Posted on 04/24/2016 5:28:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Advocates of traditional family values are calling for a boycott of Target in response to the retail giant's announcement that they allow transgender people to use the restroom and dressing room that aligns with their preferred gender identity. The other way of saying this is that grown men have unrestricted and no-questions-asked access to bathrooms designated for women and girls.
Via their website, Target announced, "[W]e welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity. …Everyone deserves to feel like they belong."
Critics allege that this move is less common sense than nonsense by putting women and girls at risk of increased predation because sexually predatory men will use Target's policy to gain access to female victims. These are very serious concerns, and should not be minimized.
So how can we act to protect the most vulnerable in our society and actually effect change?
Three considerations to tamp down the hair-on-fire call to boycott Target:
1. While it is true that sexual predators exploit the freedom and trust in our society, predatory behavior remains illegal at all times in all places. Target is on notice that there is concern and fear that their policy invites predation. They should be given the opportunity to prove to be a good corporate citizen by announcing specific plans to insure the safety of all people while in their stores.
2. We need to step back and acknowledge what's actually happening on a larger scale and deeper level. The culture has shifted and nonsense has replaced common sense in many sectors. What was once considered absurd now demands not only accommodation but cultural adulation. That brings to the reality that transgender people feel as uncomfortable in a restroom that does not align with their gender identity as you feel with the idea of sharing a restroom with a person whose anatomy does not align with the sign on the door.
This is complicated and culturally contentious but raising the alert level to full-scale-screaming does not help. There is a clear contest underway in our culture: is gender a God-designed binary reality or is it a mutable fluid of the individual?
If Christians start boycotting every corporation that operates out of progressivism's politically-correct profit-motives, our choices are going to be very narrow, our voice further sidelined and our influence further diminished.
3. The boycott war is neither persuasive nor effective. States, colleges, professional sports associations, global corporations and performers have all joined the boycott of states whose laws require that in public environments, people use the restroom that corresponds with their birth certificate. So maybe boycotting Target is tit-for-tat turn-around-is-fair-play. But what does that accomplish?
Maybe a corporate engagement strategy through Target stock shareholders or a proactive campaign that seeks to fight predation of women and girls and addresses the dehumanizing abusive bullying of transgender people would yield superior results. The current boycott war is only driving us further apart from those with whom we disagree and those whose challenges we don't understand. (And yes, I'll be escorting my minor children to the bathroom while simultaneously exercising my second amendment right.)
Alternatives to a boycott:
How might we influence the conversation without threatening withdrawal and boycott? Is being further sidelined and isolated really the most effective approach for Christians who hope to positively influence the culture? How can we help insure every person's privacy and protection, including women, girls and transgender people? Is there a simple and reasonable accommodation that satisfies all concerned? What about the addition of single access, single occupancy restrooms or changing rooms?
Suggesting that boycotting Target misses the target is not to say that as consumers and citizens we should be silent or passive.
Each of us and all of us need to be proactive about our own protection: if you are a woman and you are by yourself and need to use the restroom or changing room, ask a female associate to monitor the facility. If a person who presents as male seeks entry, the Target employee should inform that customer that the facility is occupied and currently unavailable. If they can't wait, they could be directed to the single occupancy facility. If they protest, they should be informed that although their right to use the restroom or changing room of their choice is Target's policy, that policy holds for every guest and team member. And the guest or team member currently using the facility has asked for a reasonable accommodation of their safety. And if we're talking about your child, you should be in the facility with them at all times.
Instead of boycotting, why not call on Target to insure the safety of women and girls while they are also providing reasonable accommodation to transgender individuals? Instead of widening the chasm why not find the common concern of privacy and safety which stands at the center of concern for both groups?
If you'd like to weigh in personally, call Target Guest Relations at 1-800-440-0680. Share your concerns on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/target.
Agree, the left is doing a much better job of putting their money where their beliefs are than our side is.
