk. “Target’s policy is exactly how sexual predators get access to their victims,” said Wildmon.

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“And with Target publicly boasting that men can enter women’s bathrooms, where do you think predators are going to go?” Wildmon asked. “Clearly, Target’s new policy poses a danger to wives and daughters.”

“We think many customers will agree. And we think the average Target customer is willing to pledge to boycott Target stores until it makes protecting women and children a priority.”

But Target has only doubled down in the face of this growing customer backlash. “We certainly respect that there are a wide variety of perspectives and opinions,” said Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder.

“As a company that firmly stands behind what it means to offer our team an inclusive place to work — and our guests an inclusive place to shop — we continue to believe that this is the right thing for Target.”

Target’s original press release announcing the transgender bathroom policy claimed that “everyone deserves to feel like they belong. And you’ll always be accepted, respected, and welcomed at Target.”

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But the company’s radical bathroom policy makes it abundantly clear that it does not think innocent little girls or their concerned parents deserve to feel like they belong. It also gives a loud and clear signal that those with traditional values and completely reasonable concerns about male predators are not accepted, respected, or welcome at Target.

And the concerns of those worried that “transgender-friendly” bathroom policies will quickly devolve into “predator-friendly” bathroom policies are not without merit. Reports of perverts caught in women’s bathrooms have only grown as policies like Target’s spread.

In Seattle, Washington in February a man wearing board shorts entered a women’s locker room in a public pool and began to disrobe. After women alerted staff, who then told the man to leave, he claimed that “the law has changed and I have a right to be here.”

In Prince William County, Virginia a man dressed as a woman was arrested in November 2015 after police said he was caught peeping into restroom stalls three times in that year. In 2014, a man in Toronto, Canada was jailed indefinitely after claiming to be transgender in order to gain access to a women’s shelter — where he sexually assaulted and raped multiple women.

Yet despite these stories, proponents of bathroom policies like Target’s continue to paint opponents as mere bigots. “We want to make it very clear that AFA does not believe the transgender community poses this danger to the wider public,” Wildmon writes in another press release. “Rather, this misguided and reckless policy provides a possible gateway for predators who are out there.”

But that Wildmon needed to state something so patently obvious to those not blinded by their emotional commitment to the progressive orthodoxy of the day shows the extent to which the left is willing to go in order silence its opponents — and the extent to which big corporations have adopted its agenda.

“If Target is truly committed to a solid policy that’s good for business — for everyone — and if they’re truly committed to the transgender community, the company will spend the money for a unisex compromise,” Wildmon writes. “Anything else smacks of an agenda-driven publicity stunt that stands in complete disregard for people who reject the policy.”

“Corporate America must stop bullying people who disagree with the radical left agenda to remake society into their progressive image.”

The more than 700,000 people who have so far signed the AFA’s boycott pledge clearly agree.