‘I feel disposable’: Confessions of a transgender Target employee after DEI pullback

The employee said he sent an email to Target CEO Brian Cornell in which he explained that the retailer had been a “safe haven” for him — there aren’t many employers he felt safe working at as a transgender person, he said. However, Target’s recent decisions related to diversity, equity and inclusion have made him feel “dehumanized, undervalued and disposable,” he stated in the email.

“I could go and get hired, but once they find out that I’m queer or trans or whatever, I don’t know that my situation will be much different,” the employee told Modern Retail. “I would love to say we could do away with big-box [retail], but the truth is, we need them, and they need us — our diverse perspectives. I think it’d be in everybody’s best interest if we could figure it out.”

In the interview, the employee discusses how he expects the DEI decisions to impact Target’s workforce, how he has felt the company’s response to transphobic comments has shifted and what the company would need to do to win back his trust. Target did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

How did you feel about the pullback from some of the DEI initiatives and the most recent email sent to staff by the CEO?

“In the email from the CEO, the only thing that they took a little accountability for was they said that they had left us out of the loop with silence, but we really haven’t heard anything since then. … A lot of the programs they did away with are predominantly minority-based programs, so we’re seeing a higher turnover rate in minorities now. … There’s a big emotional hit there with mental health and feeling supported within our workplace.

They’re not going to be reporting to the Human Rights Campaign. [The company had previously participated in the organization’s Corporate Equality Index surveys.] When you don’t have the data to support things, to me, it feels like you’re not doing the things to support that data. … The numbers aren’t going to be there. You’re not going to see minorities moving up within the company the way you had promised, and so, you don’t want to report this kind of thing and be a part of that change.”

How do you feel about working at Target now versus when you started?

“Whenever I started socially and medically transitioning, Target had a really good response to transgender people in the restrooms. … I felt deeply supported by the company. … I left the mental health field that I was working in previously, because at that time, people really [believed] and still do believe that transgender people aren’t competent to provide mental health services.

Target was really somewhere I felt like I belonged. It has kind of taken a big hit, seeing as, as the political climate has changed, Target’s stance has changed a lot. [Target’s diversity stance] felt very performative, even looking back now to whenever I thought it was something different [before the DEI pullback].

[Now,] I feel disposable to a degree where even microaggressions feel like they’re more tolerated — like [the company suggesting] our identities are opinions. Just as the world is more hostile, they’re more accepting of those things within the workplace. I thought they would stand up against that kind of stuff.”

What kind of situations have you faced in the stores?

“Not long ago, within the last six months, I’d redirected a gentleman, and his response to another person was, “I don’t care what he, she, it has to say to me.” Through HR, it wasn’t addressed appropriately. [To the company], it’s a matter of opinion about what we’re called. So you’re just not seeing that support, I think. If somebody were to say something blatantly racist, we would call it racism, but we don’t call things transphobia.

With the Trump presidencies, in general, I’ve seen the change within the world, and within Target. … Even if [people] felt [transphobic] before, they weren’t as vocal, and I think people are more vocal now and feel like they can express that within a workplace more openly.

We see pretty regularly where [with] guests — [like with] the pride set that came out a couple years ago; there was extreme negative response to that — we are instructed just to validate that that’s their opinion and their feelings and they’re entitled to their feelings. So even at the store level, if they would come in and complain or call, that’s what we were doing — and it felt kind of gross as a trans person and as somebody who has other trans people and queer people that work there.”

The coverage around Target’s DEI pullback has largely focused on the Black community. Do you think others are being left out of the conversation?

“I think there is a lot of focus on the Black community, and rightfully so. But I do think that, demographically, Target is pretty diverse, and so, leaving the LGBTQ population out of that conversation, it affects us also. Even women are being affected by DEI being dropped, because there are still just disproportionate numbers. We still have some progress that needs to be made from where we’ve been held back in the past — so I think by dropping DEI, we’re largely going to see that progress slow.”

What would Target have to do to correct this?

“I think honest conversation is the biggest thing they’re missing — some humility. I also think just partnering with minority people and hearing us first [would help]. … Sitting down and starting the conversations, it’ll have to start there.”