BBC blasted over ‘woke’ CBeebies gender-neutral raccoon ‘that makes use of the pronoun their’

The BBC has been blasted over using ‘gender-neutral’ language to refer to a raccoon on a CBeebies show aimed at five-year-olds.

Wren the Racoon and ‘their’ siblings are introduced on an episode of award-winning show Hey Duggee.

But the gender-neutral pronoun has been criticised as being inappropriate and ‘confusing’ for children who are still learning how to speak.

In the episode Sibling Badge, first shown last year, Roly the squirrel finds out he is getting a new brother or sister.

The squirrels then meet different animals and their siblings. Arlo the Dog is introduced with ‘his’ siblings, monkey Lucy with ‘her’ siblings, and so on.

But the episode then adds: ‘And this is Wren and their siblings.’ They and their are often used as gender-neutral pronouns.

A campaign group described the episode as ‘inappropriate’ for its young target audience.

The BBC said: ‘Everyone is welcome at CBeebies and in this case Wren the raccoon is not a non-binary character.’

The BBC has been blasted over apparently having a ‘gender-neutral’ raccoon on a CBeebies show aimed at five-year-olds

In the episode Sibling Badge, first shown last year, Roly the squirrel finds out he is getting a new brother or sister

Shelley Charlesworth, researcher for Transgender Trend, told The Telegraph: ‘Its target audience is still learning to speak and this only confuses. Language skills and accurate grammar take years to learn, most children are still making mistakes up to the age of eight.

‘There is no way that a child of three to five can understand non-binary they/them pronouns, and using these neo-pronouns takes no account of child development.’

She even accused the BBC of breaking its impartiality code because she thinks the language ‘stems from adult political activism’.

A BBC spokesman said: ‘We take our responsibility to our young audience and their families very seriously and take great to care that all content is appropriate. Everyone is welcome at CBeebies and in this case Wren the raccoon is not a non-binary character.’

The children’s TV show previously received backlash in 2018 when the London Fire Brigade accused the BBC of being sexist.

During an episode the cartoon characters in the programme were dressing up as different characters.

In the scene ‘Roly’ the hippo announced that he is going to dress up as a fireman.

A series of posts from an X account run by fire crews in Greenwich, south London blasted Hey Duggee.

The social media account slammed the BBC for using ‘outdated’ language and also described how a retired female firefighter was forced to explain this to her two-year-old grandson.

The anonymous ex-firefighter and her grandchild were watching a series two episode called ‘Dressing up Badge’ of the popular children’s programme.

Tweets posted from the account read: ‘Isn’t it sad when one of our longest serving firefighters, a woman who fought the King’s Cross fire 30 years ago, still has to watch TV with her two-year-old grandson and explain why the squirrel in Hey Duggee…is referred to as a ‘fireman’.

‘This term is VERY outdated and the term ‘firefighter’ is the preferred, respectful, inclusive, non-sexist, non-gendered term that should be widely used by all media but especially the BBC.’

A continuation of the thread read: ‘Women have been firefighting for over 40 years now…Non-sexist, all-inclusive terminology is important if we want to encourage girls, as well as boys, to be future firefighters.’

It then quoted the female firefighter and said: ‘I was one of the first few women firefighters in the LFB back in the 80s.

‘I did 30 years service and have been retired for nearly three years…It breaks my heart to still have to point this out – especially whilst viewing it with my grandchildren.’

The BBC said at the time: ‘CBeebies strives to avoid stereotyping and looks to celebrate strong female role models’.

Grant Orchard, the series creator, said he ignored gender altogether in a previous interview.

He said in 2017: ‘The way we treat characters on the show, we don’t think about gender at all.’