A visit to two Target stores in Alaska show that Pride Month is already here, as least for the LGBTQ-promoting marketers who create store experiences.
Prominent displays of transgender-themed apparel, including breast-binding bathing suit tops and penis-binding bathing suit bottoms, are at the front of the stores, the first things shoppers see when they come through the door. The rainbow flag is accompanied with a transgender flag, lesbian flag, but not an American flag in sight. The flags Target sells are made in China.
On Tuesday, Fox News reported that some Target stores in southern states were forced by the corporation management to move LGBTQ Pride merchandise away from the front of their stores after customer “outrage.” The stores were given 36 hours to get the displays to the back of the stores. The company wants to avoid getting boycotted the way Bud Light has been boycotted after its partnership with transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney.
Target stores have skipped over Memorial Day and gone straight for gay. There are no American flags to be seen in the entryway displays. Instead, it’s all rainbows and transgender flags. Pride month is in June, and Target has been a leader in the LGBTQ+ celebrations, and was also one of the first major stores to allow men to use women’s bathrooms.
In the display, there are items for men, women, gender indeterminant, and children. There are mugs, cards, purses, sweatshirts and more with gay, queer, and transgender themes.
“A Target insider told Fox News Digital that many locations, mostly in rural areas of the South, have relocated Pride sections to avoid the kind of backlash Bud Light has received in recent weeks after using a transgender influencer in a promotional campaign,” Fox reports.
But Alaska Target stores did not get that memo, although there were no shoppers in that section during a store visit on Tuesday.
A visit to a Fred Meyer store in Anchorage on Tuesday was markedly different.
The first items that shoppers see in the Fred Meyer non-grocery entryway is an American flag bunting in front of barbecue-themed items, and American flag cowboy hats, and some American flags. Memorial Day is the federal holiday honoring those who sacrificed their lives for America in wartime. It will be observed May 29 this year, and is typically a day for family get-togethers, and flag placing on the graves of the fallen.
Target made the news last week when it was discovered that one of the designers for its Pride Month collection also has a Satan-inspired line of clothing.
Alaska has three Target stores — two in Anchorage and one in Wasilla. California, however, has over 200 Target stores, one tenth of the over 2,000 Target stores nationwide.
