UK designer’s satanic apparel not part of Target’s Pride collection

CLAIM: Satanic-themed shirts and pins from a London-based designer are part of Target's line of merchandise celebrating the LGBTQ+ community.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. While some items made by the brand Abprallen were among those featured by the big box retailer as part of its Pride month collection, none of the items bore satanic imagery. The three items featured had images of UFOs and planets instead.

THE FACTS: Social media users are claiming Target is selling LGBTQ+ pride apparel with a decidedly satanic vibe.

A widely shared post features a collage of images that includes the headline of an article that reads: "Target Partners With Satanist Designer Abprallen for Gay Pride Collection," along with various images of the company's supposed apparel.

Among them is a photo of a man wearing a black shirt with a purple goat head on it and the phrase "Satan Respects Pronouns." Another image features a pin with the same goat design and phrase.

"Target won't ever have my money again. They have just partnered with a Satanist designer ‘Abprallen’ and these are a few of the designs pictured below," wrote one user on Facebook who shared the post. "They are pushing transgender onto children and making it ‘cute’ for kids to worship Satan. This is not okay!!"

But the company, whose name means "ricochet" in German, has stressed that none of its merchandise with satanic references was included in Target's Pride collection. Those products are sold separately through the brand's own website.

Erik Carnell, the brand's creator, in a statement posted on Instagram last week, said only three items were sold through Target.

One was a sweatshirt featuring an image of a serpent wrapped around a winged staff -- a typical symbol of the medical community -- along with the slogan "Cure Transphobia, Not Trans People."

Another was a messenger bag with a UFO image and the phrase "Too Queer for Here," and the third was a tote bag with images of planets and the line "We Belong Everywhere."

Nevertheless, the three items were ultimately pulled by Target after it faced backlash over its Pride merchandise, Carnell wrote in his statement.

"My work was likely pulled following false accusations of being a Satanist and of marketing my work to children," he wrote. "It is a common trope to accuse LGBTQ+ people of immoral or illegal activities in order to discredit them, regardless of the truth behind the matter."

The Minneapolis-based retail chain didn't respond to requests for comment on the removal of the Abprallen items this week.

But in a statement last week, the company said it was removing some Pride items because threats against the company were impacting worker safety and wellbeing.

"Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior," Target's statement reads.

Meanwhile, separate posts circulated this week that featured fabricated images to falsely claim Target was selling children's clothes with satanic imagery.

But the images of a red, goat-headed mannequin and a young girl wearing a black shirt with a pentagram that were being widely shared as proof were made using an artificial intelligence image-generating program, the artist who created the visuals confirmed to The Associated Press.

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This is part of AP's effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.