The U.S. Department of Education announced Wednesday that it has opened an investigation into the Minnesota Department of Education following reports that “MyGender Dolls” were being made available to children as young as 4.
According to the federal agency, “The dolls – developed via a taxpayer-funded University of Minnesota program — feature removable, interchangeable internal and external genitalia, gender-neutral names, and clothing (including undergarments) for both sexes.”
Education officials said the use of “MyGender Dolls” in Minnesota classrooms may violate the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, which “guarantees parents the right to opt their children out of surveys that elicit certain sensitive information about students or their families, and to review related instructional materials.”
The department added that schools found to have violated the federal law could risk losing federal funding.
“While Governor [Tim] Walz and the radical left continue to funnel taxpayer dollars to perverted ideologies that can harm children, the Trump Administration is fighting to protect children’s innocence and defend parents’ role as the first and primary decision-makers in their child’s education,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said. “No four-year-old should be exposed to such material – especially without a parent’s knowledge or consent.”
McMahon said her department “will enforce the law to its fullest extent, putting parents and families firmly in the driver’s seat of their child’s education.”
According to the product’s website, “MyGender Dolls” are scheduled to launch this year and are intended for clinicians and educators working with what the site calls “gender diverse children.”
The website says the dolls were created for use with children between the ages of 4 and 10.
The project received a cash award through the University of Minnesota’s MINCORPS program, which is affiliated with the Great Lakes I-Corps Hub, along with additional funding from the university’s Early Innovation Fund, according to The College Fix.
Fox News reported Saturday that Dianne Berg and G. Nic Rider, educators in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, led the research initiative, which originated within the department.
The outlet cited a since-deleted 2024 project summary published by the University of Minnesota’s Eli Coleman Institute for Sexual and Gender Health, which stated:
“MyGender Dolls began as an idea of the Institute for Sexual and Gender Health psychologist, Rachel Becker-Warner, PsyD. NCGSH Co-Director, Dianne Berg, PhD, and Communications Specialist, Ashley Finch, have been hard at work developing the dolls to be used as a therapeutic tool for transgender and gender diverse children. The concept is similar to classic paper dolls; kids can select bodies, genitals, clothes, and other accessories as a way to visualize their anatomy and genders.”
Fox News also pointed to a now-removed article from the University of Minnesota Foundation’s magazine in which Berg explained the reasoning behind the project.
“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 stated.
“It’s about helping children develop tools to cope with messages in society that could lead to shame,” she added.
University of Minnesota postdoctoral fellow Ben Parchem also said in the deleted article that the interchangeable genitalia were intended to help children “realize all the different options that exist for who they can be — regardless of their body parts.”
