Amid $9B loss, Target faces new criticism over ties to LGBT group that promotes hiding kids’ gender information from parents

Target Corporation is back in the news for its funding of a group that pushes school districts to keep gender identity information secret from parents.

The company has given $2.1 million to GLSEN, the Daily Mail reports. Previously GLSEN was known as the Gay and Lesbian Independent School Teachers Network.

In addition to advocating for school district policies which keep gender dysphoria and related matters secret from parents, Fox News reports that GLSEN provides “sexually explicit books to schools for free, and [advice on] integrating gender ideology at all levels of curriculum in public schools.”

In one example, Fox said that GLSEN shows math teachers how to incorporate gender ideology into math curriculum by recommending word problems, such as statistical surveys that include “intersex” options and by the inclusion of gay-queer pronouns.

“[A]nd if the students want to include data for gender, a variety of choices need to be included, such as agender, genderfluid, female, male, nonbinary, transman, transwoman, and other,” a lesson plan continued, reported Fox.  

In the last week, Target has lost over $9 billion in market capitalization after it was revealed the company partnered with transsexual clothing designers for a gay pride campaign, including a designer who is an avowed Satanist.  

The losses have forced the company to alter its merchandising strategy, which Target blamed on “threats” to the safety of staff members, not their mistaken marketing plan.  

“Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and wellbeing while at work,” Target said in a statement, according to the Associated Press. “Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.” 

But Target has also been confronted by angry investors who are dropping their stock in wake of the controversy. 

Since May 17, Target’s publicly traded stock has gone from $161 per share to around $140, near it’s 52-week low of $137.16, according to data provided by Google Finance.  

The downward pressure comes amid a nationwide backlash against marketing and lobbying efforts promoting transgenderism, especially efforts at marketing to kids over the heads of parents.  

“When you have kids, you know, most of the time you have to think it’s a lot of moms in Target, moms with little kids,” Scarlett Johnson, a county chapter president of Moms for Liberty in Wisconsin, told The Lion. “And imagine you’re walking past this display with your kids. Kids ask ‘What does that mean? Why is that boy dressed like a girl.’” 

Johnson said that’s not a conversation that moms want to have with kids when they simply go to the store, such as Target, to buy things for their family in the hopes of saving money.  

“They’re not even considering us,” Johnson said of Target’s marketing decisions. “But I think that is changing. They’ve gone too far.”