‘Cowardcore:’ Everyone Is Noticing The Same Thing About Target’s Pride Merch

Target seems to be letting everyone down these days: First, the retail giant faced criticism ― and a national boycott from Latino and Black consumers ― after alerting employees that it would end the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) goals it had made to hire and promote more women and people of color “in step with the evolving external landscape.”

The protest has led to a loss in foot traffic and Target CEO Brian Cornell admitting last month that the companies’ sluggish first quarter was partly due to consumers’ reaction. (Tariffs and a global trade war didn’t help, either.)

Now, Target is catching heat for releasing Pride merchandise that many feel is distinctly lacking in pride, and near close to rainbow-less.

“Target’s bold ‘Pride’ collection this year features a colorless hoodie with the words ‘Out Loud & Proud’ written teeny tiny only [on] the string,” TV writer and actor Ben Siemon wrote in a post that went viral on Bluesky over the weekend.

The post included a screen grab from the Target site, showing a woman in an oatmeal-colored hoodie with drawstrings that read “Out Loud & Proud.”

Granted, there are more colorful, rainbow-emphasizing designs on Target’s site (and a toy U-haul truck that plays on the joke that lesbians in love move fast) but there’s whole sections of Pride “neutral” wear that is so understated, some on social media have said the products feel vaguely “closeted.”

Others say it speaks to the performative allyship of corporations that comes every Pride month: Slap a few rainbows on a shirt and call yourself a corporate ally.

Target may be bearing the brunt of the jokes ― “Come check out our burlap pride sacks we picked up at Target,” one woman quipped on Bluesky ― but the retailer isn’t the only brand that’s released lackluster Pride merch this year.

“Kind of obsessed with 2025 pride merch…I’m calling it cowardcore,” cartoonist Molly Knox Ostertag wrote on Bluesky, alongside some examples: A pair of Abercrombie & Fitch “Pride” mid rise jorts, which sports a rainbow tag inside the shorts, but nothing visible. There’s also a Levi’s black “Pride icon” skirt that has no apparent connection to queerness, besides the fact that one of the models shown wearing the skirt is male presenting.

Target has long been viewed as fairly progressive in their corporate politics. In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd in Target’s home city of Minneapolis, the corporation pledged to increase its Black workforce by 20% throughout the company over three years and take other steps to “advance racial equity.” That policy stopped in January.

When it comes to support of the LGBTQ community, the store has pushed queer-owned brands and observed Pride with special merchandise and in-store displays since 2015, the year that the United States legalized gay marriage.

In recent years, that kind of support has made the big-box store a frequent target of conservative outrage; in 2023, Target faced legal threats from Republican legislators after social media users falsely claimed the store was selling “tuck-friendly” “trans” bathing suits designed for kids or in kids’ sizes as well as Pride merch. (In response to confrontations and backlash from shoppers in some Southern states, Target said it moved some of its Pride merchandise from the front of the stores to the back in those areas.)

Target has supported Pride festivities around the country, too. But this year, some city’s Pride organizations have uninvited the store as a sponsor in protest of the store’s DEI stance. In Minneapolis, Twin Cities Pride cut Target as a corporate sponsor. To make up for Target’s former funding, the group raised more than $89,000 from community members.

In New York City, Target is still a top-tier corporate sponsor for Pride festivities, but the company reportedly asked that their involvement in events go unpublicized. The store’s famous bulls-eye logo is nowhere to be found on NYC Pride’s donor page.

Target isn’t alone in pulling back on Pride. In New York City, roughly 25% of the corporate donors to NYC’s annual Pride festivities have either canceled or scaled back their support this year, according to the New York Times. The brands cited economic volatility and fears of retribution from the Trump administration if they outwardly support a celebration of gay and transgender rights.

“This shift really feels like it’s happening in tandem with growing political pressure from right-wing figures who openly blacklist brands that support DEI or queer visibility,” said Lee Tepper, a clinical social worker and owner of Tepper Counseling.

Tepper, who’s queer, said Target’s stance is dangerous, because it sends mixed messages.

