*A new California law requires major retailers to have gender-neutral toy aisles.
The so-called “progressive” state became the first in the nation to adopt such a law, CNN reports.
According to the bill, retailers with 500 or more employees across all department stores in the state that sell childcare items or toys must now sell these products in a gender-neutral section that’s “labeled at the discretion of the retailer … regardless of whether they have been traditionally marketed for either girls or for boys.”
Retailers that fail to comply will be fined up to $500.
The bill states, “Beginning on January 1, 2024, the bill would make a retail department store that fails to comply with these provisions liable for a civil penalty not to exceed $250 for a first violation or $500 for a subsequent violation, as provided.”
Per CNN, California Assemblymember Evan Low introduced this bill after an 8-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,” Low said.
Low wrote in a statement to the assembly’s judiciary committee, “The segregation of toys by a social construct of what is appropriate for which gender is the antithesis of modern thinking.”
The law went into effect Jan. 1 after passing in a 49-16 vote in September 2021.
Meanwhile, conservative and business groups oppose the new law.
“We should all have compassion for individuals experiencing gender dysphoria,” California Family Council President Jonathan Keller previously said, per CNN. “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.”
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