Are gender reveal parties really necessary?

First, the term ‘Gender’ in gender reveal parties is in itself misleading; it is not the gender but rather the sex of your yet-to-be-born child that you reveal. How is that different? We’ll talk about it soon.

For all those blessed souls who aren’t aware of the concept, gender reveal parties are thrown by expecting parents to find ridiculous ways to disclose the sex of their unborn child to the world.

From causing massive wildfires – the Arizona 47,000 Acre fire in 2018 and the 10,000 Acre fire in El Dorado California in Sept 2020 to killing people, a 56-year-old woman dying on the spot from an explosive gender reveal contraption; gender reveal parties have gone awry almost everywhere. Sadly, these are only a handful of examples of the disasters these celebrations have caused; there are countless more out there.

A gender reveal party went completely wrong and caused a massive fire

Now, one might argue that any celebration, event, or activity could potentially cause such disasters, so why so much hate towards gender(sex) reveal parties? Well, let me explain.

Misrepresentation of biological sex and gender identity

As I mentioned earlier, these parties do not reveal a child’s gender but their sex, and yes, there is a glaring, scientific difference between the two. A child born with male genitalia (sex) would not necessarily identify as a male (gender).

Gender identity is not an either-or scenario; it stretches beyond the notion of male and female. From Non-binary to bigender, or even agender, the gender spectrum is broad, and a person can identify with either of those orientations.

These identities are not recognized at birth; a child grows up to realize who he/she/they/it is and starts to resonate with that. So, there is really no way of knowing the gender of your baby before it is born, making the entire concept of gender reveal celebration based on a flawed assumption.

Enabling society’s heteronormative narrative

Although this is the 21st century and most of the world has officially, on paper, accepted the existence of the LGBTQ community, the reality of society’s acceptance is a little different.

Even today, we still struggle to separate a human’s biological sex from its sexual identity and gender role, and events such as the ‘gender’ reveal only strengthen these prejudices and ignorant beliefs.

Entirely pointless

On one hand, we talk about equality and empowerment, yet on the other, we care what sex our child will be born with; is that not hypocrisy?

We claim that whether the smoke is pink or blue (colossal gender stereotyping right there), it does not affect our happiness and love for the child, which is how it should be. But then, it also renders this whole reveal celebration entirely pointless, doesn’t it?

Social Media 1-Ups

My social media these days is overflowing with wedding photos, and gender reveals! Now, the wedding mania deserves its separate article, so for the time being, let’s focus on the latter.

There are 1.6 million #genderreveal posts on IG at the time of writing

Instagram reels, YouTube videos, Facebook posts, over the past few years, social media has had a significant influence on this trend, and not in a good way. For the sake of getting that viral video or that perfect shot, people are now trying to one-up each other in views, likes, and shares by coming up with absurd ways to reveal the sex of their child to the world.

Too much damage, too little value

The enormous costs of these events, some of which I mentioned at the top, are not worth the entire hoopla. People are losing their minds, and animals are losing their homes over something that holds absolutely no value.

No child wants to grow up to learn about the damages its family caused in order to tell anyone and everyone whether it had a penis or not; let’s not subject these kids to hours of therapy before they are even born.

See, I can’t tell you how to love or raise your child; as I said, I am a happily single woman with no child. But I do have 30 years of experience of being a daughter, having an almost healthy relationship with my parents. And from that, I can tell you that all we really need from our parents is their love and acceptance (and maybe a monthly allowance). When they acknowledge us for who we are, what we identify with, what we believe in, as long as it’s not hurting someone else, they empower us and give us the confidence to face the world.

These pink and blue celebrations honestly hold no meaning to either you or your future child, so why bother. Let’s focus on raising a kind and caring generation, rather than a scarred one.