When Target reiterated last week that transgender employees and customers can use restrooms and fitting rooms that match their gender, apoplectic bigots threatened to boycott.
The American Family Association (AFA), a fundamentalist Christian nonprofit that is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), claims to have gathered more than 517,000 signatures on its petition.
“Target’s store policy endangers women and children by allowing men to frequent women’s facilities,” the boycott pledge reads. “Until Target makes the safety of women and children a priority, I will shop elsewhere.”
First of all, there is no evidence to suggest that transgender people are a danger in restrooms, nor that anti-transgender legislation protects the safety of women and children.
Groups like the AFA often cite rare fringe cases of non-transgender sexual predators dressing like women in bathrooms but fail to clarify that these criminals can already be prosecuted under existing privacy legislation.
For instance, a Virginia man who dressed as a woman and brought recording equipment into a ladies’ room last year was charged with peeping and unlawful filming. Additional laws focused on chromosomes or birth certificates were—and are still—unnecessary.
But facts aside, if any open support of transgender people is a deal-breaker for the half-million signatories on AFA’s pledge, then the boycott needs to get bigger. A lot bigger.
Last year, 407 businesses achieved a perfect score of 100 on the Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a survey distributed by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) that measures support for LGBT employees and the broader LGBT community. That high score is impossible to achieve without having trans-inclusive health-care and anti-discrimination policies that include gender identity.
In other words, money spent at at these businesses helps to normalize a culture in which transgender people are seen as valid and worthy of special protection.
These 407 companies aren’t exactly mom-and-pop shops, either. It would be almost impossible for bigots to avoid doing business with all of them.
In fact, if you oppose transgender rights, you shouldn’t even be spreading AFA’s petition using their recommended #BoycottTarget hashtag because Facebook, Twitter, and Google all aced the CEI. Every minute spent on those social media giants helps them promote LGBT equality, including the T.
If you don’t want your money to go to a company that openly supports transgender people, you can’t buy an iPhone, eat an Egg McMuffin, drink a Sprite, stock up Budweiser, or fill your prescriptions at either of the nation’s two largest pharmacy chains because Apple, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Walgreens, and CVS all scored a 100 on the HRC index.
What say you?
The American Family Association (AFA), a fundamentalist Christian nonprofit that is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), claims to have gathered more than 517,000 signatures on its petition.
“Target’s store policy endangers women and children by allowing men to frequent women’s facilities,” the boycott pledge reads. “Until Target makes the safety of women and children a priority, I will shop elsewhere.”
First of all, there is no evidence to suggest that transgender people are a danger in restrooms, nor that anti-transgender legislation protects the safety of women and children.
Groups like the AFA often cite rare fringe cases of non-transgender sexual predators dressing like women in bathrooms but fail to clarify that these criminals can already be prosecuted under existing privacy legislation.
For instance, a Virginia man who dressed as a woman and brought recording equipment into a ladies’ room last year was charged with peeping and unlawful filming. Additional laws focused on chromosomes or birth certificates were—and are still—unnecessary.
But facts aside, if any open support of transgender people is a deal-breaker for the half-million signatories on AFA’s pledge, then the boycott needs to get bigger. A lot bigger.
Last year, 407 businesses achieved a perfect score of 100 on the Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a survey distributed by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) that measures support for LGBT employees and the broader LGBT community. That high score is impossible to achieve without having trans-inclusive health-care and anti-discrimination policies that include gender identity.
In other words, money spent at at these businesses helps to normalize a culture in which transgender people are seen as valid and worthy of special protection.
These 407 companies aren’t exactly mom-and-pop shops, either. It would be almost impossible for bigots to avoid doing business with all of them.
In fact, if you oppose transgender rights, you shouldn’t even be spreading AFA’s petition using their recommended #BoycottTarget hashtag because Facebook, Twitter, and Google all aced the CEI. Every minute spent on those social media giants helps them promote LGBT equality, including the T.
If you don’t want your money to go to a company that openly supports transgender people, you can’t buy an iPhone, eat an Egg McMuffin, drink a Sprite, stock up Budweiser, or fill your prescriptions at either of the nation’s two largest pharmacy chains because Apple, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Walgreens, and CVS all scored a 100 on the HRC index.
What say you?
hot dog fingers and small keyboards dont jive!
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