California stores with more than 500 employees will be fined if they do not carry “gender-neutral” toys for children aged 12 and under.
The toys must be on shelves by January 1, 2024.
The bill requiring “childcare items or toys” was signed into law in 2021 by Governor Gavin Newsom (D).
According to the bill, a “childcare item” is “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,” Fox News reported.
Vice President of the California Family Research Council Greg Burt told Fox News that the law violates free speech under the First Amendment.
“This is government-compelled speech,” Burt said. “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.”
When the bill was introduced in 2021, California Assemblyman Evan Low wrote in a statement, “Traditionally children’s toys and products have been categorized by a child’s gender. In retail, this has led to the proliferation of [science, technology, engineering and mathematics]-geared toys in a ‘boys’ section and toys that direct girls to pursuits such as caring for a baby, fashion, and domestic life.”
“The segregation of toys by a social construct of what is appropriate for which gender is the antithesis of modern thinking.”
