Stores Across California Prepare For ‘Gender Neutral Aisle’ Law Effective January 1

In less than a month, AB 1084, which requires gender neutral retail departments in stores that offer children’s or childcare items, will go into effect. With fines starting at $250 per violation, and then climbing to as high as $500 for each subsequent violation, most retailers covered under the law are taking advantage of aisle shifts that occur during the holiday season to put them into place before January 1st.

AB 1084, which was authored by Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) in early 2021 and signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom that October, will specifically have retail stores physically located in California with 500 or more employees that sell childcare items or toys to have a gender neutral aisle. In addition to the fines, retailers are also required to label the area and include a “reasonable” selection. Clothing was also initially included in the bill, but that part was taken out early on following massive backlash from retailers and fellow lawmakers.

“We need to stop stigmatizing what’s acceptable for certain genders and just let kids be kids,” Low said in a statement in October 2021. “My hope is this bill encourages more businesses across California and the U.S. to avoid reinforcing harmful and outdated stereotypes.”

“We need to stop stigmatizing what’s acceptable for certain genders and just let kids be kids. My hope is this bill encourages more businesses across California and the U.S. to avoid reinforcing harmful and outdated stereotypes. Part of it is to make sure if you’re a young girl that you can find a police car, fire truck, a periodic table or a dinosaur. And then similarly, if you’re a boy, if you’re more artistic and want to play with glitter, why not? Why should you feel the stigma of saying, ‘Oh, this should be shamed’ and going to a different location?”

Despite Low and others praising the bill for ending “harmful and outdated stereotypes,” other lawmakers and retailers decried the bill for being useless and for creating a law in which it set the rules for something the vast majority of stores already did organically.

“I would recommend we let parents be parents,” added Senator Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) in a statement in 2021. “Unlike the author, I actually have children, five of them to be exact, and I can tell you it is very convenient for parents. I don’t think parents need the government to step in and tell them how they should shop for their children.”

Retailers say that they had already been compliant with the new law long before it passed the Legislature

Many retailers have told the Globe that no changes have really been made since the bill was passed for a very simple reason: They were already doing it.

“Yeah, genders aren’t really a thing in dividing up toys or games or anything like that,” said Alan Morgen, a toy store owner in Riverside County, who had previously spoken to the Globe about the bill two years ago. “Some can claim that you divide toys up by gender by putting, say, all the dolls together. But that makes sense when structuring aisles. You want everything of that type  in the same area, so yeah, a bunch of toys marketed that way are going to be put together for the sake of organization and convenience.

“You want to know what we did to comply with this law? I’ll tell you exactly what we did. We picked a part of an aisle that we found to have the most mixed appeal, in this case, action figures, and put up a sign saying gender neutral. Then, at the end of the aisle, we put in a hodgepodge of Legos, board games, and other little things like Nerf products. And that was it. We put up a sign and shifted a tiny fraction of our stock to one area.”

Eileen Ruiz-Tosh, who helps runs several children’s aisles at a big box store in Bakersfield, added that “We were all pretty much set up this way and have been for years. No store labels things ‘boys’ and ‘girls’. There are things they gravitate to, but corporate found out years ago during the second Star Wars craze that splitting things up by gender really hurt sales. We had someone from corporate a few years ago tell us how people from up top would visit these stores right after making the kids sections more fluid when it comes to that and would be pleasantly surprised to see little girls carrying out, like, Darth Vader figures and things like that. Sales went up too. And this was in the 90s.

“Yeah, we have been making checks with people, especially since corporate sent a reminder about this. But it was really just a matter of putting up a sign. You know what’s better than not labelling an aisle gender neutral? Not doing that. That way kids can just be kids and choose what they want. Or if you are buying a kid a present, you don’t need a sign to help guide you on that front. You should know what they like. There are no stereotypes here in any aisle. If a kid likes something, they like something.

“Oh, and fun final piece about this. We had some stores put in gender neutral aisles in last year as sort of a lead up to this, and sales in those areas were actually lower than other aisles. So not only is this a pointless thing to do, it is causing already hurting retail stores even more money. I can’t speak for every store statewide doing this of course, just what we saw from a decent sample size last year. So, if we see it, it means that we might just relegate that area to things kids like less.”

Retailers previously switched over because of fiscal reasons

One respondent to the Globe, baby store co-owner Kay Stauffer, did say that that the aisle was a good idea, but for an entirely unrelated reason.

“We’ve had gender neutral here for years, but that’s because it is for parents and loved ones and even people going to showers wanting to get a baby something when the gender isn’t known. You know, parents want to be surprised, so everyone doesn’t know what to get them. So we have had dedicated areas to them. Luckily, baby toys are pretty versatile anyway, but sometimes they want to get something a bit more personal. But since the gender isn’t known, we found that offering a selection of things really helped people out.”

“We had to do nothing to comply with this law because we’ve been doing it out of necessity. But on that note, it really isn’t about stereotypes. We have first time grandparents who had nothing but boys who finally had a granddaughter and now they get to buy a dress or something like that for the first time. Or vice versa. Gender neutral sections mean nothing for them, and honestly, for most customers once the gender is known. People buy things they think the baby will like, or something the parents said they want for them.”

“You know who doesn’t care about this law? 99% of people, because the vast majority of people either ask the kid or the parent if they are too young what they want or what they like. They just couldn’t help but tinkering with something everyone in the baby and kids industries learned a long time ago.”

AB 1084 is to become law on January 1, 2024.