By Paris Apodaca
“First-of-their-kind” transgender-identified paper dolls featuring removable genitalia are expected to be introduced in the fall in some classrooms for children as young as four years old, according to the University of Minnesota researchers who developed the project.
The dolls, which have gender-neutral names including “Sam,” “Rory,” “Avery,” and “Parker,” include removable internal and external genitalia and more than 100 interchangeable clothing, hairstyle, and accessory pieces designed to facilitate conversations about gender and anatomy, according to the MyGender Dolls website.
The project originated at the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Health after more than six years of research. It has since been spun into a commercial venture, MyGender Dolls. The university’s research reportedly included sessions in which transgender-identifying and other children, along with their parents, were paid between $20 and $60 to play with the dolls and discuss gender and anatomy. In addition, photographs presented during a 2024 conference reportedly showed prototype dolls depicting various stages of gender transition, including removable anatomy and interchangeable clothing.
The venture was founded by Dianne Berg and Nic Rider, both licensed therapists and faculty members at the university. Rider’s university biography references a specialization in transgender health for children and adolescents.
The dolls are intended to help children “learn about the different options that exist for who they can be,” Berg told the New York Post.
Berg reportedly wrote in a since-deleted 2020 article that the dolls were designed to help children understand that “there’s diversity in gender identity” and described using them with patients between the ages of five and ten.
Other university clinicians involved with the project said the dolls help facilitate discussions about children’s bodies and future physical development.
“They will find anybody who’s in trouble and use this as a tool to say, ‘this is why you’re unhappy,’” Dr. Quentin Van Meter, a past president of the American College of Pediatricians, told the New York Post. “The younger kids … are well beyond their ability to sort out fantasy from reality.”
The dolls are expected to be made available to teachers, school counselors, pediatricians, and mental health professionals. It remains unclear whether they will also be sold directly to parents or if schools will offer families an opportunity to opt out.
The University of Minnesota Medical School receives approximately $15 million annually in state funding appropriated to expand research capacity. University officials, however, told the New York Post that no public money was used to commercialize MyGender Dolls.
The institute’s total research budget is approximately $1.4 billion, according to its 2025 annual report.
Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has supported several transgender-related policies during his administration, received the Institute for Sexual and Gender Health’s inaugural Distinguished Sexual and Gender Health Champion Award in 2023. The governor’s office reportedly did not respond to the New York Post’s request for comment.
University officials maintain that taxpayer dollars were not used to commercialize the dolls, though they have not disclosed how much public funding supported the underlying research.
Sex changes can harm young people. 95% of young transgender people on testosterone develop pelvic floor dysfunction; most have bowel issues and sexual dysfunction. As the Telegraph reported, “Around 87 per cent…had urinary symptoms such as incontinence, frequent toilet visits and bed-wetting, while 74 per cent had bowel issues including constipation or being unable to hold stools or wind in. Some 53 per cent suffered from sexual dysfunction…Almost half had an ‘orgasm disorder’, while a quarter suffered from pain during sexual intercourse.”
Transgender medical treatments can lead to a lifetime of pain, discomfort, and medications. As Britain’s National Health Service explains, hormones “need to be taken for the rest of your life, even if you have gender surgery.” An FDA official who supported giving minors puberty blockers conceded that they actually increase suicidality. Indeed, the “FDA knew ‘gender affirming’ puberty blockers increase ‘suicidality’ in 2017,” reported Just the News.
Even the transgender lawyer who challenged Tennessee’s restrictions on transgender treatments for kids admitted to the Supreme Court that “completed suicide is thankfully and admittedly rare” among transgender youth, even those not given gender-affirming treatment, and that “there is no evidence…that this [transgender-affirming] treatment reduces completed suicide.” The ACLU’s Chase Strangio admitted that to the Supreme Court.
Yet doctors who did sex changes often falsely told parents that they needed to give their kids a sex change to keep them from committing suicide, even though this isn’t true. One of America’s most prominent gender doctors, “Dr. Olson-Kennedy disclosed to how she speaks with parents of gender dysphoric patients: ‘We often ask parents, “Would you rather have a dead son than a live daughter?’”
