Walz-Backed Program Delivers Shocking New ‘Tool’ to Minnesota Classrooms This Fall

Liberty Check

• Minnesota taxpayers are funding transgender dolls with removable genitalia for children as young as four
• Gov. Tim Walz received an award from the university institute behind the controversial program
• The dolls are designed to teach children they can be any gender ‘regardless of their body parts’

A taxpayer-funded program supported by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will introduce transgender dolls with swappable body parts to children as young as four years old this fall, according to recent reports.

The MyGenderDolls, developed in part through the University of Minnesota’s Early Innovation Fund, are designed for use by “clinicians and educators” starting this year. The dolls target “gender diverse children ages 4–10,” according to the product’s website.

The controversial toys come equipped with interchangeable accessories and removable genitalia. University of Minnesota postdoctoral fellow Ben Parchem, Ph.D., explained in a now-deleted university foundation magazine article that the dolls help children “realize all the different options that exist for who they can be — regardless of their body parts.”

The project originated as a research program in the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, spearheaded by faculty members Dianne Berg, PhD, and G. Nic Rider, PhD.

“It’s really important to address the belief, ‘I’m not a ‘real’ boy because I don’t have these private parts,’ versus, ‘I am a real boy, whatever my anatomy looks like,'” Berg told the Foundation’s magazine in the now-deleted article.

“It’s about helping children develop tools to cope with messages in society that could lead to shame,” she added.

A now-deleted 2024 summary from the University of Minnesota’s Eli Coleman Institute for Sexual and Gender Health described the concept as similar to classic paper dolls, where “kids can select bodies, genitals, clothes, and other accessories as a way to visualize their anatomy and genders.”

The doll project represents just one element of Minnesota’s extensive taxpayer-funded transgender initiatives under Walz’s leadership. In 2023, the University of Minnesota’s Eli Coleman Institute for Sexual and Gender Health presented Walz with the Distinguished Sexual and Gender Health Champion Award “for his outstanding efforts in protecting sexual and reproductive health care (PRO Act, HF 1) and gender-affirming health care (Executive Order 23-03) in Minnesota.”

Among the three faculty members presenting the award was Rider, one of the co-creators of MyGenderDolls.

Walz’s office, MyGenderDolls, Rider, the University of Minnesota and the school’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Our children deserve protection, not ideological indoctrination on the taxpayer’s dime.