California stores with more than 500 employees statewide are now required to have "gender-neutral" toy aisles — or face fines.
The legislation was initially introduced in October 2021 by California Assemblymember Evan Low and then-member Cristina Garcia but did not go into effect until January 1, 2024.
Assembly Bill No. 1084 “require[s] a retail department store that is physically located in California that has a total of 500 or more employees across all California retail department store locations that sells childcare items or toys to maintain a gender neutral section or area, to be labeled at the discretion of the retailer, in which a reasonable selection of the items and toys for children that it sells shall be displayed, regardless of whether they have been traditionally marketed for either girls or for boys.”
The display requirements apply to products “designed or intended by the manufacturer to facilitate sleep, relaxation, or the feeding of children, or to help children with sucking or teething,” designed for “persons 12 years of age or less,” and those which “are intended by the manufacturer to be used by children when they play.”
“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,” the bill states. “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.”
Those who do not comply are “liable for a civil penalty not to exceed $250 for a first violation or $500 for a subsequent violation, as provided.”
Bounding Into Comics reports, "In addition to its numerical designation, this newly realized piece of legislation is also colloquially known as ‘Britten’s Bill,’ named after the then 9-year-old, 'self-proclaimed feminist' Britten Sires’ whose activism against gender roles inspired the bill."
"I was like, wait, why is there a boy's section? I'm a girl, but I want to go in it," Britten said of a toy aisle, according to a report from Spectrum News in 2021.
The child claims she noticed the differences in the toys and it made her uncomfortable.
"Boys is more like knowledge and trying to get them smarter so they can get into a good college and get a good job, and then women's is more like makeup and cooking sets," Britten said.
The girl's mother worked for Assemblymember Low.
