There's a great feeling you get when reporting on your fellow citizens to the state. It's a warm, fuzzy feeling knowing you've done the state a valuable service. There's a rush of pride when you realize that it was your action that resulted in a citizen or business being punished for a transgression.
This would be true if we lived in the old East Germany, Cuba, or present-day North Korea. It would also be true if we lived in California.
There's something about the radical left that requires a fanatical devotion to liberal orthodoxy. Why did Mao execute people for the slightest deviation from Communist dogma? Why did Castro execute rich people for being "counterrevolutionaries"?
Why does California Attorney General Rob Bonta want citizens to report on retail stores that aren't carrying "enough" toys and clothes that are "gender neutral"?
A law passed in California in 2022 requires stores to carry a “reasonable” number of gender-neutral toys and children’s products in their aisles.
The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times said the legislation “represents nannyish overreach" at the time. Bonta disagrees.
“Does your department store have a gender-neutral children section? As of January 1, 2024, large retail department stores that sell childcare items or toys must maintain a gender-neutral section for these items,” a recent memo from Bonta's office stated.
The law says, “Retail department stores that have physical locations in California and 500 or more employees across all California locations must maintain a gender-neutral section, where a reasonable selection of the childcare items and toys for children that they sell must be displayed, regardless of whether these products are traditionally marketed for boys or girls.”
I've got a counter-proposal. Why don't stores that wish to cater to parents of trans kids carry that nonsense do so and stores that don't want to offend the majority of their customers give it a pass?
Bonta gives painfully explicit instructions on how customers can snitch.
“If you do not see an adequate gender-neutral product section in a large retail department store in California that you believe is covered by this law, you may take pictures, document, and file a complaint with our office,” Bonta’s staff writes. There's also a helpful link to where the shoppers can report these dastardly stores.
The law itself does not specify a specific number of gender-neutral toys or products that must be on display, but rather the government requires that a “reasonable” amount of such product be for sale in a gender neutral section of the store that is labeled at the retailer’s discretion.
“A retail department store that offers childcare items or toys for sale shall 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 statute says.
For first time violations of the law, the fine is $250. For all subsequent violations, the fine is $500.
At least the Stasi gives the store some discretion in how to "label" the section where trans kids can shop for their stuff.
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