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.
HA! target can pound sand..
I’m betting Target claims they can’t afford it.
I started my Target boycott when they banned the Salvation Christmas bell ringers.
I’ve seen a solution in San Francisco that would probably work anywhere: gender-neutral bathrooms. The stalls are in fact individual rooms (walled off from floor to ceiling), with a shared area with sinks & mirrors. A father could accompany his daughter and ensure her safety (while guarding the entrance to the “room”), and companies could halve the space set aside for bathrooms (though there would be longer lines if just one set was kept). No urinals or public lewdness, and one could probably place cameras in the shared area without privacy/peeping issues - do your business in the “rooms”, and the rest is basically public unrestricted space.
Makes this whole issue moot.
Apparently Target forgot about what happened to J.C. Penney after it promoted the gay lifestyle. And what happened to Penney’s CEO who was responsible for this fiasco?
I’m a fan of the Good Touch/Bad Touch gambit myself. With your daughter in the ladies room have the girl yell “Stranger Danger - BAD Touch!” then have management call the police.
Because people and companies that think like Target won't acknowledge there's any danger in this policy to protect women and girls from.
Translation: Forget it. You can’t do anything. Go away. (This message sponsored by Corporate America.)
Since boycotts are ineffective and tend to cause the other side to have buy ins the above approach is a good one.
The overall point that we lose effectiveness when we withdraw is well made
Downsize all restrooms. Make them small...one person operations…with the business deciding how many one person restrooms it needs to satisfy customer demands and where they are located. Customers can wait in line.
FUGovernment
FUSocialengineers
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!
FUTarget
just use one bathroom and then go into the next one, tell them you’re just finding your way on the life journey.
Amen!!
Moms will take young children of either gender into the bathroom in order to safeguard them as well as keeping them from making a mess. Fathers OTOH send their tiny little daughters into the ladies room alone, I’ve seen it many times.
Maybe a solution for dads would be to stop at a restaurant or some such place with a single stall bathroom before going to Target.
CP, you adopt your plan and I will adopt mine.
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