According to an email announcement sent to members of the American Family Association (AFA) today, Target CEO Brian Cornell now says he regrets his company’s policy announcement welcoming men to use women’s restrooms and dressing rooms.

In an article appearing in the Wall Street Journal (available by subscription only), Cornell says the bathroom policy was publicized without his knowledge or permission and has admitted to colleagues that he would not have approved the decision to flaunt the controversial policy with a public statement – that still appears on Target’s website.

“Target didn’t adequately assess the risk, and the ensuring backlash [AFA boycott] was self-inflicted,” Cornell told his staff.

The Wall Street Journal article went on to explain that last spring, Target headquarters sent an internal memo to store managers reiterating its official stance on men using women’s facilities. On  April 15, 2016, a group Target calls its ‘risk committee’ emailed executives informing them of a plan to post that message publicly. Mr. Cornell wasn’t among the recipients of that email.

However, at least two of Mr. Cornell's lieutenants approved the post, including Target's chief risk officer, Jackie Rice, and its chief external-engagement officer, Laysha Ward.

Target executives believed the backlash would eventually die down but it didn’t, and foot traffic inside the stores began to decline significantly in the months following the announcement. It prompted a nationwide boycott which was signed by more than one million Americans and saw the company’s stock lose 35 percent of its value. This decline led to the decision to cancel plans for major expansion projects that had been in the works.

“Together we are making an unprecedented financial impact on a corporation whose policy is to allow men to use women's restrooms and dressing rooms,” AFA president Don Wildmon wrote to his members today. “Target's decision is unacceptable for families, and their dangerous and misguided policy continues to put women and children in harm's way.”

He is urging people to help AFA reach a Target boycott goal of 1.5 million signers by the end of April. Once this goal is reached, he promises to personally return to Target headquarters in Minneapolis where he will “discuss how Target can invite 1.5 million AFA supporters by to their stores by having a common sense bathroom and dressing room policy that links use of these rooms to a person’s biological sex.”

If you have not yet signed the boycott, click here to do so today!

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