The media has been in a bit of a tizzy over the outrage directed at Target due to the announcement that Target stores will allow transgender people to use bathrooms and changing facilities of the gender they identify with. This has prompted a boycott of target, which as of the time that I was writing this post, has over 1 million online signatures. The media has been quick to condemn the outrage and boycott as overblown and trans-phobic.
The CBS out of Minnesota (Target is based in Minnesota) defended Target by saying “But there’s no evidence of dangerous predators pretending to be transgender in American bathrooms, even though Minnesota supporters of a bathroom ban say it’s true.”
I guess nobody at CBS Minnesota bothered to watch Fox News in Pennsylvania about the man taking pictures of a 10-year old girl in a bathroom stall or CBS Southern California dressed as a woman recording hours of video in a Macy’s. Or any of the other cases of policy abuse that Breitbart News recorded.
But the point of this post isn’t to attack Target for its policy. The point of this post is to point out the media and pop-culture reaction to two Target policies.
As many readers of this blog and the wider gun community know, Target allowed itself to be bulled by Bloomberg’s minions into releasing a statement that Target does not want guns carried in its stores, even when state law allows it.
“This is a complicated issue, but it boils down to a simple belief: Bringing firearms to Target creates an environment that is at odds with the family-friendly shopping and work experience we strive to create.”
*On a side note, I love the irony that allowing CCW in Target “creates an environment that is at odds with the family-friendly shopping” but allowing a man in the woman’s room does not.
The best estimates on the subject put the number of Transgendered individuals in the US at about 700,000 or 0.3% of the population. The state of Florida has over 1.4 Million active state issued CCW permits, meaning that Florida ALONE has twice as many permit holders as there are total Transgenders in the US. The average national rate of CCW is 5.2% of adults have permits, which is more than 17 times the percent of Transgenders in this country.
Shortly after that, the gun rights community opted to boycott Target. That is progressiveness for you, Target has no qualms about turning away 12.8 Million potential customers because they are gun owners, but they are loathed to be seen as non-inclusive for 700,000 trans-people. And of course the media was silent about the Target anti-gun backlash, and cheered on Bloomberg’s minions when they turned their sights on Kroger.
Fortunately for CCW permit holders, some important people were paying attention. When the CEO of the largest supermarket chain in America was put in the spotlight, he decided that Kroger was going to follow whatever the local law said and put the burden of store policy on state legislatures. That is how you don’t alienate a customer base.
Walmart seems to be taking a play out of the Kroger books on the trans issue. Walmart is the largest retailer in America, and Target’s primary competitor. When asked what Walmart’s transgender bathroom policy is, Walmart cracked open a family size container of STFU and started chugging. Much to the disapproval of the media. You don’t become the largest company in the world by revenue by being stupid.
Openly tell gun owners you wan’t them them as customers and the left will cheer you on. Gun owners respond by not spending money where they are not welcome and all you hear is crickets. Risk the safety of women and girls in your store to appease a tiny minority of people and you are a hero. Refuse to hand over your money to that store and you are a bigot.
These policies aren’t about money, they are about virtue signaling. Personally, I’ll take my cash to the same place that allows me to take my gun.
That should go double for the ladies. I believe the best response to an up skirt camera flash is muzzle flash.
I’ve been a life-long Target customer for 30 years now.
I guess not anymore.
Since the closest Target store to me is 40+ miles away, my girls and wife won’t be affected by Targets choice.
That said, the schools one of my girls is in already has a blender in the locker room.
Interesting times.
I don’t see how strong gun rights supporters can justify supporting this NC law. How does not having government regulation of bathroom access risk the safety of women and girls? Why would a law saying “you can’t go in there” stop someone who intends to commit a much more serious sex offense? This is the exact argument that we keep brining up against “gun free zones”. The links included in this post are of men (non-transgendered) going into women’s bathrooms and committing sex offenses. To use this as a reason for creating yet another law is no different than the antis pointing to a school shooting committed by a felon and saying “this is why we need to ban guns in schools!”
Government doesn’t need to be in the business of playing hall monitor and controlling who goes into bathrooms. There are already laws that make peeping a crime, and there are legitimate reasons for men to be in a women’s restroom. Like to clean it, or because the men’s is out of order, or to help their young daughter, or they just walked in there by mistake because they weren’t paying attention. If you make it law, then it has to be explicit about exemptions. It doesn’t need to be law. This falls under “rules of society”- the equivalent of “cover your mouth when you sneeze”. We don’t need to fine people for spraying in an elevator either (as nasty as it is). Everything that is a good idea doesn’t need to be law.