California AG Forcing Department Stores To Have Gender Neutral Children Section
California Attorney Rob Bonta has asked consumers to report departmental stores without gender-neutral children sections during the holiday season. The reported stores will incur a fine of $250 for the first offense and $500 for repeat “offenders.”
“Does your department store have a gender-neutral children section?” Bonta asked. “As of January 1, 2024, large retail department stores that sell childcare items or toys must maintain a gender-neutral section for these items.”
Consumers can report the stores by taking pictures and submitting complaints about stores that have failed to comply.
The initiative is part of the state’s law under Assembly Bill 1084 in 2021, which took effect in 2024. The regulation requires department stores with at least 500 employees in California to avoid separating children’s products based on gender.
The ambiguous law requires the stores to maintain a “reasonable selection” of items in the gender-neutral children sections but does not specify which items qualify.
According to AG Bonta, the measure would prevent department stores from engaging in “gender-based pricing discrimination and reduces the imposition of gender stereotypes on children.”
However, California’s “Pink Tax Law” already prohibits gender-based price discrimination, thus making the gender-neutrality requirement for children unnecessary.
Other proponents of AB 1084, like Assemblyman Evan Low, say the measure makes “all kids feel welcomed” and allows children and guardians to shop “without societal pressures.”
Similarly, the Phluid Project, an “androgynous, unisex, gender-free” fashion brand, also says AB 1084 helps create a more “inclusive space for nonbinary and transgender youth” while dismantling gender stereotypes.
The law does nothing to account for the additional expenses incurred to maintain gender-neutral sections in a state where the cost of doing business is skyrocketing due to oppressive taxation and endless regulations.
Unsurprisingly, many commonsense businesses are fleeing California in droves because of unnecessary regulations, taxation, reduced profits and other issues in the deep Blue state. According to the Economic Policy Working Group, the number of company headquarters leaving California has more than doubled since 2021.
“Unless policy reforms reverse this course, California will continue to lose businesses, both large established businesses, as well as young, rapidly growing businesses, some of which will become the transformational giants of tomorrow,” the researchers warned.
Meanwhile, opponents of state-mandated gender-neutral children sections have opposed the measure, terming it as overreaching and problematic.
According to the Pacific Justice Institute, a California-based conservative legal defense nonprofit, the measure exemplifies politicians’ overreach on parenting to impose a “de-gendered ideology.”
“Parents do not need politicians’ help to pick out appropriate toys for their children,” the organization stated.
Similarly, the California Family Council, a Sacramento, California-based religious rights group, warned that the measure would allow activist groups to harass businesses based on how they market their products, resulting in an endless flurry of unwarranted complaints.
Additionally, Siskiyou Conservative Republicans also say stores are in the business of selling products, not conducting social engineering, and that market forces determine demand and supply.
While Californian politicians punish legitimate businesses for lacking adequate gender-neutral children sections, real criminals are allowed to raid the stores without repercussions.
Under fascism, the state dictates how capitalist businesses operate. Therefore this law which dictates what and how products are marketed is fascist.
Also the judge’s ruling in Delaware over Musk’s bonus package, approved by majority of stockholders, deemimg it excessive is also fascist.
This is fascism.
Do I understand this correctly?
Cali has no bigger problems than a kids toy section?
The LEFT Coast. I’ll only visit b/c my wife wants to see the trees.
That’s a lot of expensive floor space to accommodate two shoppers a month.
This is a deranged ideology which perforce saddles society with unnatural and detrimental laws which it neither needs nor desires. It’s adherents are literally disciples of Satan, unleashing chaos and societal destruction wherever they hold sway. Our miraculous electoral win was thus only a beginning. For it to have a lasting impact, Woke ideology must now be completely eradicated and forever banned from society. Asylums must be reopened and populated with whomever persists in their allegiance to the cult of Woke brain rot and societal decay. Only then will the world know peace…
If I were those businesses I would pull out of that state and do business elsewhere. California is truly the land of fruits and nuts.