Major retailers in California are now required to have gender-neutral aisles for children’s toys after a new state law went into effect.
The legislation went into effect on Monday after Governor Gavin Newsom signed it into law in 2021, applying to retailers with physical stores in the state and which sell products for childcare or toys. Only retailers with 500 or more employees are affected by the change, requiring them to have a gender-neutral section.
Stores that don’t follow the law may initially be fined $250 and subsequently as much as $500 for each following violation.
The stores must “maintain a gender-neutral section or area to be labeled at the discretion of the retailer,” the 2021 bill stated.
Evan Low, a member of the California Assembly, told CNN that he introduced the bill after an eight-year-old girl asked, “Why should a store tell me what a girl’s shirt or toy is?”
“Her bill will help children express themselves freely and without bias. We need to let kids be kids,” he added.
In 2021, California Family Council President Jonathan Keller said: “We should all have compassion for individuals experiencing gender dysphoria.”
“But activists and state legislators have no right to force retailers to espouse government-approved messages about sexuality and gender. It’s a violation of free speech and it’s just plain wrong,” he added.
In September of that year, the bill passed by a 49-16 margin. Mr Newsom signed it in October 2021.
Aleameda toy store owner Helen Dean told ABC7 last month that she backed the legislation.
“We’re not affected by the law but I saw – yay! It’s not called woke, it’s called American freedom,” she said.
“If you look at the packaging you can see the evolution going from kids playing with toys to, ‘Hey we’re going to sell this to a little girl and this is what she is going to want and we know’,” she added.
Toy customer Angelica Guerrero told the local station that “the way we are feeding their minds and the materials we are choosing to use, it is narrowing their ideas and the ability to negotiate the world for them”.
The new legislation doesn’t force stores to remove any section geared specifically to boys or girls, simply requiring large retailers to add a neutral section.
“It’s a little crazy. Sacramento seems so content on breaking down the distinctions and differences between men and women, boys and girls. It’s not enough that we are having general-neutral bathrooms, we’re even having to extend that to the toy section,” Mr Keller told ABC7.
