A University of Minnesota program backed by state funding tied to Gov. Tim Walz will put transgender dolls with swappable genitalia in front of children as young as four this fall, and the university has already scrubbed key pages describing the project.
The dolls, branded "MyGender Dolls," were developed over six years inside the University of Minnesota Medical School's Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. They feature detachable internal and external genitalia, gender-neutral names, and more than 100 options for clothing, hair, and accessories, the Washington Examiner reported. The product website says they were "designed for gender diverse children ages 4, 10."
The project was spearheaded by faculty members Dianne Berg and G. Nic Rider, both educators in the medical school department. A psychologist at the university's Eli Coleman Institute for Sexual and Gender Health, Rachel Becker-Warner, originated the idea. Communications specialist Ashley Finch helped develop the dolls. The University of Minnesota's Early Innovation Fund, a taxpayer-supported development program, provided funding to move the concept forward.
The medical school that housed the project receives $15 million in annual state funding from Walz, the New York Post reported. The two licensed psychologists behind the dolls eventually spun the project into a commercial venture.
The creators' own words spell out the program's purpose. Ben Parchem, a University of Minnesota postdoctoral fellow, wrote in a now-deleted article in the University of Minnesota Foundation's magazine that the dolls come with interchangeable accessories and removable genitalia to help children:
"realize all the different options that exist for who they can be, regardless of their body parts"
Berg went further. In the same deleted article, she framed the dolls as a way to challenge how children understand their own bodies:
"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.'"
She added that the project is "about helping children develop tools to cope with messages in society that could lead to shame."
In a separate statement, Berg told the New York Post that "everyone should be learning that there's diversity in gender identity and that what makes you real is not what your body parts are, but how you think and feel."
A now-deleted 2024 project summary from the Eli Coleman Institute described the concept plainly: "kids can select bodies, genitals, clothes, and other accessories as a way to visualize their anatomy and genders." The summary identified the dolls as "a therapeutic tool for transgender and gender diverse children."
Both the University of Minnesota Foundation magazine article and the 2024 ISGH project summary have been scrubbed from the web. The Foundation article contained the most detailed public statements from the program's creators. The ISGH summary laid out the team, the concept, and the intended use. Neither is currently accessible.
The MyGenderDolls website itself remains active. It states the dolls were "built for the professionals who support trans and gender diverse children in clinical and educational settings." That language, "clinical and educational settings", is worth pausing on. The product website frames the dolls as tools for licensed therapists and educators. The reporting describes them heading into classrooms.
Whether the dolls will be used in structured clinical therapy sessions or placed directly in elementary school classrooms for general use remains unclear. Fox News Digital contacted MyGenderDolls, Rider, the University of Minnesota, the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, and the governor's office for comment. No responses were reported.
Gov. Walz's connection to the program runs deeper than general state funding. In 2023, the Eli Coleman Institute for Sexual and Gender Health presented Walz with its inaugural Distinguished Sexual and Gender Health Champion Award. Three faculty members, including Rider, one of the dolls' co-creators, handed him the honor.
The institute's 2023 annual report described the award as recognizing Walz "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." The PRO Act expanded reproductive health protections in the state. Executive Order 23-03 addressed gender-affirming care access.
So the same institute that developed the transgender doll program also gave the governor a public award for advancing gender-affirming policy, and the governor's office directed state funds to the medical school where the project was housed. The total dollar amount of taxpayer money that went specifically to the MyGenderDolls program has not been disclosed.
Not everyone sees therapeutic value in handing four-year-olds dolls with removable genitalia. Dr. Quentin Van Meter, past president of the American College of Pediatricians, offered a blunt assessment to the New York Post:
"They will find anybody who's in trouble and use this as a tool to say, this is why you're unhappy. This is absolutely grooming."
Van Meter's charge cuts to the core concern that parents and critics have raised about gender-identity programming aimed at young children: that it does not simply support children who are struggling but actively introduces concepts about sex and gender to kids who would not otherwise encounter them, at an age when they lack the developmental capacity to process them.
The creators' own framing reinforces that concern. Berg did not describe the dolls as a response to children asking questions. She described them as a tool to reshape how children think about the relationship between their bodies and their identities. Parchem's language, helping children see "all the different options that exist for who they can be", suggests the goal is not comfort but conversion of perspective, starting at age four.
Several basic facts remain unresolved. The exact dollar figure of taxpayer support for the doll program is unknown. The specific schools or districts slated to receive the dolls have not been named. The mechanism for distribution, whether through individual therapists, school counselors, or classroom teachers, has not been explained publicly.
And the university's decision to delete the two most detailed public documents about the program, the Foundation magazine article and the ISGH project summary, raises an obvious question: if the creators believe so strongly in the dolls' therapeutic value, why scrub the pages that described them?
The program sits at the intersection of several trends that Minnesota under Walz has embraced: taxpayer funding for gender-identity initiatives, institutional support for gender-affirming care starting in early childhood, and a willingness to embed those priorities in public education. The dolls are one piece of what the reporting describes as many pro-transgender state-funded efforts under the current governor.
Parents of four-year-olds in Minnesota may soon find out that their children's school has acquired dolls with swappable genitalia, developed by university psychologists, funded with their tax dollars, and endorsed by the same institute that gave their governor an award for championing gender-affirming policy. Whether those parents were consulted, or even informed, is another question nobody has answered yet.
When adults start deleting the evidence of what they built for children, it is fair to ask whether they are proud of the product or afraid of the parents.
