University of Minnesota Unveils Dolls With Mix-and-Match Genitalia for Children

by Jeff Johnston | July 28, 2026 | Sexuality

The University of Minnesota Medical School has created “MyGender Dolls” to help 4- to-10-year-olds “explore and affirm their gender.” Children can “accessorize” the dolls by switching between male and female genitals, reproductive organs, hairstyles and clothing.  

According to the MyGender Dolls website, the “award winning dolls” offer “a new play-based therapeutic approach for trans and gender diverse children – and the clinicians who support them.” 

“We make gender fun!” the website boasts.

Let’s be clear: This is not “fun.” This is the deliberate sexualization and confusion of young children by the University of Minnesota Medical School. 

The paper dolls will be available soon for mental health providers, school counselors, educators,pediatricians and “allied” health professionals – who could use the dolls without parents’ knowledge or consent. 

As Dr. Quentin Van Meter told The College Fix, “[T]he dolls are ‘just a grooming tool’ and ‘have no place in an ethical medical care world.’”

Dr. Van Meter, a pediatric endocrinologist and past president of the American College of Pediatricians, explained that learning about unchangeable, biological sex is essential to normal child development:

A child will recognize their biological sex by age three. They are able, by age five, to understand that boys grow up to be men, and girls grow up to be women, but until age 7 years, kids don’t really understand the immutability of the sexes: they can wrap their heads around the fact that a girl can be a tomboy but is still a girl and a boy can play female dress-up, but he remains a boy.

Children who are taught they can turn into the opposite sex will become “confused” and “vulnerable to anxiety,” Dr. Van Meter said. 

In addition, many of these young children go on to undergo damaging, irreversible medical interventions like puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries. 

The dolls were created and developed by University of Minnesota’s Dianne Berg, Ph.D., Rachel Becker Warner, Psy.D., and Ashley Finch, from the National Center for Gender Health, an initiative of the medical school’s Eli Coleman Institute for Sexual and Gender Health. 

Eli Coleman, a sexologist and psychologist, is a past president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). He oversaw the most recent version of the organization’s so-called “Standards of Care.” 

Subsequent reviews of social and medical interventions for those with sexual identity confusion have found Coleman’s “Standards of Care, Version 8” to be filled with harmful, unethical, experimental and pseudoscientific treatment recommendations. 

Florida and the Federal Trade Commission each filed lawsuits against WPATH for promoting child mutilation and making false and unsubstantiated claims while promoting sex-rejecting procedures for minors. 

Berg, Warner and Finch began developing MyGender Dolls in 2020, the medical school’s Discover magazine reported in a since deleted article. 

Berg gave her explanation of why children need paper dolls with interchangeable genitalia: 

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

She added: 

I think 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.

In a post on X, the Daily Citizen’s Glenn T. Stanton commented on University of Minnesota’s medical school embracing this gnostic nonsense, instead of scientific truth: 

This is a world-class university proudly announcing it no longer believes in the most basic facts of biology and foundations of all other knowledge.

If you or someone you know is struggling with transgenderism, Focus on the Family offers a one-time complimentary consultation with our ministry’s professionally trained counselors. The consultation is free due to generous donor support.

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Related Articles and Resources:

Addressing Gender Identity with Honesty and Compassion

Counseling for Sexual Identity Concerns: A Measured, Careful, and Compassionate Approach.

Florida Sues Medical Groups for Promoting ‘Transgender’ Mutilation of Children

Focus on the Family: Transgender Resources

HHS Finalizes Report Finding Sex-Rejecting Procedures Harm Minors

HHS Releases Report on Harms of ‘Transgender’ Medical Interventions for Minors

INVESTIGATION: Taxpayers Fund Transgender Experiments on Children

The Journey Back to My True Identity

New Video Equips Parents and Counselors to Help ‘Gender Dysphoric’ Children

U.K.’s Review of Child Gender Policy Reveals Profound Failures That U.S. Still Defends

‘The WPATH Files’ Exposes ‘Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children’

The WPATH Files – Transgender Interventions Are ‘Unethical Medical Experiments’

WPATH Pushed Sex-Rejecting Procedures on Kids for Financial Gain, FTC Lawsuit Alleges

Photo credit: University of Minnesota / X.