Online petitions to boycott something or other are not uncommon and so I was not surprised when one was started to boycott the department store chain Target when it announced that their stores would allow people use the bathroom that is consistent with the gender presentation. But I was surprised at how quickly the number of people signing on reached one million, just one week after the American Family Association announced the boycott move. (Remember: Any organization with the word ‘family’ in the title is likely to be a bigoted group.)
What is interesting is that Target is by no means a progressive company in general. It has, for example, long fought the unionization of its employees and has had to be pressured to raise the minimum wage of its employees. What this shows is that companies increasingly think that being seen in opposition to equal rights for LGBT people is bad for business.
Another sign of the business-social issues split is that the decidedly pro-business Donald Trump has said that the bathroom issue is no big deal and that people should be allowed to use the bathroom that they think is appropriate. The social conservative warrior Ted Cruz has seized on Trump’s statement to step up his own opposition to it. He seems to think that his difference with Trump on this issue could be a winner for him in the final stages of the primary race.
What worries me is that some anti-transsexual provocateur might pretend to be of a different gender and deliberately cause a scene in a bathroom, thus inflaming passions. Maybe these people should simply invest in this device instead to make sure that their bathroom are free of contamination by people of a different gender.
The Daily Show was creeped out too.
(This clip aired on April 28, 2016. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Nightly Show outside the US, please see this earlier post. If the videos autoplay, please see here for a diagnosis and possible solutions.)
This year for halloween I am going to be supporting a spiffy new Bathroom Police uniform. Including badge, cuffs, tape measure, and rubber gloves.
It’ll be soooooo tempting to hang out in public bathrooms and troll people but…
I assume the D*ck Detector 3000 has some sort of shielding to block the d*ckishness of the person using it, otherwise it would just be screaming all the time. I think a better product would be to sell panels of that d*ck shield. We could use it to cover the GOP convention center. Hopefully it could also be used to block Fox News from your cable feed.
(Remember: Any organization with the world ‘family’ in the title is likely to be a bigoted group.)
Nice… just YOU remember that you are a part of nature and the best part is the ability to survive.
That is why we are talking about 5% of the population, and when they have “families” they will likely be straight and you will just learn to love them just as we love our gay kids too.
Why the scare quotes around “families”?
Might?
http://www.mediaite.com/online/florida-man-trolls-target-staffer-over-inclusive-bathroom-policy/
http://www.ijreview.com/2016/04/587473-social-experiment-shows-a-transgender-woman-trying-to-use-a-womens-bathroom/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=owned&utm_campaign=ods&utm_term=ijreview&utm_content=life
lol like any of those people will actually boycott Target.
It’s unsurprising that a lot of larger companies want to be as inclusive as possible considering they basically have to cater to everyone in the country. I don’t think that kind of stance relates too much to unions and worker pay.
A woman was recently ejected from a bathroom for apparently wearing baggy clothes?
doublereed @ # 6: lol like any of those people will actually boycott Target.
Why not? Name anything Target sells that Wal-Mart doesn’t.
See also: “Liberty”, “Justice”, “Moral”.
They are the same people who describe themselves as “good christians” then turn out to be anything but. A good rule of thumb in life: anyone who introduces themselves with such words should never be trusted.
As for the boycott, it will be non-event, just like the march of a “million” that turned out to be a few thousand, or the Disney boycott that was also a massive failure. The bigot is willing, but the flesh is weak.
It’s not that weird… sex dysphoria is fairly rare and while many folk have the advantage of knowing homosexuals personally to temper their attitudes, the same cannot be said vis a vis transpeople (mainly transwomen for the purposes of discussing bathroom use).
Libby Anne at Love Joy Feminism points out that Ted Cruz’s add attacking Trump was aimed exclusively at men. “Should a grown man pretending to be a woman be allowed to use the women’s restroom? The same restroom used by your daughter? Your wife?” So Cruz is worried about womens’s safetly (or pretending to be worried) but warns men about it. Because women are just posessions and he needs to warn our owners or what? http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2016/04/the-historical-context-of-cruzs-anti-trans-bathroom-bill-ad.html#sthash.dp7kny8V.dpuf
We can also be pretty certain that anyone with the nym “NoSharia” is not only a bigot, but an idiot. This does not apply to anyone who lives in a country where sharia is actually enforced, or where there is a realistic prospect of this happening, but I’d be prepared to wager a considerable sum that this does not apply to the commenter @3.