Target CEO Brian Cornell suggested that the backlash the retail giant faced back in May over its LGBTQ Pride displays was the first time some team members claimed it was “not safe” at work.
Cornell appeared on CNBC Thursday where he discussed declining sales, particularly following protests and critiques of its Pride Month merchandise. While on the topic, he insisted that employees felt more unsafe during the controversy than they did during natural disasters and violent Black Lives Matter protests.
“This is my 10th holiday season at Target. You and I have been talking almost every quarter during those ten years. We’ve seen natural disasters. We’ve seen the impact of COVID leading up to the pandemic, some of the violence that took place after George Floyd’s murder. But I would tell you what I saw back in May is the first time since I’ve been in this job where I had store team members saying it’s not safe to come to work,” Cornell said.
Consumers’ Research executive director Will Hild objected to Cornell’s comments.
“It’s particularly ironic that he would talk about safety, in terms of his employees, and distract from the fact that he has made his stores unsafe for people to bring their own small children in who don’t want to necessarily have to answer questions around, What is a transgender person?’ or ‘Mommy, why is there a book that asks if I’m a boy or a girl? I already know these things,’” Hild told Fox News Digital.
“He is the one who made Target stores unsafe for children, for the children of his customers, for children of his employees,” Hild continued. “And yet he wants to deflect and put the blame back on his own customer base. He’s basically blaming you, the customer, for his mistakes.”
Target rolled out its annual Pride Month displays in May and faced greater scrutiny after customers found “tuck-friendly” women’s swimsuits for transgender people as well as items marketed towards children and infants. After images went viral, Target stores quickly began removing Pride displays and placing them in less prominent areas.
Cornell defended the move despite facing a new backlash from several LGBTQ organizations for allegedly caving in to “extremists.”
“But it was a difficult time. But in the environment we said, look, let’s focus on de-escalating the issue, taking care of our team, celebrating the moment, and take the learning as we go forward. And we talked during our recent earnings call. We’ll manage these moments very differently. These heritage moments, whether it is Pride or Hispanic heritage or Black history, we’ll time them differently,” Cornell said.
He also pushed back against claims that the store was selling “transgender bathing suits” for children or that the store partnered with a “devil-worshipper” in its Pride designs.
“You and I both know those weren’t true,” Cornell told CNBC’s Becky Quick.
While there was no clear evidence of transgender swimsuits marketed towards kids, Target previously worked with the U.K.-based brand Abprallen for Pride Month. The brand has displayed merchandise with messages such as “Satan respects pronouns,” and the designer, Erik Carnell, has espoused Satanic beliefs.
“Satanists don’t actually believe in Satan, he is merely used as a symbol of passion, pride, and liberty. He means to you what you need him to mean. So for me, Satan is hope, compassion, equality, and love. So, naturally, Satan respects pronouns. He loves all LGBT+ people. I went with a variation of Baphomet for this design, a deity who themself is a mixture of genders, beings, ideas, and existences. They reject binary stereotypes and expectations. Perfect,” Carnell wrote on Instagram.
Target later pulled his merchandise from shelves in a move Cornell called a “dangerous precedent.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Target for comment but has yet to receive a response.
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