When Trust Meets Crisis: Learning to Show Up Authentically
I want to tell you about the time I learned what it really means to show up-and how that changed everything I understand about trust, accountability, and doing this work authentically.
There’s a moment that still makes my heart sink when I think about it. I was sitting across from my spouse, watching the disappointment wash over their face as they called me out—again—for not showing up the way I said I would. For letting perfectionism and people-pleasing speak louder than my actions of care.
They were right. I had been shrinking from accountability, from vulnerability, from the messy work of being fully myself in relationship. I was so afraid of messing up that I ended up messing up in bigger ways; ways that hurt the person I loved most.
But here’s the thing that changed everything: they didn’t give up. They kept calling me to account while still showing up. They showed me what it looked like to build trust not by being perfect, but by staying present through the imperfection.
It took time. It took months of learning to lean into discomfort instead of away from it. Of reading theorists like Audre Lorde on the revolutionary power of authentic self-expression, and adrienne maree brown on how we practice in small things what we want to see in the world…and a shit ton of therapy. I learned that accountability isn’t punishment; it’s an invitation to show up more fully.
The $40 Billion Trust Gap
Organizations spend serious money trying to build trust. Nonprofits alone allocate between $500 and $5,000 per month on marketing, with research showing that nonprofits generally allocate 5-15% of their budget to marketing. For businesses, the numbers are even higher. We’re talking about billions of dollars annually invested in trust-building—websites that say “authentic,” campaigns that promise “transparency,” diversity statements that declare “commitment.”
But when a crisis hits, something infuriating happens. Organizations abandon all that carefully constructed trust and start deciding based on fear instead of values. They use the community based buzz language but like many of us, don’t know how to sit in the mess with their community, even when one or both parties aren’t perfect.
Enter Target’s Pride response in 2023.
For over a decade, Target had built “genuine” relationships with LGBTQ+ communities. They didn’t just slap rainbows on merchandise once a year—they carried gender-affirming clothing year-round, partnered with queer-owned businesses, and funded organizations supporting LGBTQ+ youth. They had invested millions in building authentic trust with a community that needed it.
Then came the backlash. Threats against employees, social media attacks, and coordinated campaigns targeting their Pride merchandise. And what did Target do with all that trust they’d spent years building?
They folded.
Target decided to withdraw several pieces of merchandise from stores in southern states and from their website. The company also decided to move its pride displays in some stores from entrance areas to the back. (Don’t even get me started on their “plus size clothing section”)
The result? The backlash over its LGBTQ+ merchandise before and during Pride month in June took a bite from its sales, and Target faced harsh criticism from GLAAD and several other LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, who requested that Target return all merchandise removed from its stores and website.
Target made the same mistake I used to make in my relationship: when things got hard, they chose self-protection over authentic showing up.
The Liberation of Authentic Accountability
There’s something profound that queer and trans theorists understand about authenticity that most organizations miss entirely. José Muñoz writes about “disidentification”—the process of working on and against dominant cultural forms to create something new and life-giving. Trans scholars like Sandy Stone and Susan Stryker talk about the revolutionary act of living authentically in a world that demands conformity.
At its core, this work is about liberation; not just for underrepresented communities, but for all of us trapped in systems that prioritize comfort over truth.
My spouse taught me something beautiful about this. When they held me accountable while refusing to abandon me, they were practicing a form of love that transformation requires. They weren’t trying to control my behavior or protect themselves from disappointment. They were creating space for me to grow into who I said I wanted to be.
This is exactly what Target’s LGBTQ+ community was offering them. Kennedy Davenport, a drag queen featured in Target’s Pride collection, said “The bigwigs at Target should continue to take a stand with us and not be so quick to fold”. Kelley Robinson, President of the Human Rights Campaign, wrote that “the LGBTQ+ community has celebrated Pride with Target for the past decade. Target needs to stand with us and double-down on their commitment to us”.
They weren’t asking for perfection. They were asking Target to lean on the relationship they’d built instead of abandoning it.
