Tell me... for whom do you fight?

Yes, even if “Well, I mean, technically I COULD go out to the kitchen at any time. Nobody’s physically stopping me.” It doesn’t count if you will get screamed at/denigrated/criticized/otherwise be a target for abuse.

Or if a parent/adult-responsible-for-you criticizes and complains about how much you eat, how much the food you eat costs, the fact that they feed you at all* is such a burden, or makes comments about your weight.

Or if all the good/nice food in the house is only for OTHER PEOPLE who are not you.

Or if you find yourself planning meals around avoiding abusive family members. (e.g. “Mom will go to bed by midnight, so I can get something to eat after that”)

It created a lot of controversy. Calls for boycotts and such. But Oreo didn't take it down. They were unapologetic and didn't try to appease the homophobes or backtrack.

There are people who hate us all. Who want us dead or exiled or in prison. Who protest every shred of queerness they see in public. Who have been working hard to pass laws like Florida's "Don't Say Gay" and trying to remove protections from LGBTQ folks from state laws and prevent them from being added to national ones.

They are numerous, powerful, and violent. They protest every shred of LGBTQ protection in the law; they scream about every recognition or acceptance of queer people in any public venue, and sometimes private ones.

And yet.

This is important.

And yet.

Target thinks our dollars are more valuable than their protests.

Thinks they will sell more rainbow hats and flags and socks to us, than they will lose money to the bigots. And not only - "will sell more than they lose," because that's a base financial consideration, but "selling these things will NOT lose us money in the long run; we won't be shut out of new real estate purchases; employees won't walk off in notable numbers; cities will not refuse to license us for expansions; other companies won't refuse to contract with us for repair work" and so on.

They not only compare "Dollars spent by queer folks and their allies" to "dollars withheld by bigots." They compare "community standing and business opportunities gained from openly standing with the queer folks, vs those lost by denying the wishes of the bigots."

Target knows who "the public" is.

"The public" is not defined as "queer folks & allies or anti-gay bigot activists." Most of the public does not know, and does not care, what either of those groups do.

That has always been true.

What's new: The public is not uncomfortable with rainbow-flag merch. Is not unhappy to see openly queer marketing from companies they know and trust. Oh, they might grumble about "damn pandering to special-interest woke groups wtf is this?" BUT THEY DON'T ACTUALLY CARE.

This, THIS is what we have been fighting for.

Not acceptance and love and welcome, but indifference.

Because why the hell should Jane Q Housewife give a damn if someone who lives 10 miles away from her has a girlfriend or boyfriend? They both go to Target; they both push a cart around and throw some stuff in it; they both stand in line and text someone about whether to get a pizza later. And they never see each other again.

The alt-right wants Jane to believe some part of her life is Deeply Affected - Damaged, even, by the person behind her in line having a sweetheart of the wrong gender.

30 years ago, Jane agreed with that. She wasn't sure what exactly the problem was, but she wasn't comfortable with it. And businesses had policies for that: If Jane might notice you were gay, you weren't welcome.

That's changed. Jane no longer cares.

WE FUCKIN' WON THIS ONE.