This Genderqueer Santa Claus Is Here to Save Christmas, Wear Fishnets

Sorry, polar bears having anal sex, there's a new queer Christmas icon in town. This week, a New Zealand shopping center debuted their take on Santa Claus, a genderqueer, fishnet-clad Kris Kringle inspired by Mary Poppins.

Mx. Claus, who towers over Ponsonby Central complex in Auckland, can be seen wearing fishnets and holding an umbrella and a carpet bag "full of presents," according to Ponsonby. A spokesperson for the company said their "notorious, gender-busting" St. Nick is in direct protest to National Party leader Simon Bridges who made essentializing claims that "just as Mary Poppins is a woman, Santa Claus is a man."

His remarks were in response to controversy after organizers of Auckland's Santa Parade said they'd never cast a woman as Santa, just as his helpers -- dressed in a "little skirt and top."

Bridges told a morning radio show that he was fine with the fixed notion of Santa as male, saying: "I think it's just [political correctness] gone -- I don't know if it's mad, but too far. You guys this morning are telling me that man didn't walk on the moon, now you're telling me Santa's a woman -- I just want a few things I can believe in."

"We've got discrimination rules and they're absolutely right, you know, whether it's gender, whether it's ethnicity," said Bridges. "But I think the truth is on Santa, this is a traditional thing."

But the Ponsonby Central compex disagrees. "The team at Ponsonby Central and Blunt umbrellas believe that our representation of Santa can be Mary Poppins or whatever race/gender/persuasion we prefer and can imagine," a spokesperson told Newshub, emphasizing that there is no monopoly on what he, she, or they look like. They hope their new take on Santa will be "a fresh perspective on the gender diversity conversation." Genderqueer Santa Claus is here to make the yuletide they.

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