Minnesota taxpayers are funding the development of paper dolls with removable genitalia for children as young as four, under a University of Minnesota program backed by Gov. Tim Walz — and ordinary parents had no say in it.

The stakes are straightforward: public money flows to a state university institute that spent six years developing a tool to let four-year-olds swap out body parts to "learn about the different options that exist for who they can be," as therapist Dianne Berg told the New York Post. The dolls, with gender-neutral names like Sam, Rory, Avery, and Parker, come with removable internal and external genitalia and over 100 interchangeable clothing, hairstyle, and accessory pieces. They are being commercialized as MyGender Dolls and made available to teachers, school counselors, pediatricians, and mental health providers this fall.

The project originated at the University of Minnesota Medical School's Eli Coleman Institute for Sexual and Gender Health. Co-founders Berg and Nic Rider, both licensed therapists and university faculty, specialize in transgender health for children and adolescents. Rider's university biography confirms this focus. Walz was photographed smiling alongside Rider and received the institute's inaugural "Distinguished Sexual and Gender Health Champion Award" in 2023 — a title created specifically for him, according to the Gateway Pundit.

University officials claim no taxpayer dollars were used to commercialize the dolls. But they won't say how much public funding supported the underlying research. The medical school receives approximately $15 million annually in state funding under Walz, earmarked to boost research capacity. The institute's total research budget sits at roughly $1.4 billion, per its 2025 annual report. Breitbart noted the institute spent over half a decade developing the project, made possible by Walz through what it called "generous splashing of taxpayer funds." The Daily Caller reported that researchers paid children ages five to ten and their parents between $20 and $60 to participate in sessions using the dolls and discuss gender and anatomy.

Critics are blunt. "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."

It remains unclear whether schools will offer parents an opportunity to opt out of the program. The MyGender Dolls website offers only a waitlist and a "Launching 2026" notice, explaining the dolls are "designed for the clinicians and educators who show up for these kids every day." University postdoctoral fellow Ben Parchem, Ph.D., said in a now-deleted University of Minnesota Foundation article that the dolls help children "realize all the different options that exist for who they can be — regardless of their body parts," per FOX News radio.

The Walz governor's office did not respond to the New York Post's request for comment.

The question isn't whether a university can develop these dolls. It's whether Minnesota parents should be forced to fund them — and whether their four-year-olds should be the test subjects without consent.