UPenn Hosts Event for Children as Young as 5 to “Explore Gender Identity”

The university’s Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies organized the “radical playdate“ to teach kids about “social justice”

This week, the University of Pennsylvania’s Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies program hosted what it called a “radical playdate” in part to help children as young as 5 “explore gender identity.”

The graduate program partnered with the organization Colorful Stories for the childcare sessions, which aim to encourage a “positive sense of self and a respectful understanding of others” for children and to help them “succeed in a complex and diverse world.”  

“A teaching artist guides us in an interactive model of storytelling through art and writing and of course, we play,” the registration form stated, as reported by The Daily Caller. “Born out of Colorful Stories approach of using books as tools to support young children in having explicit and developmentally appropriate conversations around social justice topics.”

The “radical playdate” is open to the public, but children of students in the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies conference on the role that “queer, trans and feminist imaginations” played in the abolition movement will have priority.

The women’s studies track is designed to be an “inclusive” and “affirming” space, “including trans and non-binary individuals,” its website states.

The program also includes a “Center for Research in Feminist, Queer and Transgender Studies” for “learning and practice in the areas of gender and sexuality.”