Ferocious protests have soured the relaunch of Barbie’s boyfriend Ken, who’s received his first major makeover in 56 years to better represent today’s politically correct society. The protestors are fuming that the toy giant has assumed Ken’s gender, taking toy rights back to the dark ages.

The toy maker today has apologised profusely for the mishap, speaking from their head office which is currently on fire from the protests.

“We should have let Ken assume his own gender,” said a Mattel spokesperson. “We thought we were ticking all the right boxes to not offend anyone by making Ken fat, gay, a refugee from Syria as well as an anti-vaxxer… but we clearly dropped the ball big time by calling him a man.”

The head of Mattel has been forced to step down from his position immediately, and will be spending the rest of his life in jail until he is killed by lethal injection.

Protestors have felt the punishment is a slap on the wrist and is calling for the death of all Mattel employees.

The Sydney Sentinel spoke with several children, with the overall response being that they don’t give a toss about Ken’s gender, and would rather their parents spent some time playing with them rather than protesting all the time.