People fighting for gender-neutral toys just scored another victory

Parents wondering why the world was always trying to tell their sons not to play with dolls or their daughters not to play with trucks scored a victory this past weekend.

Toys “R” Us has taken gender categories off of its British website, the Independent reported on Saturday. Let Toys Be Toys, a British group specifically formed to get toy stores to market their products in a gender-neutral way, had been pushing Toys “R” Us to make the move for two years. The group celebrated its victory on Sunday.

“This shows a real effort being made to be more inclusive to all children and the results will no doubt make a lot of children and parents happy this Christmas,” it wrote in a statement on its site.

Score one for people saying that maybe, in 2015, we can break out of our stale, socially and psychologically confining notions about gender identity! Not everything is so enlightened in toy-land, however.

Toys “R” Us had already done away with gender categories in its American stores, but one important piece of company turf hasn’t progressed yet: its American website.

American shoppers logging on for Black Friday or Cyber Monday will still find a “Boys” section that features features “Action Figures” and a “Girls” section that features “Dolls.”

In late October, a spokesperson for Toys “R” Us told the New York Times that this was because “its data suggests that many shoppers on the site still search for products by gender.” Either British shoppers are not similarly inclined, or Toys “R” Us has some more work to do.