Target Removes Book That Hurt Activist’s Feelings From Its Stores

I haven’t been to Target in years. I miss their swimsuit section and accessory aisle. The store simply had a nice ambiance, and you could buy wine, candy, and a dress in the same place. Hello? Yes, please!! But, like everything good in life, it was ruined by the political influence of the left.

In 2015, they started with no gendered signs in the toy aisles or bedding sections. As anyone being dragged by multiple children of different genders to the toy section knows, you want to spend equal time in both areas but not too long in either. That’s very difficult to do when they’ve removed the paper backing off the shelves that separate the designated areas and removed the headers for each aisle. That’s not to mention when you’re running in for a last-minute birthday or Christmas present. Yeah, good luck to you. Just a few aisles to wander through with your mouth hanging open and your eyes darting all around. The signs should read “HAHAHA!” or “We hate you.” Either would seem accurate.

In 2016 Target launched a line of gender-neutral bedroom products for children. I don’t know how many people bought their drab, desert-brown or puke-green comforters for their disappointed kids. I know our daughter wanted pink with sequins or Disney princesses, and our son wanted Navy blue.

Progressives around the world cheered! They were gaining ground in the culture wars. Feminism meant your daughter had gray bedding instead of pink, and she had to spend 30 minutes in the toy aisle looking for a doll. Maybe she’d accidentally buy a truck, and then they’d really know they were gaining ground.

As a conservative, I saw all of this nonsense as a waste of time I didn’t have. If my daughter wanted a truck, I’d just walk over to the boy aisle and buy her a truck. But I couldn’t do that, because I couldn’t even find the damned trucks in Target, so I was simply shopping elsewhere. I would still order online if I needed something that only Target had, but I wasn’t going into the store if I could help it.

I thought they were going downhill with the toy aisle but then Target was like, “Hold my gender nonconforming beer.”

In April of 2016, the store released a statement establishing a new policy towards transgendered people. The entire statement was long and useless. Here’s the important bit:

In our stores, we demonstrate our commitment to an inclusive experience in many ways. Most relevant for the conversations currently underway, we welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity.

And right here you can see just a few cases of men peeping on or filming women and girls in Target bathrooms and dressing rooms in 2016 and 2017.

Family advocates warned Target that the policy could be dangerous, and mounted a boycott with 1.4 million signatures. Despite evidence of their fallacy and the loss of customers, Target’s response was to reaffirm their stance.

“We welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity,” Target declared in a public statement over the matter. “Everyone deserves to feel like they belong.”

People do stupid things all the time. They dance on tables and are surprised when the tables flip over. They run through screen doors in a house they’ve lived in for years. They climb ladders with running chainsaws.

We expect corporations to make sound judgments, but after putting feelings over facts and policies over customers, Target is being stupid again. At this point, I think it’s what we’ve come to expect.

After receiving a single complaint about a book titled Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, Target has removed the book from its stores. 

The complaint came from a “Transtifa Activist” whose bio includes All Cops Are Bastards (ACAB) and Black Lives Matter. When someone pointed out the censorship, they responded “I will sensor every nazi, racist, homophobe, transphobe, antisemite, misogynist, terf, etc. until there are none left. Oh and by the way target not selling a book full of lies doesn’t end free speech.” [sic] Their account is now private, but a screenshot was captured before that happened. (I say “they” because I don’t know how the pronouns work, and I don’t care to learn.)

Abigail Shrier, the author of the book, has encountered censorship before. Earlier this year she pointed out how her book was mysteriously absent from Amazon ads. After having her work removed from Target she tweeted, “Does it bother anyone that Woke activists and spineless corporations now determine what Americans are allowed to read?”

Shrier’s book explores “how a wave of young girls are nudged and pushed into declaring they want to take life-altering drugs, adopt an opposite-sex identity, and undergo irreversible surgery.” The subject matter is important, rarely researched, and hotly contested. At a time when rates of transgenderism are soaring amongst teenaged girls, a look from both sides of the conversation should be welcome.

If you’re already boycotting Target, this is just another eye-roll for you. But if you’re still giving them your money, I’d suggest doing a little research into their policies and seeing if they line up with your views. I don’t have any animosity for transgender people, but I don’t like Target putting their appeasement above the safety of children and families. I personally don’t like my stores taking much of a political stance at all. I just want to be able to shop for things without it making a statement. But if they are intent on driving leftist progressive policies, they can see if those progressives and their money will keep Target stores afloat.