INQUISITR.COM / Health & Lifestyle

More Stores Offering Gender-Neutral Kids Clothes For Back-To-School Season After Multiple Parent Requests

By Joanna Jaguar
Published on: 06:07 PST, Jul 26, 2016

After months of outcry from parents who no longer wish to set gender-specific standards for their children, many stores across North America have heard their patrons’ pleas and have begun offering gender-neutral kids clothes just in time for the back-to-school season.

For decades, the standards for kids clothes have been set in stone with pink for girls and blue for boys. Today’s parents, however, are pushing back against those standards. Why can’t little Jane wear shirts with trucks, dinosaurs, and rocket ships on them like her big brother does? And conversely, why does John only get to choose from clothes that are blue, green, gray, or black, when he really wants to wear purple? We are no longer living in the days of Leave it to Beaver, where little girls aspire to stay home with the kids while their husbands go to work. These days, little boys are free to dream of raising children, while little girls can imagine being astronauts, race car drivers, or the President of the United States. If jobs are no longer gender-specific, clothes shouldn’t have to be either.

That’s the belief held by the thousands of parents who have protested their local stores. They sent letters, emails, and angry social media messages pleading to do away with boys and girls sections, and instead, make one section just for kids clothes where the choices are gender-neutral. And finally, some stores have begun to listen. Though there is still a long way to go to make all kids clothes in all stores gender-neutral, many retailers have begun taking baby steps to appease the ever-growing list of parents who want to give their kids different choices than just blue or pink, or princesses or cars.

According to Fox News, companies and stores like Lands’ End, Target, and Zara have expanded certain lines of clothing to make them gender-neutral. After a customer had complained on social media that a specific t-shirt was only available in the boys section, Lands’ End launched an entire line of gender-neutral science shirts. Target created their new brand Cat & Jack to offer gender-neutral shirts in a unisex fit that depict slogans like “Smart & Strong,” and “Future Astronaut.” It’s not just kids and their parents who want gender-neutral clothes either. Zara launched a line of clothing in March called “Ungendered” geared towards teens and young adults that focuses on t-shirts, jeans, and sweatshirts.

When discussing their decision to begin gender-neutral lines of clothing, Julie Guggemos, Target’s SVP of design and product development, said the decision to develop universal, gender-neutral clothes for kids was an easy one to make, reports Retail Dive.

“It was an aisle of pink, fairy princesses, ponies and flowers. And for the boys it was rockets and dinosaurs. Well, you know what? Girls like rockets and basketball. And boys like ponies. Who are we to say what a child’s individual expression is? We really wanted to develop a collection that would be universal.”

There are still many people, however, who believe that clothes and toys should remain gender-specific. Clothing designer Martine Zoer founded Seattle-based Quirkie Kids, a clothing line that offers clothes for both boys and girls in shades of pink after her son wanted to wear that color, and she couldn’t find clothes for him in the boys’ section. Zoer says that the launch of her gender-neutral pink clothing line for kids sparked a barrage of hateful and biased emails, many of which had the same basic premise that “boys should not wear pink as it would turn them gay.”

Although so far, only a few large stores have begun offering gender-neutral kids clothes, the fact that they have them at all is still a step in the right direction towards gender-neutrality for this and all subsequent generations of kids.

[Photo by Elaine Thompson/AP Images]

Share this article: More Stores Offering Gender-Neutral Kids Clothes For Back-To-School Season After Multiple Parent Requests
Target
More from Inquisitr