NEW YORK, May 23 (Reuters) – (This May 23 story has been corrected to correct the spelling of Carnell’s first name to Erik, from Eric, in paragraph 8)
Target, which launched its Pride Collection at the beginning of May, is pulling some products from its stores after facing customer backlash, saying it was acting to protect employee safety, the company said. told Reuters on Tuesday.
Target Corp ( TGT.N ) offers more than 2,000 products, including clothing, books, music and home goods as part of its Pride Collection. Items include “gender fluid” mugs, “queer all year” calendars and books for children ages 2-8 titled “Bye Bye, Binary,” “Pride 1,2, 3” and “I’m not a girl.”
“Since introducing this year’s collection, we have experienced threats that have impacted our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work,” Target said in a statement.
“Due to these volatile circumstances, we are making changes to our plans, including removing items that are at the center of the most important confrontation criteria,” said the Minneapolis-based retailer.
Target has been celebrating Pride Month for over a decade. But this year’s collection led to an increase in confrontations between customers and employees and incidents of Pride merchandise being thrown on the floor, Target spokeswoman Kayla Castaneda said.
Target’s action comes amid a conservative backlash against Bud Light, after brewer Anheuser-Busch promoted the beer on social media last month with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Target’s recalled products have been removed from all U.S. stores and from its website, Castaneda said.
While reviewing the various Pride Collection products, the only one removed so far is the LGBTQ brand Abprallen, which was scrutinized for its association with British designer Erik Carnell.
Carnell has faced social media backlash for designing merchandise with images of pentagrams, horned skulls and other Satanic products.
A search for Abprallen merchandise on Target.com on Tuesday returned “0” results.
Screenshots and posts on social media shows that Target previously sold a $25 slogan sweater with the words “cure transphobia not trans people” and an $18 “too queer for here” tote bag.
Target is also investigating some transgender swimsuits and children’s products, Castaneda said, but no decision has been made on those products.
For example, a swimsuit sold in the women’s section was reviewed in a way that described its fit as “tuck-friendly,” emphasizing its ability to conceal the male genitalia.
A Fox News report earlier Tuesday said some Target stores in Southern states were moving Pride-related merchandise from storefronts. An employee at a Target store in Arkansas told Reuters they had moved Pride-related swimsuits deeper into the store.
“We had swimsuits in the front… but now they are in a random area in the back,” said the employee, who did not want to be named. “We started moving merchandise on Sunday.”
Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler
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