Where to Shop if You're Pro-LGBT

Where to Shop if You're Pro-LGBT

A new report from the LGBT Human Rights Campaign (HRC) lists hundreds of retailers and their LGBT-friendly score. The purpose of the list is to encourage shoppers this holiday season to buy LGBT and to avoid companies that are not so enlightened.

The listing comes from HRC’s annual Corporate Equality Index that grades major corporations on how they treat LGBT employees. Businesses are graded 0-100 on “anti-discrimination protections, domestic partner benefits, diversity training and transgender-inclusive benefits.”

Companies that score 80-100 get HRC’s highest “green” rating. Scoring 46-79 gets a company a “yellow” rating. Score 0-45 and your company gets “red.” 

In the retail category Best Buy gets 100 along with CVS Health, Macy’s, Office Depot, REI, Safeway, Sears, Target, Walgreens, Amazon, and many others. PetSmart, Toys ‘R’ Us, Brooks Brothers and Rite Aid get the mid-range “yellow” score while Radio Shack, and Winn-Dixie come in at the top of the failing range in the 40s, with the Harris-Teeter grocery chain, Barneys New York, and the shoe discounter DSW coming in with zeros. 

The report has categories for Home and Garden with Samsung, Sealy, Berkshire Hathaway and Georgio Armani coming in with zeros, and Banking and Finance with Sallie Mae, H&R Block landing in the lowest category. 

Among the most LGBT-friendly categories is “Kids,” with not a single company scoring lower than 75. 

If anyone wants a pet to be supplied only by LGBT-friendly companies, there are many, including Nestle Purina (makers of Cat Chow and Alpo), and Procter and Gamble, sellers of the dog-food Eukanuba. 

Some might think that the “Apparel and Accessories” category would only have the highest scores, since the stereotype is that LGBTs work the fashion industry in droves. While American Shoe, Macy’s, Levi Strauss, and Gap all score perfect 100s, Under Armour gets only 30, Burberry gets a measly 15 and Versace scores a goose egg, along with, surprisingly, Gucci, Rolex, and Dolce & Gabbana. 

In the insurance category one wonders how a company with the name TransAmerica scores only 20.

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