‘Queer’ gallery claims Care Bears have ‘trans and gender-fluid identities’

A taxpayer-funded exhibition has claimed that ‘gender fluid Care Bears’ prove that “expression and identity are genderless”.

The ‘Villiers Revealed’ exhibition, developed by Culture Leicestershire with public money from Arts Council England, promotes “queer histories” alongside objects University of Nottingham students believe have “queer resonance”.

Among Care Bears, the gallery claims, ‘Funshine’ is “considered to be transgender or gender fluid”.

Wild claims

In support of its claim, the exhibition directs visitors to an article in which a postgraduate student argues that as Funshine has been voiced by both male and female voice actors in visual media, the bear is an “early (possible accidental) positive representation of transgender individuals”, and “sends a strong message to those going through a similar change”.

The article claimed that because “many other bears” have also switched voices, there may be “more than just one trans Care Bear” or “more than one bear who was gender fluid”.

The equality between all Care Bears, it noted, “normalises and validates those within the LGBTQA+ community, whilst telling children that fluctuations in expression or individuals between genders/ transitioning are not something to be made fun of”.

In conclusion, the author quoted Koriander Bullard, who wrote that Care Bears were “a gang of transgender teddy bears and stuffed animals, whose sole purpose was to make the world a less scary place”.

‘False ideology’

Within the same gallery, the exhibition also links mythical mermaids to the trans agenda.

One caption states: “Mermaid imagery is connected to trans and gender non-conforming communities – a powerful symbol for the trans community because of their ability to transform. Also, their genitalia are not visible and so are irrelevant to their gender expression.”

Posting on X, Family Education Trust commented: “Taxpayers should not be funding such blatant attempts to sexualise children’s toys and promote false gender ideology.”

Joan of Arc

Last year, it was reported that children as young as eleven were being taught that Joan of Arc was non-binary.

In the ‘Who We Are’ anthology published by Collins, one lesson plan for English language students aged between 11 and 14 claimed that “Joan of Arc (1412-31) is today considered by some to have been non-binary”. Although Joan of Arc was charged with heresy on multiple grounds, including wearing men’s clothes, she did not deny her biological sex.

In a similar incident in 2022, Shakespeare’s Globe faced a backlash after an essay on its website suggested that Elizabeth I was non-binary and ‘gender nonconforming’.