Furious parents slam ‘damaging’ BBC sex change show aimed at 6-year-olds

NZ Herald 30 October 2016
Family First Comment: “One mother, writing on the Mumsnet website, said her daughter had become worried after seeing the video. She said her girl, who likes wearing boys’ clothes and playing football, had ‘asked me, anxiously, if that means she was a boy’. Tory MP Peter Bone said: ‘It beggars belief that the BBC is making this programme freely available to children as young as six. I entirely share the anger of parents who just want to let children be children. Former Culture Secretary Maria Miller voiced her concerns over the BBC tackling the subject in ‘an age-appropriate way’, saying such issues should be raised ‘where children can have support from parents’. And Tory MP Julian Brazier said: ‘This programme is very disappointing and inappropriate. Children are very impressionable and this is going to confuse and worry them.’”
Quite right. But here’s the key question. Would politicians in NZ also express their horror if the show was shown in NZ?!? We hope so!
The BBC has been accused of acting recklessly after targeting children as young as six with a programme about a schoolboy who takes sex-change drugs.
Parents are angry that the show, available on the CBBC website, features a transgender storyline inappropriate for their children.
And concerned campaigners said it could ‘sow the seeds of confusion’ in young minds. The programme, Just A Girl, depicts an 11-year-old’s struggle to get hormones that stunt puberty, making it easier to have sex-change surgery in the future.
One mother, writing on the Mumsnet website, said her daughter had become worried after seeing the video. She said her girl, who likes wearing boys’ clothes and playing football, had ‘asked me, anxiously, if that means she was a boy’.
Tory MP Peter Bone said: ‘It beggars belief that the BBC is making this programme freely available to children as young as six.
I entirely share the anger of parents who just want to let children be children.
‘It is completely inappropriate for such material to be on the CBBC website and I shall be writing to BBC bosses to demand they take it down as soon as possible.’
Former Culture Secretary Maria Miller voiced her concerns over the BBC tackling the subject in ‘an age-appropriate way’, saying such issues should be raised ‘where children can have support from parents’.
And Tory MP Julian Brazier said: ‘This programme is very disappointing and inappropriate. Children are very impressionable and this is going to confuse and worry them.’
READ MORE: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11738665