Target Solves Transgender Issue, Spends $20 Million On Private Bathrooms

by Robert Donachie

A multinational retail giant spent $20 million to put a private restroom in each of its stores by 2017 in an effort to squelch the nation’s ongoing transgender restroom debate.

Target, Inc. has caught a great deal of flack from customers around the nation regarding its restroom policy. On the company website in April, Target said that “everyone deserves to feel like they belong. And you’ll always be accepted, respected and welcomed at Target.”

Target’s finance chief, Cathy Smith, said Wednesday that the company has “heard objections to the transgender bathroom policy from some customers,” and is responding by expanding “its use of a third, single-toilet bathroom at all of its stores, which can be locked by users,” according to CNN Money. Smith has repeatedly said that the change in policy had no tangible effects, although Target sales are down 7 percent from this time last year.

The change in policy comes on the heels of the North Carolina “Bathroom Bill,” which requires transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds to the sex on their birth certificate. The NBA all-star game even withdrew from Charlotte because of this decision, reports the Wall Street Journal.

A spokesperson for the American Families Association (AFA), Walker Wildmon, told the Journal that this policy is essentially a “bathroom free-for-all.” The AFA, following Target’s April statements, created an online petition against Target that got some 1.3 million signatures. While Wildmon expressed some satisfaction with Target’s announcement on Wednesday, he did say that the decision “doesn’t completely answer our concerns,” reports CNN Money.

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