Target Removes Pride-Themed Merchandise After Threats

metroweekly.com:

customers ranting over Pride-themed merchandise, confronting store employees, or destroying displays. They claim the company is seeking to indoctrinate people — particularly children — into either being LGBTQ or accepting LGBTQ people as normal.On Tuesday, May 23, the big box retailer said portions of its “Pride collection” will be removed from stores “amid threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and wellbeing while at work,” Target spokesperson Kayla Castaneda said in a statement to Newsweek.“Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”Among the “adjustments” Target plans to make are pulling from both store shelves and its website a line of adult swimsuits marketed for its ability to “tuck” genitalia for transgender women, and some Pride-themed children’s merchandise.Conservatives have taken issue with the use of rainbow colors or items of clothing in colors stereotypically associated with a particular gender, such as boys’ shirts with floral designs, in pastel colors, or pink.Some conservative media outlets falsely reported that the “tuck-friendly” swimsuits were marketed to children, but the Associated Press later confirmed the swimsuits were only for adults.Other conservatives demanded a boycott of Target over its partnership with the U.K.-based brand Abprallen, which they claim glorifies Satanism due to the individual designer’s religious beliefs.Some of Abprallen pieces Target was selling included a sweatshirt reading, “Cure transphobia, not trans people,” a tote bag reading “Too queer for here,” and a messenger pack that reads “We belong everywhere.”The designer, Erik.