Bakery selling gender neutral gingerbread for over 30 years is hurting some people's feelings - here's why

A bakery where you can buy a 'gingerbread person' is hurting people’s feelings.

Thomas the Baker is a family-run business with more than 30 shops in Yorkshire and the North East, and they've been selling 'gingerbread people since 1983. The yummy biscuit has two Smarties for eyes, but nothing else – no buttons, no breaches.

And to some, gender neutral confectionery is offensive.

Sigh.

A Manchester tattoo artist called Demii Leigh Heffron shared a photo (which she later clarified she did not take herself) of the offending cookies, and posted it on Facebook with the caption: "It’s happening. It’s actually happening. It’s 2018. Stop the earth, I wanna get off."

The post went viral, with people adding quips of their own – the cheek of the bakery. "It’s a rip off you get an extra bit with a man… But seriously, I won’t buy from any shop that calls them persons, it’s stupid," one woman announced.

"It’s proper taking over," another person added.

THE GINGERBREAD PEOPLE ARE TAKING OVER.

Most of the reaction on the Facebook post was of a similar vein – proper outrage. It was shared more than 13,000 times and generated lots of discussion.

There were a few voices of reason though…

So the bakery in question didn’t ‘just’ change the name of their gingerbreads… They’ve been 'people' for more than 30 years.

In a response to all the hoo ha about it, Thomas wrote:

Sorry to disappoint you all—they have been Ginger Persons since 1983. It was chosen by one of our Managers in York and the name stuck. We did get a complaint from trading standards in the 80's that we were discriminating against ginger haired people—seriously!!

And anyway, more importantly…it’s not that serious.

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