A Canadian company is raising funds online for what it calls the world's "first educational transgender toy," in which children are taught that they can change their gender as often as they want to.
The
Kickstarter page for the toy named "Sam" created by Gender Creative Kids Canada, has raised over $15,000, with a stated mission to "educate people around the world about gender identity issues."
"Sam is an essential tool designed to help children understand what it means to grow up as a transgender child," the website says.
A YouTube video for the nestling toy presents Sam's backstory and the many stages of "gender questioning" the toy goes through. As a baby, Sam begins life "happily unaware of what gender even is," before she starts "exploring gender through identity play" and questioning "cultural gender norms."
As the
Daily Beast described it, "Sam moves from a somewhat miserable-looking girl figure to a smiling, self-actualized boy as each new layer is stacked onto the previous figurine."
HeatStreet reported in June that the doll has received funding from the Quebec government in Canada.
Gender Creative Kids Canada, with the backing of the Quebec Ministry of Justice, carries out 90-minute training sessions at elementary schools, discussing gender, sexual orientation and transgender issues.
"Play-based learning is not only accepted as one of the best ways to teach children but also creates natural opportunities for an adult to start a conversation about what it's like to be assigned a sex at birth that does not correspond to how you feel inside," the company claims.
Other transgender-oriented dolls have also been released this year, including one based on transgender teenager Jazz Jennings from the TLC series "I Am Jazz."
The Tonner Doll Company stated that the Jennings doll continues its history of "ground-breaking doll line introductions based on socially transformational heroes, who have included the plus-size model Emme and Carmen Dell 'Orefice, whose first Vogue cover was in 1946 and who remains a working fashion model."
Last month, the Canadian senate passed a bill that would allow the government to take children away from parents that don't accept their child's chosen "gender identity" or "gender expression."
Evangelical leader the Rev. Franklin Graham commented on another news story coming out of Canada earlier this month about a transgender parent who is refusing to identify the gender of her newborn baby.
"This Canadian parent believes that assigning a child's sex at birth is a human rights violation — and they wanted their baby to be registered as 'gender unknown' so they can decide their own sex. That's nonsense," Graham wrote in a Facebook message.
Graham said the only way for a person to ever be complete is by "trusting Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as our Lord and Savior."
"The Bible says we can be 'complete in Him.' He fills the void in our hearts, and can give us the 'peace of God which surpasses all understanding,'" he stated.
