Target takes a bland, beige approach to Pride this year

The retailer is one of many corporations adopting a more "neutral" stance on LGBTQ+ causes this year

Pride month is here and Target is celebrating with more beige than a Nancy Meyers movie.

Because nothing conveys pride, visibility, and bold defiance like a sad neutral tone.

The embattled retailer recently unveiled its Pride merchandise for 2025, which includes beige shorts, beige flip flops, a beige hoodie and a beige tote bag under a collection dubbed “new neutrals.” (Tagline: “Make a statement, even in low-key hues.”) Nearly everything in the Pride shop is labelled “adult,” lest a child buy a beige bucket hat with a tiny sliver of rainbow trim and suddenly become transgender.

The gear, which starkly contrasts with collections from just a few years ago, has triggered a wave of criticism on social media. Users have shared images of Pride merchandise tags that were covered in lorem ipsum text instead of corporate copy that conveys literally nothing about Target’s support for the LGBTQ+ community. The Onion has even gotten in on the Target-bashing:

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To find the Pride collection on the Target homepage, you have to scroll way down past sections highlighting Father’s Day gifts, “must-have deals,” and a supposed trend called “Country Summer” (which also seems to involve a conspicuous amount of beige).

To be fair, Target’s Pride collection isn’t entirely beige: it also includes some black and white clothing!. And even a few garments in vivid rainbow stripes.

But the overwhelmingly dull merchandise serves as a rich visual metaphor for the company’s retreat on LGBTQ+ issues and its reversal on diversity, equity, and inclusion: No more color, just lots of beige.

The latest brouhaha is unlikely to win back the progressive customers who would happily go to Target intending to buy paper towels and somehow spend $250 on Cat & Jack leggings for their first grader.

Last year, following a conservative uproar, the company began to scale back its Pride offerings, citing its 2023 concern over the safety of employees. Then in January, just days after the inauguration, the retailer announced it was ending its DEI programs, a move widely viewed as a surrender to the Trump administration.

It was considered a particularly egregious betrayal because of how Target had long positioned itself as an inclusive company offering on-trend designs that appealed to more upscale consumers (who affectionately referred to the store as “Tarzhay”).

A Target spokesperson provided the following comment to The Contrarian:

“We are absolutely dedicated to fostering inclusivity for everyone—our team members, our guests, our supply partners, and the more than 2,000 communities we’re proud to serve. As we have for many years, we will continue to mark Pride Month by offering an assortment of celebratory products, hosting internal programming to support our incredible team, and sponsoring local events in neighborhoods across the country.”

The spokesperson declined to provide specific data about the volume of Pride merchandise it is offering the year, the number of LGBTQ+ suppliers, or corporate sponsorship, but said that “the number of products, and the number of stores offering our Pride assortment is similar to last year” and “we continue to sponsor events in cities where we’ve had a presence for a long time all around the country.”

But the merchandise was being displayed less prominently than in the past, an unnamed Target executive told CNN.

“It feels like we have catered to the direction of the administration,” said the executive.

According to The New York Times, Target is donating to NYC Pride this year as a “silent partner” to avoid publicity, which is a bit like marching down Christopher St. in an invisibility cloak. The company has not released a fact sheet about the Pride collection, as it has in the past, nor has it made images of the products available to the press.

Target has even gotten kicked out of its hometown Pride celebration. After the company suspended its DEI programs, Twin Cities Pride announced it was dropping Target as a sponsor after more than two decades. The group launched a crowdfunding campaign that made up the shortfall in a single day.

Target is not alone in taking a very demure (if not very mindful) approach to Pride this June. According to a survey of 200 leading business executives conducted by Gravity Research, 39% of companies are scaling back their Pride engagement in 2025. None of the respondents planned to increase engagement. (Just a year ago, according to the same survey, the mood was much different.)

As first reported by The Wall Street Journal, several major sponsors backed out of supporting NYC Pride, the nonprofit group that organizes the annual event, in 2025, including Mastercard, Nissan, Citi, and PepsiCo.

The New York Times estimates that a quarter of corporate sponsors have either withdrawn or scaled back their support for NYC Pride this year, citing “fear that the Trump administration could punish corporations it viewed as supporting a celebration of gay and transgender rights.” Their retreat has resulted in an estimated budget shortfall of $750,000.

WorldPride, which is being held in a re-Trumpified Washington, D.C. this year, has also seen corporate sponsors cave to the new president, who looms literally and figuratively over the city. A number of companies that have previously supported Pride celebrations in the Capital, including Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, and Comcast, bailed this year.

As Nico Lang argues in this excellent piece for Slate, the corporate withdrawal from Pride is particularly galling given how much money the festivities generate for major cities like New York and San Francisco, but also in small communities in conservative corners of the country.

Some view the retreat of corporate America as a blessing in disguise—a chance to reclaim Pride and reignite the spirit of radical defiance that characterized the event long before it became an opportunity for peddling cheap rainbow swag.

It’s also created an opportunity for consumers to support smaller vendors and companies that give back to the LGBTQ+ community.

It remains to be seen whether Target’s meek Pride offerings will result in equally meager sales.

But it’s useful to remember that, before it was everyone’s favorite place for cheap Pride paraphernalia, Target was not always a queer ally. Arguably, it took public shaming by Lady Gaga for the company to evolve: in 2011, the pop star ended a deal with the retail chain because of its donations to anti-LGBTQ+ political action group.

After Gaga stepped in, the company began to regularly offer Pride merchandise and grew more vocal in its support for issues including same-sex marriage and transgender bathroom access. It went on to receive a perfect score from the Human Rights Campaign but also became—please excuse the unavoidable pun—a target for conservative culture warriors.

Perhaps it’s time for Lady Gaga to summon the little monsters once again.

Meredith Blake is the Culture columnist for The Contrarian