Films and animated series for children are becoming more inclusive. The cartoon "Baymax" on Disney+ featured a transgender man buying sanitary pads, and a nonbinary buffalo became one of the characters in a Netflix animation.

Last year we learned that the new series "Transformers: EarthSpark" will feature a non-binary character - Nightshade. The series and episodes with the heroic person have already appeared but the audience is not particularly pleased.

"Transformers: EarthSpark" is an animated series that introduces a new generation of Earth-born Transformers, or Terrans. Nightshade, who is the first non-binary Transformer, appeared among them. The heroic character uses gender-neutral pronouns they/them because, as it says at one point: "she or he just doesn't fit with who I am."

"Transformers: EarthSpark" can be seen on the Nickelodeon channel, among others, but unfortunately the series has not been well received. One Twitter user caused a storm when he shared a video in which we see a scene with a non-binary Transformer. In the clip, Nightshade talks to a character named Sam about his identity.

The girl is a bit frightened by the encounter at first, but when the robot tells her that they use pronouns they/them, she calms down. She then informs Nightshade that she is using she/them pronouns and apologizes for her reaction.

"I'm sorry for how I reacted. It's just sometimes the world can be a scary placeThe world is just a scary place sometimes. It's hard to know who is dangerous or not. (...) I know I'm safe when I'm with my friends or other nonbinary people," Sam says in the video. After that she explains to the Transformer what nonbinarity is. Nightshade was previously unfamiliar with the term.

In the series, the matter of Nightshade's identity returns. In one of the released scenes the robot explains to one of the characters what pronouns they use. This story arc did not exactly appel to Twitter users. They called urgently on parents not to let their children watch "this trash." According to them, this is "woke" propaganda projected on the children.

Clearly there were also people who defended the non-binary Transformer. Some were 'worried' that children would now learn to show respect to others. Others wondered how the youngest would live with the knowledge that robots are not born male and female.

The very discussion of the robot's gender identity seems absurd. After all, this is a story about robots reproducing asexually and taking different shapes. Nonbinarity in all this is perhaps the least surprising issue. I wonder how these concerned parents even explain the very existence of robots to their children...

Source: Newsweek