Starting Jan. 1, California retailers with more than 500 employees are required to offer a “gender neutral” toy section or face a $500 fine from the state government.
According to Fox News, Assembly Bill No. 1084 passed in 2021 and goes into effect starting on the first day of 2024.
The state legislature declared that, “Unjustified differences in similar products that are traditionally marketed either for girls or for boys can be more easily identified by the consumer if similar items are displayed closer to one another in one, undivided area of the retail sales floor.”
It also decided, “Keeping similar items that are traditionally marketed either for girls or for boys separated makes it more difficult for the consumer to compare the products and incorrectly implies that their use by one gender is inappropriate.”
Toy sections are not the only area of products being governed under this new state law, but also “childcare items.”
These are defined as “any product designed or intended by the manufacturer to facilitate sleep, relaxation, or the feeding of children, or to help children with sucking or teething.”
Greg Burt, vice president of the conservative nonprofit California Family Research Council, stated that it “violates the First Amendment.”
“The government is deciding to tell a religious person, could be a Muslim-owned business, that they have to use certain words to advertise toys, and those words might violate the belief systems of that particular Muslim-owned business,” he went on.
He then noted, “You got the government now dictating the signage in stores, about what words can be used to advertise products. This is opening a Pandora’s Box.”
The bill’s author, California lawmaker Evan Low (D-26th District), noted he introduced the legislation to combat gendered toy sections, which he believes reinforces “harmful and outdated stereotypes.”