Clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is getting backlash for a tweet that asserted, "The Pride community is everybody, not just LGBTQ people."
The tweet, now deleted, was posted Saturday as part of the company's partnership with the Trevor Project, which runs a suicide prevention hotline for LGBT youth, and mentioned the organization. A&F's new "Made for Love" connection benefits the Trevor Project.
"But despite the praiseworthy connection, many of the brand's Twitter followers found it inappropriate," the BBC reports.
The critics called the tweet a straight takeover of Pride, with some likening it to the "all lives matter" response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Blogger Camille Beredjick, a former Advocate intern, tweeted, "This is not a productive statement. Pride is for LGBTQ people because of the ways it's been forcibly taken from us."
Another Twitter user, Zeus Tipado, commented, "LGBTQ just got the All Lives Matter treatment."
A&F sent out two more tweets asserting its support for LGBT people, the BBC reports. "Pride is an important time for the LGBTQ+ community," the first one said. "At A&F we work to ensure that everyone feels included, respected and empowered. #pride." The second one noted, "We are proud to show commitment to the LGBTQ+ community and bring awareness to the important work @TrevorProject does."
Several Twitter users praised those sentiments, but some pointed out that they didn't constitute an apology for the initial tweet. One named Triyonce tweeted a photo of a woman with a magnifying glass, captioned "Me looking for the word 'sorry' in your tweets."
A sample of other Twitter reactions:
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