A marketing executive at Target also serves as the treasurer of a LGBT organization which receives millions of dollars from the retailer and advocates allowing trans and nonbinary school students to keep their gender identity secret from parents.
Carlos Saavedra, 43, is Target’s vice president for brand management and also volunteers as a director at GLSEN, which supports LGBTQ youth in schools.
Details of Saavedra’s role at GLSEN come as Target’s donations to the organization were placed under the spotlight following a backlash to the retailer’s Pride month range, which includes ‘tuck-friendly’ women’s swimwear.
Target has reportedly donated $2.1 million to GLSEN, whose policies include ensuring school staff should ‘ensure that all personally identifiable and medical information relating to transgender and nonbinary students is kept confidential’.
GLSEN’s policy said this should include withholding the information from ‘parents or guardians… unless the student has authorized such disclosure’. Critics say the policy ‘violates [a parents’] right to parent their own children]’.