Dalian, China — A Chinese sex robot factory is mass-producing “transgender” sex dolls to meet global demand.

According to a report from the Daily Star, since launching in 2010, DS Doll has become a global player in the sex doll market. They produce around 400 custom models per month, which cost between US$4,000 and $4,500 for premium models. DS Doll sex dolls come in all shapes and sizes and can be fitted with a robotic head that speaks.

Another popular option from DS Doll is figures with interchangeable male and female genitals. DS Doll offers the option to buy penis and/or vagina attachments. This allows users to fix and interchange different genitals to all its dolls.

As reported by the Daily Star, a representative from Cloud Climax, the flagship DS Doll reseller in Europe and the U.K. said, “We want to bring sex doll products into the forefront of the market and get around the prudishness and the thinking that they are just made for men.”

“We have male and transgender dolls too – a lot of our customers are female and a lot are couples as well.”

These brief statements from Cloud Climax are somewhat confounding. Perhaps the use of “trans” in their commentary (and also in the Daily Star’s reporting) refers to the literal exchange of genital attachments on the dolls — because it doesn’t seem that the company is actually making transgender specific dolls. Though I understand we are considering inanimate objects here, attaching a penis to an otherwise cisgender female form does not make a transgender entity.

Jane Hamlin, president of the Beaumont Society, a U.K.-based transgender support group, told the Daily Star she finds the concept of transgender sex dolls baffling.

Hamlin said, “I really do not know why anyone would want to purchase any sort of sex doll, and I’m puzzled about what a ‘transgender sex doll’ might be like – and probably prefer not to know.

“I do not think these dolls will do anything to enhance people’s respect for the courage that trans people demonstrate in just living their lives every day,” she added.

Though I disagree with what comes off as a prudish, judgy and sex-negative attitude about sex dolls as a novelty item and/or form of sexual expression, I too am confounded by this particular marketing of interchangeable genital attachments as somehow being transgender.

The same reseller representative also told the Daily Star, “At Cloud Climax we want to take away the seediness and shock that is usually associated with more unusual sex toys and help to promote normalcy for these products… Why should a doll not be considered a normal sex toy, like a Fleshlight? It is effectively the same thing on a larger scale after all.”

This is a positive statement of a progressive ideology. I just hope DS Dolls’ marketing and manufacturing efforts related to “transgender” desires and figures refines in an equally progressive manner. At the moment, it reads a bit like clickbait.

Image via Jean Scheijen.