Why should parents have to explain ‘gender identity' to five-year-olds?

Telegraph

27-03-2025

A very peculiar row has erupted over a BBC programme for small children. Apparently, some parents believe that Hey Duggee – a popular cartoon series about cute little animals – has been subtly promoting gender ideology to its audience of five-year-olds. They base this suspicion on the fact that, in one episode, a raccoon is referred to using gender-neutral pronouns. Other animal characters are given the pronouns 'his' or 'her'. Yet the raccoon, mysteriously, is given the pronoun 'their'. This, the parents infer, suggests that the raccoon identifies as 'non-binary'.
For its part, the BBC has dismissed these claims. 'Wren the raccoon,' insists a spokesman, 'is not a non-binary character.'
Hmm. All I can say is: I should hope not. Introducing a 'non-binary' character would be totally inappropriate for a programme with such young viewers. And it wouldn't be much fun for those viewers' parents, either. After all, little children are by nature extremely inquisitive. So it could lead to some terribly awkward conversations at home.
Just imagine…
'Daddy, what's 'non-binary'?'
'Well. Er. Let's see. How shall I put this… Basically, darling, 'non-binary' is a type of gender identity.'
'What's 'gender identity'?'
'Good question. Very, very good question. Er… Think of it like a special sort of game, played by grown-ups, and which has extremely strict rules. What happens is, a man says he's now a lady – and then everyone else has to agree, or they get in lots of trouble and lose their jobs. Especially ladies. Men can sometimes get away with saying they think the man who's now a lady is still a man. But if ladies say they don't want the man who's now a lady to take his, or rather her, clothes off in the ladies' changing room, everybody gets very cross and shouts at them.'
'I see. But what's 'non-binary'?'
'Well. 'Non-binary' is someone who says, 'I'm not a man or a lady.' Or, in this case, 'I'm not a man raccoon or a lady raccoon.' So, instead of calling the raccoon 'he' or 'she', you have to call it 'they', as if it – or rather, they – were several raccoons, instead of just one. And if you don't call it – or rather, them – 'they', you'll get in lots of trouble, too.'
Wouldn't be easy, would it? Especially if your five-year-old goes on to repeat your explanation to other children at school. Because the teachers might deem your phrasing to be insufficiently inclusive. In which case, both you and your five-year-old will probably be spending the rest of the year in detention.
On the whole, therefore, I doubt I'm alone in hoping that the BBC will not be filling its children's cartoons with characters who are non-binary, or, for that matter, genderqueer, pangender, demigender or gender-fluid. Adults who describe themselves using such terminology would no doubt be delighted if the BBC were to 'affirm' them in this fashion. But why should parents have to explain 'gender-identity' to five-year-olds? Some of us find it difficult enough to understand ourselves.
Anyway, it's funny how things turn out. Back in the late 1990s, when Teletubbies – another BBC hit – was first shown, some parents thought that it set a bad example to little children, because the characters in it all talked total gibberish.