Target Becomes Latest Retailer to Drop DEI

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On Friday retail giant Target announced it is ending its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion goals and will no longer participate in the Human Rights Campaign’s pro-LGBT “Corporate Equality Index.”

In a memo to its employees, Target wrote,

Throughout 2025, we’ll be accelerating action in key areas and implementing changes with the goal of driving growth and staying in step with the evolving external landscape. We will continue to monitor and adjust as needed. Current actions include:

  • Concluding our three-year diversity, equity and inclusion goals.
  • Concluding our Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiatives in 2025 as planned.
  • Ensuring our employee resource groups are communities fully focused on development and mentorship. These communities will continue to be open to all.
  • Further evaluating our corporate partnerships to ensure they are directly connected to our roadmap for growth.
  • Stopping all external diversity-focused surveys, including HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.
  • Evolving our “Supplier Diversity” team to “Supplier Engagement” to better reflect our inclusive global procurement process across a broad range of suppliers, including increasing our focus on small businesses.

Target joins a growing list of major corporations that have changed course on DEI and cut ties with groups like the Human Rights Campaign.

Many companies established DEI goals a few years ago to create an equal playing field for racial and ethnic minorities, but it did not take long for LGBT groups to hijack those corporate programs.

Today, DEI tends to promote divisive ideologies like critical theory, and it has become a tool that pro-LGBT groups use to promote gender-identity politics in the workplace. Under these policies, employees who hold a biblical view of gender or marriage may risk losing their jobs.

But backlash and boycotts over DEI and pro-LGBT activism have prompted many companies to change course.

Walmart, Toyota, John Deere, Lowe’s, Tractor Supply, Harley Davidson, and other corporations have chosen to eliminate DEI policies in recent months.

Target’s decision to drop DEI and distance itself from pro-LGBT groups is particularly significant, because the company has a longstanding history of embracing these ideologies.

In 2016 Target made headlines when it announced men would be able to enter women’s restrooms and changing areas at its stores.

On its website, Target sells products that promote the LGBT lifestyle — although it recently scaled back its “Pride” selection.

As far back as 2017, Target executives admitted that these corporate policies were unpopular and costly, but the retailer refused to change course — until now.

It’s deeply troubling when multimillion dollar corporations use their wealth and influence to promote radical, pro-LGBT ideas. But it’s encouraging when companies like Target reverse course. With that in mind, we believe Target is making the right decision.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Trump’s Order Restores Biological Truth to Federal Gender Policies

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Shortly after his inauguration on Monday, President Trump signed a slew of executive orders changing the Biden Administration’s policies — including an order stating something that has been obvious for most of human history: Men are male and women are female.

The order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government” restores the definition of “sex” in federal law to mean “male or female.”

The measure brings much-needed clarity to federal policy by saying that “sex” is not a synonym for “gender identity.”

Under this executive order, federal agencies must use the traditional interpretation of “male,” “female,” “man,” and “woman,” and government IDs and employee records must reflect biological sex rather than gender identity.

The order also will help ensure men are not housed with women in prisons and that public funds are not used to pay for sex-change procedures on people in federal custody.

Over the past four years we have seen the Biden Administration work to advance radical, transgender ideas that erase the distinction between male and female in our laws.

For example, last year the Biden Administration released more than 1,500 pages of new rules drastically redefining “sex” under Title IX to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Under these rules, public schools could have been forced to let biological males compete in women’s sports and use girls’ locker rooms, showers, and changing areas at school. Fortunately, people across America — including Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin — filed lawsuits to block the Biden Administration’s new rules.

President Trump’s executive order will help block bad federal policies like this one.

During President Obama’s time at the White House, we saw wave after wave of radical LGBT policies rolled out at the federal level. However, Americans experienced a four-year reprieve under the Trump Administration. The Biden Administration doubled-down on promoting pro-LGBT policies that were bad for Americans.

The next four years may give the nation another break from radical gender ideology in the federal government. That is good, but it isn’t necessarily a long term solution. Ultimately, these problems can only be solved by changing hearts and minds and clarifying our federal laws.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Pixar’s LGBTQ Reversal: Guest Column

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If this were a movie trailer, I might begin this commentary with the line, “In a world where Dylan Mulvaney almost destroyed Bud Light. . . .” As it turns out, the 2023 incident when a transgender activist crashed sales of America’s best-selling beer was a turning point. Since then, we’ve seen a number of companies respond to public pushback on gender ideology. In fact, the latest example may be the most surprising.  

A couple of weeks ago, Hollywood Reporter revealed that the animation giant Pixar’s new original streaming series Win or Lose “will no longer include” a planned transgender storyline. A spokesperson for Disney confirmed the report, explaining, 

When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline. 

This welcome news could not be more different than the tune Disney has been singing for years. In 2017, the director of the live-action Beauty and the Beast trumpeted its “exclusively gay moment.” 2022’s Lightyear featured a same-sex kiss, and Disney’s Strange World featured a gay relationship. And of course, it’s a big change from 2022, when then-CEO Bob Chepek led Disney in open political activism against Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Chepek ultimately lost the battle, along with his job.  

In all these instances, there was no hesitation by Disney to push “certain topics” on children or their parents. What is behind the about-face? Perhaps it’s because Disney and its studios have experienced their own “Mulvaney moment.” According to Hollywood Reporter, Pixar decided to remove the trans subplot in Win or Lose about the same time as major layoffs in that studio and in its parent company. Those cuts followed a steady lineup of box office flops involving LGBTQ themes. In fact, Disney has been bleeding out financially for a while, with one news site describing how “high-budget movie failures, combined with challenges in their streaming and theme park operations” left the Mouse House in a “rocky” spot by the second half of 2024. 

The idea that parents are best suited to handle these controversial topics with their kids would have been viciously denounced back in 2020 as “homophobic” and “transphobic.” Scathing opinion pieces in The New York Times and other outlets would have called consumers to boycott and punish Disney. Apparently, even at the happiest place on earth, times are changing.  

There are other examples. A former Pixar employee told IGN that Inside Out 2, which released in June, was also supposed to include an LGBTQ subplot. However, writers were told to make the main character “less gay.” As it turns out, the “less gay” film turned the year around for Pixar, earning its biggest box office return ever.   

While it’s too early to declare victory here, it does feel as if an ideological fever has broken. Woke ideology, especially on the issue of gender, has culturally faltered. In fact, more companies and candidates see it as a financial and political liability.  

If an entertainment juggernaut like Disney is forced to give up on the propaganda, what does that mean for this movement that has seemed untouchable for so long? What does that say about the proclamation that certain beliefs and activists are “on the right side of history” and Christians on the “wrong side”? 

Perhaps the most important lesson to take from Disney’s and Pixar’s about-face is to soundly reject the “inevitability narrative.” Cultural degradation is not certain, and Christians do not have to perpetually retreat. Sometimes, pushing back makes a difference, especially for companies forced to feel the bottom line and for politicians forced to feel it at the ballot box. If enough people are willing to stand up and challenge powerful interests promoting perversion, history can appear to switch sides … or at least slow its march in the wrong direction.  

Ironically, we have Dylan Mulvaney to thank for this shift, at least in part. Trans activists pushed too far and too fast. However, there are plenty of others: Billboard Chris, Riley Gaines, Ryan Anderson, Alliance Defending Freedom, Abigail Shrier, and the 1792 Project are just a few, notable woke warriors. Not on that list are the churches and pastors and Christian leaders who thought the risk of speaking out would be “too costly” for their platform or would “get in the way of the Gospel.” They were the ones on the wrong side of history.

Copyright 2025 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

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