This is the typical lack of commitment that has led to the open hostility toward Jesus in this country. No one challenges the Koran. Everyone, including phony “Christians”, challenges the Bible.
Oh, and the Target executive sits on the board of Denny’s so expect them to be next to allow men to undress in front of little girls.
“If a person who presents as male seeks entry, the Target employee should inform that customer that the facility is occupied and currently unavailable.”
Then she explains all the alternatives target can offer the guy.
The problem is that Target already said everyone gets to choose to one they want to go to. She sounds like a twit that just likes Target and will flush all principles.
I’m still avoiding Target because of their Credit Card Fiasco.
“just use one bathroom and then go into the next one, tell them you’re just finding your way on the life journey.”
Well, the current PC term is LGBTQ+, and the Q means “questioning”. The + means “anything else you could possibly think of”. So, you nailed it.
I wrote our governor (NC) describing exactly the same thing.
There would be no constitutional issues, whether imaginary or real.
Instead of boycotting, why not call on Target to insure the safety of women and girls while they are also providing reasonable accommodation to transgender individuals? Instead of widening the chasm why not find the common concern of privacy and safety which stands at the center of concern for both groups? …There is no “both groups.” There are women and girls, and there are those who go against nature and deserve no “accommodation”.
Who pays for it?
Not exactly a moot point.
Let these several hundred ‘confused individuals’ fork over the millions to redo bathrooms so they can feel more comfortable.
The expense shouldn’t be passed onto the millions who are against this monstrosity.
The perverts do not want unisex bathrooms.
They want the world to admit they are the sex they claim.
Will this be shouted before, during or after a molestation?
the left, muslims, communist leaders...they have one thing in common. They are willing to put a lot on the line to win at the game.
We Christians, not so much.
I’m guilty. Cancelled Netflix for their boycotts. Now I find amazon is hard left. I love prime.
Coke is hard left. I love coke.
Hate Krogers!! or no name brands.
and on and on.
Burger King had f...t rainbow wrappers for sandwiches so I stopped eating there.
Pretty soon Christians will be staring at walls and eating bread and water if we boycott every left wing institution.
what a shame.
“1) Target needs to install surveillance cameras in its restrooms, assuredly monitored *only* by security personnel appropriate to that gender. And to prosecute any obscene, indecent or harassing behavior by those in their restrooms. And restrooms must be posted according to these criteria.”
Because that has worked so well with the TSA.
“The solution until the cultures cancer is defeated will be numerous individual uni-sex individual bathrooms”
Exactly backwards.
Will be unisex for everybody instead.
Ever been in these? I have, in France. Makes you uncomfortable.
“A father could accompany his daughter and ensure her safety (while guarding the entrance to the “room”), “
So “cover me, im going for a piss”? Did you even hear yourself? And cameras? Mens and womens rooms worked since restrooms were invented. Why is the San Francisco solution anything anyone would want? Its more expensive, and more creepy.
If this is really to be Target policy there is no way in hell as a mother I’d ever permit any of my children to enter a Target bathroom along. Ever.
I would even go to the point of getting a license to carry a concealed weapon if the state I lived in allows that.
Except normal people.
First of all, using the term "transgender" means this person has bought the propaganda hook line and sinker and anything written after that will be an attempt to justify that position.
Plus, there are friggin "reasonable" accommodations for those with sexual identity disorders. Use the damn bathroom that fits one's anatomical make-up.
And, why does this person care about a boycott of Target? I'll tell ya why, because she knows that the world is teetering on the verge of social and economic collapse, and they are scared to death of having to deal with what their way of thinking has brought. So they would rather sell out the remaining virtuous among us by exposing them to sexual deviancy than acknowledge what they themselves have allowed to happen.
That is to say, the election of Hillary Clinton could do a lot more damage, a billion fold, than some sort of screwball in a bathroom somewhere.
Target probably paid for this article. Cutting off the flow of money to your enemies is logical= money is power, ergo, the less money they have, the less powerful they are. Even if it doesn’t cause them to shut down completely, it is still damaging.
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