What Authentic Crisis Response Actually Looks Like
Here’s what I learned from my own mess, and what organizations can learn from Target’s misstep:
Trust isn’t built for smooth sailing, it’s built for storms. All that marketing budget, all those carefully crafted statements about values? They’re only meaningful when you’re willing to stand by them when it costs something.
Authenticity requires staying connected to your why, not just your bottom line. Target’s chief growth officer Christina Hennington commented that “The reaction is a signal for us to pause, adapt and learn so that our future approach to these moments balances celebration, inclusivity and broad-based appeal”. But you can’t balance your way into integrity. As my Front Porch culture taught me—you’re either sitting on the porch with your people or you’re not.
Accountability is a practice, not a performance. When I finally learned to show up authentically with my spouse, it wasn’t about grand gestures. It was about daily choices to be present, to listen, to repair when I messed up, and to keep showing up even when it was uncomfortable.
A Framework for Authentic Crisis Response
If you’re an organization serious about building trust that can weather storms, here’s what queer liberation theory and healthy relationship dynamics can teach you:
1. Know Your Non-Negotiables
Before crisis hits, get clear on your actual values—not your aspirational ones. What are you willing to lose money over? What principles define who you are? My spouse and I had to get clear on what our relationship actually meant to us, not what we thought it should look like.
2. Practice Vulnerability Before You Need It
Authenticity isn’t something you can fake during crisis. Nonprofits like Girls Who Code combine stories with stats, pairing personal narratives with supporting data to show both emotional and measurable outcomes. They practice transparency when it’s easy so they can be trusted when it’s hard.
3. Center Those Most Affected
When Target faced backlash, they centered the concerns of those making threats rather than the communities they’d promised to support. Michael Edison Hayden from the Southern Poverty Law Center noted that “As soon as you back down like this, you send a message that intimidation works, and that makes it much scarier than if you had never started to begin with”.
4. Use Your Platform to Model Something Different
This is where trans theory gets revolutionary. The goal isn’t just to survive the crisis—it’s to transform the conditions that create crisis in the first place. Target could have used their platform to educate about why LGBTQ+ support matters, to amplify queer voices, to model a different way of responding to intimidation.
5. Stay Connected to Your People
The most important lesson from my relationship? Don’t abandon the people who’ve been showing up for you just because other people are loud. Small businesses that partnered with Target for Pride said the company’s response left them “questioning how committed to the LGBTQ community these companies really are and how much we can trust their word”.
The Front Porch Principle
Y’all, here’s what my Cajun ancestors knew that corporate boardrooms often forget: relationships are built on the front porch—in the space between public and private, where you’re visible to your community but still grounded in who you are. On the front porch, you can’t hide behind perfect PR or carefully managed images. You have to show up as yourself.
By 2024, Target announced that not all stores would carry its 2024 pride collection. They chose the back room instead of the front porch. They chose to manage perception rather than honor relationship.
But what if they had done something different? What if, when threatened, they had said: “This community has been with us for a decade. We’re not perfect, but we’re not going anywhere. Come sit on our front porch and let’s figure this out together.”
The beauty of authentic accountability is that it doesn’t require perfection. It requires presence. It requires the courage to stay connected to your values and your people even when—especially when—it gets hard.
My spouse didn’t love me into accountability despite my flaws. They loved me into accountability because they saw who I could become when I stopped hiding from myself.
That’s the kind of trust worth building. That’s the kind of love that changes everything….and don’t we all want a love that CHANGES EVERYTHING?
What would it look like for your organization to practice front porch authenticity? To build relationships strong enough to weather the storms? I’d love to hear about it—come find me at joribercier@gmail.com and let’s talk about doing this work differently.
Jori Bercier is a PhD student in the Built Environment at the University of Washington, founder of PatchWork nonprofit, and a story teller who believes in the revolutionary power of authentic connection. Their research examines how queer bookstores create spaces for belonging, and they bring that same lens to helping organizations build genuine community.
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