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Preschool Propaganda: Study Finds 41% of Netflix Kids Shows Include LGBT Themes
It’s not in your imagination: children’s television has been overrun with LGBT themes, and Netflix is leading the charge, waving the rainbow flag right into your living room.
A new report from Concerned Women for America (CWA) confirms what many parents have long suspected about LGBT propaganda in kids’ entertainment. According to the study, one-third of all Netflix shows rated for children contain LGBTQ characters, themes, or messaging, and the percentage jumps to 41% in both TV-G and TV-Y7 categories.
In other words, the shows most aggressively marketed to the youngest viewers now routinely include sexual-identity content that would have been unthinkable in children’s entertainment just a decade ago.
Parents got a glimpse of this last October when a clip from the series “Dead End: Paranormal Park” went viral due to the main character “coming out” as transgender, as The Daily Wire previously reported.
Elon Musk amplified the video and urged users to “cancel Netflix.” Within hours, the platform lost an estimated $15 billion in value. But while many dismissed the situation as an isolated incident, the CWA report demonstrates that it was only the tip of the iceberg.
The research team examined 326 Netflix series rated TV-G, TV-Y, or TV-Y7 — categories traditionally meant to be free of sexual topics altogether. They then catalogued LGBT themes as explicit (openly identified characters), implied (queer-coded characters or storylines), meta (LGBT families on reality shows), or none.
Even among TV-Y shows, which are geared toward preschoolers, 21% of the programs introduce LGBT identity concepts. Shows such as “The Magic School Bus Rides Again” and “Strawberry Shortcake: Berry in the Big City” feature transgender, nonbinary, or “trans-coded” characters.
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CWA President and CEO Penny Nance, who leads the nation’s largest public policy organization for women, told The Daily Wire she was stunned by what the researchers uncovered. “I think I was most surprised that they had even targeted preschool children,” she said. “Over 20% of the programming aimed at the smallest viewers had LGBTQ themes included.”
For Nance, the numbers aren’t just data points, but a wake-up call for parents who thought age ratings provided a safeguard against adult content.
“Back in the day when my children were young, sometimes you need a reprieve from your day,” she explained. “You just need a few minutes, and you feel safe. You’ve done the work as a mom. … And yet, over all that content, at least 30% of it was LGBTQ themes.”
“The bottom line is the rating systems do not work,” she said. “You have the networks and the companies rating themselves … We have to go in a different direction because it’s absolutely insidious what they’re doing.”
Netflix and other major media companies often frame LGBT content as “representation.” But Nance rejects that narrative outright.
“I think their own content creators have been very clear on what their intent is,” she said. “It’s not as if they think that they’re not moving the needle in culture. They’ve been very forthright in what they’re planning to do.”
She points out the obvious discrepancy between the Netflix representation and actual population demographics. “You’ve got a very small percentage of the population, and yet the overall content that is being developed for little children is much larger than those numbers. … It’s overrepresenting.”
In May of this year, Netflix published a report highlighting Netflix’s efforts to add diversity to its original films and series. The report bragged that “2023 was a standout year … over half (52.4%) of all [episodic] programs released in the year featured LGBTQ+ characters as 10% or more of series regulars.”
In 2023, roughly 60% of new children’s shows on Netflix included LGBTQ content. That’s six times the rate one would expect if the goal were simply mirroring population data.
Even more concerning, the spike in youth identification with LGBTQ labels aligns with the rise in this type of media. Among Gen Z, LGBTQ self-identification has jumped from 11% in 2017 to more than 20% in 2023, as the report notes.
The report also reveals a major inflection point around 2021, when LGBTQ representation suddenly spiked across kids’ shows.
“Remember, this is during COVID,” Nance said by way of explanation. “Children are out of school, at home … I think there was absolute intent on the part of the culture warriors and content creators to try to target children.”
That spike coincided with a rise in minors identifying as transgender, which is something Nance believes is not a coincidence. “It wasn’t just on the darkest corners of the internet,” she told The Daily Wire. “It was apparently in their parents’ living room.”
When parents raise concerns, they’re often brushed off as overreacting or hopelessly bigoted. But Nance insists their instincts are correct.
“Parents are being gaslit,” she said. “Anyone who’s ever paid for an ad knows that children and adults both are impressionable … Just basic common sense tells you that people are impressionable, and children are even more impressionable.”
She says Netflix and the broader entertainment industry have betrayed families: “Parents … are right to be on their guard. Unfortunately, Netflix has let them down, as has much of the industry.”
One of the findings in the report is how classic franchises, including “The Magic School Bus,” “She-Ra,” “Power Rangers,” and “The Baby-Sitters Club,” were rebooted to incorporate LGBTQ characters or themes for the first time.
“It is so sad that these incredible franchises … have been rewritten to have a bias toward left-wing ideology and gender ideology,” Nance said.
When asked what parents should do in response to this report, Nance recommends vigilance and taking a firm stance on streaming services that have zero regard for conservative values.
“I would recommend parents not allow their children to watch Netflix or other … streaming services that also offer adult content, she said, adding that the days of turning on any kids’ show and walking away are long behind us.
“[Parents] should not trust the rating system … The days of just checking the rating and feeling okay about it are over.”
Instead, she urges families to pivot toward platforms aligned with their values. “They should be really serious about seeking out alternative media, like all the children’s programming that you all offer at Daily Wire, Angel Studios. … We have got to … support the people who are doing the work in order to create content that we can support.”
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