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.
“The stalls are in fact individual rooms (walled off from floor to ceiling), with a shared area with sinks & mirrors.”
I recently attended a race on a cold winter day where there were 40 or so portolets inside of a tent with a shared hand washing station. This worked well for this situation as there were enough people coming and going and the tent was was fairly open-air enough to make it safe.
No thanks to going into an remote, enclosed area in stores or buildings (or locker rooms!) with men next to women in shared areas with sinks and mirrors.
I feel the root cause are the "Human Resources" departments in corporations. They push 'diversity' programs that counts skin color and genitalia above performance and results.
All this brouhaha about overly complicated reasons, cautions, actions and requirements is BS.
The people that want all this are seriously disturbed people with whom the life of a child or young girl/boy should not be gambled. To do this is insanity.
As a white person, I wouldn’t go walking around mid-town Atlanta at night alone, nor would I allow one of my grand daughters to go into a Target bathroom along if they have this policy. Lunacy.
What the hell is wrong with this country. It isn’t rocket science.
“I feel the root cause are the “Human Resources” departments in corporations. They push ‘diversity’ programs that counts skin color and genitalia above performance and results. “
See post #69
I suggest a swarm of high dollar lawsuits by women and children who become victims of “micro-aggressions” because of Target’s cultivating an environment hostile to women and children.
Where are the mad dog, conservative members of the trial bar? A few massive class action lawsuits may cause Target to consider that cheap displays of faux morality are costly after all.
It is preferable to having some guy who “identifies as a woman” entering the ladies room while your unaccompanied daughter uses a stall.
“to insure the safety of women and girls”
What about the safety of little boys? We need to put little boys BACK into the equation!
A little boy who witnesses what looks like a woman at the urinal in a restroom could be just as traumatized as anyone.
When did we as a society decide little boys aren’t to be worried about?
Some people have medical issues: crohns, ulcerative colitis, explosive diarrhea, colon cancer, bladder issues, no colon, etc.
These people could have difficulty with waiting in line.
This is BS, boycotts work. The other side proves it all the time. Our side has never actually done it an organized persistent way.
And it cannot be an invisible one of two people here and there. It has to be loud, visible with people marching in front of stores causing as much of a stinkand pain as possible. The way the other side does it.
It has to be an Alynskyite protest.
“Isn’t that what all the edgy 16 year old douchebags and fat mountain dew drinking, cheetos eating fat atheist neckbeards with fedoras like to say on twitter and reddit, and facebook, and...?
Well, let’s go by SCIENCE. Let’s get RID of the man and woman icons on bathroom doors and replace them with...
XX and XY designations. Science, bitches! “
Love it!!!
I only had boys, but I should think that if I were the father of a young daughter that was too old to take into the mens room, and I was uncomfortable going into the ladies room with her, I would stand outside the door to see is any of these pervs tried to enter. I would mention to the pervert as he entered that if he touched my daughter that I would kill him. That seems like it would be a boycott alternative.
I’m not signing on to AFA boycott ( for other reasons)
BUT I am going to my local Target and tell them personally why I won’t be back.
We have a conservative town......I think a personal boycott would be effective because there are two huge evangelical churches around the corner from them.
Excellent point! But don’t you know little boys don’t really matter anymore? The current society would really rather they not display male characteristics. However, I agree with you completely.
“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?”
This is not mainly about safety!! We are being stupid again by mainly making that argument!
It’s about not wanting to bare your body in front of people of the opposite sex. It’s about privacy, if voyeurism is against the law this will make a mockery of that law. It’s a peeping Tom haven.
Yes, and actions inside the store could be added such as loading up a shopping cart and then taking it to the entrance to the restroom and then leave the store. Repeat as necessary.
Which is more important: Someone being uncomfortable, or someone, possibly a child, being molested in a restroom?
The only way Target can “insure the safety of women & girls” is to put guards in the restroom. This is the author’s only solution, a poor one at best. Will there be transgender guards? That would seem to be in keeping with Target’s inclusion policies.
What about the peace of mind of the vast majority of people who use Target’s restrooms? Must we ignore that to satisfy the “sensibilities” of people who fundamentally have no sensibilities, nor have any regard for the feeling of others?
The medical profession, led by Johns Hopkins, is coming around to the obvious fact that transgenderism is a mental illness, not a sane way of life. These people are sexually maladjusted & unfit to share a public restroom with anyone.
Though I haven’t entered a Target since they banned the Salvation Army kettles at Christmas, this just adds to my resolve that Target is not a fit place for decent people.
The author of this article is an cultural appeaser, whose ethics changes with the crowd. Maybe when she meets the beast in the restroom she will have a change of heart.
This is squishy RINO thinking.
Yes, boycott Target!!
They are, above all else, desperate attention-seekers - and they couldn’t be happier that the country is up in arms over them.
Or a bunch of men claiming to momentarily feel like women and utilizing the new policy by going into women’s restrooms AND DRESSING ROOMS.
Do this a few times and Target would retreat real quick.
But do we have the balls to do this? I know the other side does.
This is a typical liberal Christian. She says we should do nothing but ask Target nicely to do what they are silently already refusing to do (provide separate restrooms for those with confused gender identity). Target is activist for gay/transgender and everything unholy and there is no way to deal with activists like this except hit them where it hurts. Dumb woman. She would probably also have us write letters to ISIS asking them to release the people they have enslaved and are torturing.
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