Anti-LGBTQ+ people are proud that they hate so intensely. How shameful is that?

For decades, conservatives have boycotted brands that even meekly support LGBTQ+ people, with fairly little success in affecting their targets’ bottom lines. But it seems they actually did succeed this year – twice, with both Bud Light and Target.

And they’re very proud of that. Their stated goal this year was to make LGBTQ+ pride – the pride that comes with living one’s life authentically in the face of hatred, discrimination, and shame – “toxic” to corporations. Since they had a couple of successes, we’re seeing a lot of anti-LGBTQ+ pride: the pride in using hatred, discrimination, and shame to wield power.

Related:

Trumper in blackface at Target screams about their Pride section in shocking video

Wearing a Trump/Pence sticker and brown face paint, the woman shouted about how LGBTQ+ people “took our flag forever.”

Unlike LGBTQ+ pride, anti-LGBTQ+ pride is already toxic.

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So as they cheer and gloat about how they proved that – at least sometimes – “Go woke, go broke” is true, perhaps they could ask themselves why they are proud that their hatred is that strong.

Target found itself a… well, target of rightwing ire this past May when conservative influencers flocked to the chain to make videos showing how offended they were by the store’s Pride sections. Their disdain for rainbow onesies and t-shirts with drag queens on them spiraled out of control as they started accusing Target of selling tucking swimsuits for children (the swimsuit in question was only sold in adult sizes, but who cares about facts during a good moral panic?) and working with Satanists.

Target moved the Pride displays further back in the store due to the outcry and removed some of the offerings, but it didn’t stop the right from attacking.

Conservatives – living up to their reputation of making up something to be afraid of and then cowering in fear as they forget that they’re the ones who made it up – even made fake AI-generated images to share online of Satanic products and displays at the store. “If you are a Christian and a parent and you shop at target, Lord, have mercy on you,” the popular Facebook page “Christian Patriots” posted.

Target reported today that same-store sales dropped by 5.4% in the second quarter of this year when compared to the same period last year, and online sales fell by 10.5%. Obviously, this is unlikely only caused by the Target Pride display panic; it’s a big corporation and they are doing a lot of different things at once and the economy changes each year.

But conservatives do seem proud of themselves for this one. “Target just had its first sales drop in 6 years,” the popular Twitter account “End Wokeness” posted on Thursday. “Keep hitting them where it hurts.”

Bud Light sales are still down 26%

Target just had its first sales drop in 6 years

Disney lost $1.9 billion at the box office over the last 15 months

Keep hitting them where it hurts

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 17, 2023

With Bud Light, the damage is more clear. After the beer brand sponsored a 50-second Instagram video with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in April, it has lost its spot as the top beer in the U.S., second-quarter U.S. sales dropped by 26.5% compared to the same period last year, and parent company Anheuser-Busch laid off 2% of its U.S. workers. It’s hard to see a cause for this other than the backlash against the Mulvaney video.

For years, the right’s attempts to boycott corporations that support LGBTQ+ people have been a joke. The American Family Association boycotted Disney in the 1990s for giving employees same-sex partner benefits, and they ended their protest in 2005 without anything to show for it. One Million Moms – which is also run by the American Family Association – impotently announces boycotts of LGBTQ+-friendly brands several times a month without any success, other than collecting email addresses (They still haven’t joined the Bud Light boycott, perhaps envious that others could do a much better job than they ever could).

So the right succeeding here feels wrong. It doesn’t happen much but it happened here, twice in one year. And conservatives are very proud of it.

“Bud Light went woke, then Bud Light went Broke!” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) tweeted in July about the Anheuser-Busch layoffs, expressing joy that people lost their jobs.

But what did the right prove? Bud Light did nothing other than work with a transgender woman, a bubbly trans woman who makes positive content online and never did anything to harm others. Conservatives can’t even articulate a reason to hate her beyond the fact that she is transgender.

I just do not understand the hate against Dylan Mulvaney; I think I’ve ever seen somebody who gives off more positive energy the entire time I’ve been Online. pic.twitter.com/UvxXoOiNQ8

— Ari Drennen (@AriDrennen) August 14, 2023

Where is the narcissism? Where is the mockery? I just do not see either, I see someone who earnestly just wants to make people smile

— Ari Drennen (@AriDrennen) August 14, 2023

So conservatives showed Bud Light that they shouldn’t work with or hire transgender people? They proved that transgender people face rampant hatred and discrimination?

In what moral universe is that a victory?

With Target, their campaign was based on misinformation from the start, as well as a deep hatred of LGBTQ+ people. They were grossed out – often performatively – by seeing rainbow gear at their local store and it made them angry that LGBTQ+ people had a display at Target for a month. When it was clear that most people weren’t getting riled up enough by the rainbow gear, anti-LGBTQ+ people started lying about it. If their boycott would have succeeded without the lies and the fake images, they wouldn’t have giddily shared that misinformation in the first place.

So what message did they send to Target here? Avoid marketing to LGBTQ+ people at all? That there’s still a large part of the population that wants LGBTQ+ people to feel ashamed to exist in public? They showed that their hate and ignorance can affect a major corporation’s bottom line, true, but there’s no reason to be proud of that.

So let them be proud. Let them gloat. All they’re doing is proving that LGBTQ+ people are oppressed and that hate still holds power.

And exercising such power is something to actually be ashamed of.