‘Baymax’, a new Disney+ animated series for kids, features a transgender character, buying sanitary products at a supermarket.
Baymax which started streaming last month on Disney+, follows the adventures of the balloon-like robot from the 2014 movie Big Hero 6, who is on a mission to serve as good samaritan to the residents of the fictional city San Fransokyo.
The transgender character appears in an episode three titled “Sofia,” in which Baymax is assisting a 12-year-old girl who experiences her first period.
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The Mail Online reports: In the controversial episode, Baymax is browsing the menstrual product aisle at a supermarket on behalf of a 12-year-old girl, when he asks his fellow shoppers for help.
One of those customers is a trans man, wearing a transgender flag shirt, who hands him a box of pads and tells the robot: ‘I always get the ones with wings.’
The scene was shared by Disney Entertainment Studio’s YouTube page this week.
Conservatives were quick to condemn the appearance of a trans character in a kids show.
Texas State Representative Bryan Slaton, 44, kicked off the criticism, writing on Twitter: ‘This is so sick and weird. We have to protect kids from the sick adults who want to sexualize them and let them be kids.’
Opinion writer for the Star Telegram Nicole Russell highlighted how uncomfortable society is around period culture as women are often expected to discuss it behind closed doors in fear of making others feel uneasy.
She wrote: ‘I have four kids, ages eight [to] 15, who would watch this and it would make them all uncomfortable. What is the purpose?’
Another said the discussions of periods is ‘stealing childhood from children.’
She wrote: ‘You are an adult. This is a cartoon for children. Children don’t need to or want to talk about periods.’
Rufo even accused the company of promoting ‘the idea that men can have periods to children as young as two years old.’
However, not every parent disagreed with the scene, and highlighted the many young girls in the US are getting their periods as young as 10.
‘Kids GET periods. Statistically, at younger ages than they used to. Talking about periods and how to take care of yourself when you get a period in early and non-scary ways is good,’ Twitter user L. McMill wrote.
A father named Karl praised Disney for normalizing men buying period products for their daughters, wives, and girlfriends, even if he did admit that Disney has been ‘doing some sketchy s**t.’
‘This seems more like “normalizing” men buying feminine products for their daughters, or other women in their life. Which [by the way], should be totally fine lol. Definitely done that,’ he wrote.
Disney recently announced that going forward, it aims to have 50 percent of its characters represent minorities, such as the LGBT+ community.
The company has been caught in political crossfire since publicly coming out against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ bill, which bans discussing sexual orientation and gender identity through the third grade.