“In offering just enough performative support to lull vulnerable communities into a false sense of safety, while also signaling to a reactionary consumer base that their bigotry will not be challenged,” they said. “In doing so, Target gets to profit off queer visibility while avoiding the risk of aligning too clearly with the people whose liberation they’re supposedly supporting.”

Now is a time when queer people need all the visible support they can get: Under the Trump administration, trans people are being targeted across the country and losing access to basic human rights and life-saving gender-affirming care.

Besides signing a series of executive actions that would limit transgender and nonbinary people’s rights, Trump and his administration has pushed to erase the historical contributions of queer Americans.

In February, references to transgender people were removed from a National Park Service website for the Stonewall National Monument, a park and visitor center in New York that commemorates a 1969 riot that was a major turning point for the LGBTQ+ rights movement. (The first “Pride” actually began with the Stonewall Riots.)

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Navy to rename a ship that bears the name of Harvey Milk, the slain LGBTQ+ rights icon and military veteran.

For queer Americans like Tepper, watching those same mainstream brands quietly distance themselves from Pride now feels like another instance of queer erasure.

Corporate support for LGBTQ+ issues has always rang a bit hollow ― the U.S. LGBTQ+ community has a purchasing power of approximately $1.4 trillion annually so it’s easy to understand why brands would court them ― but seeing a rainbow display still made a difference, especially for kids in small towns.

“For many LGBTQIA+ people, especially youth, seeing Pride collections at big-box stores wasn’t just about shirts with rainbows and a hat with your pronouns on it. It felt like safety and validation,” Tepper explained. “It’s a sign that we were seen, that queerness had a place in the mainstream, and that society might just be shifting toward broader acceptance.”

So when those same stores begin to scale back, hide collections online, or release watered-down, shoddy designs, Tepper said it doesn’t feel like a neutral business decision. It feels like taking sides.

“It reminds queer people that their inclusion was always conditionally dependent on market trends, political convenience, and public opinion,” they said. “That the affirmation wasn’t rooted in care, but in capitalism.”

Justin, an influencer who goes by the @thewokeginger on Instagram and TikTok — where he has a combined follower count of 450,000 — agrees.

“For many queer people, the last few months have meant coming to terms with the reality that some of our favorite stores and brands were never really our allies,” Justin told HuffPost.

“These brands wanted LGBTQ+ consumers’ money and it was an easy lift for them to ‘rainbow wash’ their products and logos to secure it,” he added. “Now that the political environment has changed, they’ve turned their backs on a subset of their customers who have substantial spending power.”

It’s “not a betrayal we will soon forget,” he said.

Amanda Fox-Rouch, the founder of QueerlyDesigns, says the kind of performative allyship on display this year is exactly why she tries to buy Pride merch from queer-owned businesses.

“Not only does it keep our money within the community, but it also gives us the freedom to be bold, political, and unapologetic,” she said. “Small businesses are able to create things that a corporate boardroom would never sign off on.”

Fox-Rouch created her own T-shirt company in 2018 for that very reason. She doesn’t want to buy a hoodie with a teeny-tiny, barely noticeable “Pride” splashed on it.

“I wanted to create shirts and products that reflect our humor, our politics, and our pride, without watering anything down to make it ‘safe’ for mass retail,” she said. “Our shirts are designed for queers, by queers.”

Miko Lee, a trans artist, runs a small business called MegEmikoArt, where they create designs that uplift and represent their community year-round.

Two of Lee’s most popular designs say “Protect Trans Kids” and “Gender-Affirming Healthcare Saves Lives” ― phrases that explicitly mentions issues that matter to queer people.

“Like with the ‘Target Fast’ from Black and Latino consumers, I think what we’re seeing is that queer and trans communities are starting to divest from brands that only show up when it is ‘safe’ and comfortable for them,” Lee said.

Pride ― which began as a protest, not just a parade ― should never be reduced to marketing or focused on profit rather than people’s needs, they added.

“If your Pride events or branding are not centering accessibility, racial justice, and the most marginalized in our community, including Black trans women, disabled LGBTQIA+ folks, and those denied care, then you are not showing up for us,” they said. “Pride is about fighting for a future where we are all safe, seen and supported.”