Dear Target,
I am not a frequent shopper at your stores. I usually only come to buy bikinis, but while I am there for an hour or so trying them on and getting distracted by the millions of other awesome things I find on the shelves, I typically wind up going to the bathroom about five times. What can I say — I have the bladder of a squirrel and I drink way too much water.
But now, while I am there, trying on bikinis and roaming through your store, I will no longer have a place to use the restroom. Why?
I will no longer have a place to use the restroom because you have said that it is OK for men to enter an area where only women are allowed and vice versa. You have said that if a man dresses up like a woman or a woman dresses up like a man, they can go into whichever bathroom they want, no questions asked.
I refuse to go into your restrooms out of fear that a man will walk in behind me. I refuse to let my young cousins walk into a restroom where a man can walk in right behind her and have to explain to her why there is a man in the women's restroom.
Target, you said you wanted everyone to feel like they belong.
But you have done the opposite.
There is a very small slice of the human population that identifies as transgender. And that is fine. I am not God and I won't judge them for it. But there are people that are going to, and already have, abuse this new rule that you have so kindly blessed your customers with. Yes, people have abused the "women" and "men" sign before this, but now you have said it's OK. You have given them the freedom to walk in without any concern of the cops being called.
You have made your customers feel scared and unwelcome in a place that should be private to each sex, no matter what they want to be.
If you are a male, you are a male and if you are a female, you are a female. Our body parts don't lie.
Target, you may not be losing a lot by losing me as a customer, but you are losing plenty more than just me.
I hope opening the door for everyone to have free-for-all bathrooms is worth losing the valued customers that keep your business running.
