Minnesota schoolchildren ages 4 to 10 may have access this fall to a new line of transgender-inclusive dolls developed through a taxpayer-backed program associated with Gov. Tim Walz, according to a report.
The product, called MyGenderDolls, was created in part with support from the University of Minnesota’s Early Innovation Fund and is expected to be available this year for use by “clinicians and educators,” the New York Post reported, citing the company’s website.
According to the website, the dolls were “designed for gender diverse children ages 4–10.”
The Washington Ave. bridge on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on April 2, 2022. ( )
The dolls include interchangeable accessories as well as removable and swappable genitalia. In a now-deleted article published by the University of Minnesota Foundation’s magazine, University of Minnesota postdoctoral fellow Ben Parchem, Ph.D., said the design was intended to help children “realize all the different options that exist for who they can be — regardless of their body parts.”
The project originated as a research initiative within the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. It was led by faculty members Dianne Berg, Ph.D., and G. Nic Rider, Ph.D., both educators in that department.
“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 told the Foundation’s magazine in the since-removed article.
Berg added that the goal is to help children build coping tools in response to social messages that may cause shame.
Diane Berg, PhD and G. Nic Rider, PhD, LP, faculty members of the University of Minnesota’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and co-creators of the MyGenderDolls (University of Minnesota’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health)
“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,” a now deleted 2024 summary of the project from the University of Minnesota’s Eli Coleman Institute for Sexual and Gender Health read.
The project is one of many pro-transgender state-funded efforts under Walz, according to the Post.
In 2023, the University of Minnesota’s Eli Coleman Institute for Sexual and Gender Health (ISGH) presented Walz with the Distinguished Sexual and Gender Health Champion Award “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 school wrote in its annual report in 2023.
Of the three faculty members presenting him his award, one was Rider, a co-creator of MyGenderDolls.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz fields questions on Feb. 3, 2026, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Walz has been a champion of transgender ideology throughout his tenure as governor. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
INC News contacted Walz’s office, MyGenderDolls, Rider, the University of Minnesota and the school’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health for added comment.
