Mattel announced a new autistic Barbie, giving neurodivergent girls a chance to see themselves in a new way. However, some conservatives think the doll is "promoting gender ideology" through one of its accessories.
The new Barbie doll was "created with guidance from the autistic community to represent common ways autistic people may experience, process, and communicate about the world around them," according to a press release. The new doll features elbow and wrist articulation, "enabling stimming, hand flapping, and other hand gestures," eye gaze that can shift to the side to avoid direct eye contact, and three accessories.
The accessories include a fidget spinner and headphones, but it's the third accessory, a tablet showing Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) apps, which allow nonverbal autistic people to better communicate, that is triggering conservatives.
Some conservatives are getting upset that the new doll's speech tablet appears to have a button for "pronouns," claiming that it is "promoting gender ideology via a pronouns app."
"Autistic Barbie appears to be promoting gender ideology via a pronouns app on the doll's toy tablet," an X account called Gender Receipts, which focuses on TERF talking points and anti-"gender ideology" content, recently posted on the popular social media platform. "The link between autism & identifying as trans is a major scandal. Worryingly, 1,000 of the dolls are being donated to hospitals."
Several studies have shown that people with autism are more likely to be transgender, and TERFs have picked up on this, arguing that neurodivergent girls are being taken advantage of by the trans community. They argue that most autistic trans people aren't actually trans, and are instead simply parroting "gender ideology" talking points that have been forced on them.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication tools are used by people with communication difficulties to get their messages across without speech. They include symbol boards and AAC apps on mobile devices, like the one Barbie has. The person can then point to a symbol or press a button to help facilitate communication.
Examples of AAC tablets and boards online show that they often include buttons labeled "I, me, my," "he, she, it, they," and "we, us." On Barbie's simplified board, there appear to be simplified versions that say "I," "we," "you," "they," and "pronouns".
In replies to others who pointed out that the tablet is for communication and people often use pronouns like "he," "she," and "it" when talking, the account didn't back down. Instead, it says that pronouns are "a loaded term" and "an ideological term" now and that "outside of gender ideology they're not typically referred to as 'Pronouns' in this way."
