The California Legislature is considering a bill that, if accepted by the state, would prevent department stores from dividing toy aisles and "child-care items" by gender.

On March 7, the bill entered into committee, as reported by The LA Times. Assemblyman Evan Low and Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia co-authored the bill to prevent limiting children from exploring interests they might have previously been dissuaded from following due to gender role assumptions -- like a lack of science-related toys in the girls-assigned aisle or a lack of cooking-related toys in the boys-assigned aisle.

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Low stated, "In the state of California, where we hope to inspire, for example, more girls to get into science and engineering and mathematics, we want to ensure that those periodic tables and dinosaurs are not in the boys' section."  He added, "We just want to let kids be kids."

Assemblywoman Garcia expressed similar sentiments of creating a gender-neutral environment for children during playtime, noting, "Playtime is fun, but it’s also about developing a skill set." Garcia added, "It’s about ideas and being creative. We want to make sure we’re not limiting a kid’s creativity." However, she noted that this bill is also intended to promote inclusivity, stating, "I think we have kids who are figuring out their identities, and so we want to give them that safe space to do that."

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In 2015, Target decided to phase out gender-based signage in its toy sections, which led Toys R Us and Walmart to quickly follow suit. Low and Garcia referenced this move, stating that they both feel as if California is "playing catch-up" to these gender-inclusive decisions. Garcia said, "And we want to ensure that other folks are moving faster in that direction."

If accepted, the bill would ask department stores with "500 or more employees that sell child-care items or toys to maintain undivided sales floors for those items instead of segregating them by gender." In addition, the department store would no longer be able to use gender-assigned signage in the selling of toys and child-care items. If stores failed to comply with these measures, they would receive a written notice from the state. Failure to "correct" cited issues would lead to a civil penalty fee of $1,000.

At the time of this writing, Low and Garcia's bill is still in committee, but if it's accepted, and passed by the California Legislature, it would be in effect starting on Jan. 1, 2024.

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Source: The LA Times