People Now Say That Santa Should Be Genderless Or Female

Dec 09, 2021 by apost team

When you think about Santa Claus, the image of an older man with a white beard and a red suit understandably comes to mind. He lives at the North Pole, rides in a sleigh with eight reindeer and carries a sack of toys slung over his back.

Of course, he is also married to Mrs. Claus, an equally jolly, grandmotherly figure.

However, what if Santa Claus were a woman or a gender non-conforming person?

In the small town of Newton Aycliffe in County Durham, England, residents asked that question back in 2018, sparking a debate about Santa Claus and gender.

According to the Mirror, the community asked the Great Aycliffe Town Council if a woman could volunteer to play Father Christmas on the annual Santa tour. The paper further reports that the question arose when a Newton Aycliffe man asked whether his wife could dress up as Santa so that he could drive the car upon which Kris Kringle would sit during the tour.

But the man and his wife faced pushback from Labour Councillor Arun Chandran, who said that “if there is no shortage of male volunteers to act as Santa Claus, we do not permit a female volunteer to perform the role.”

The BBC reports that after the council was asked to consider the woman’s request, the Recreation Committee ultimately voted against the possibility of a female Santa.

This controversial decision sparked a larger debate in the media regarding Santa Claus and gender, which politicians, pundits and Christmas fans continue to argue about today.

“I believe that children in particular will be expecting a male Santa, and that it may well reflect badly on the Council if we were to deliberately introduce a form of political correctness just because a Labour Party member turns up at a Events Sub Committee meeting to demand women’s rights to be Santa Claus,” Chandran said in 2018, according to Metro.

“‘Santa Claus being a man is a long held tradition accepted by the vast majority of society without question and change just for the sake of it, rather than a good reason or necessity is wrong, and will only serve to attract negative publicity,” the local politician added. 

While Chandran contended that it wasn’t a legal issue, Metro reports that The Equality Act of 2010 could play a role. According to the act, favorable treatment based on nine protected characteristics, including gender and sexual orientation, is illegal. For example, businesses cannot only seek out and hire waitresses; instead, they have to advertise new positions for "waiting staff," a more inclusive term.

That said, there are exceptions if gender is a “general occupational requirement” for the job, which could be the case for the role of Santa Claus, which is traditionally played by a man.

The English broadcaster Piers Morgan was outraged by the suggestion that a woman could play Santa, as he made clear on a 2018 episode of “Good Morning Britain.”

“Father Christmas, as his name suggests, is male. Father Christmas, for all of time, has been Father Christmas,” Morgan said.

“He’s called Father Christmas!” he added. “The world’s gone nuts.”

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That same year, a study conducted in the U.S. and U.K. showed that if respondents could “rebrand Santa,” then 10.6% would prefer if Santa were a woman and 17.25% would prefer him as gender-neutral. The remaining 72.25% said that Santa should remain male.

People like Gina Battye, an LGBTQ+ identity coach, see this as a positive development.

“This shows that progress is happening around inclusion, and more people are challenging their perceptions and childhood conditioning,” she told the BBC in 2018.

“Let them know that anyone can be ‘Santa,'" she added. “With my niece and nephew, this is how I’ve explained it to them. When we see Santa in stores, I tell them that he can’t be everywhere talking to all the little children — so some Santas are male, some female, some trans, and some we don’t know. But they all act as Santa’s messengers.”

Some communities have already embraced the idea of a more inclusive idea of Santa Claus. In Gisborne, New Zealand, a “female, regional, Māori, queer” made an appearance at the town parade.

“The kids didn’t seem to get too upset about it,” a Gisborne local wrote on Twitter alongside a photo.

As part of their digital diversity campaign, Apple released a gender-neutral Santa emoji in 2021, according to The New York Post. The gender-neutral version of the emoji has more androgynous features and does not wear a beard.

That said, maybe everyone is overthinking this. After all, Santa isn’t real, and the spirit of Christmas is less about Kris Kringle’s gender and more about the spirit of giving.

How do you feel about the gender of Santa Claus? Is it time to modernize the role, or should Santa Claus traditionally remain a male figure? Let us know — and pass this on to get others’ opinions.