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A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about why I hate gender reveal parties. This was well before anyone was accidentally dying at them or causing natural disasters. Gender reveals were more lowkey back then, but as the parent of a trans kid I laid out why they're an issue.
One of the big issues, of course, is that reveals place a significant emphasis on a child's sex and gender (often conflating the two) before that child is even born. And as a parent whose kid came out at 11, I talked about how my expectations of their perceived gender hurt them.
This mom was not. having. it. She was furious that I would take such a strong stand against gender reveal parties. She threw them & her kids are just fine. FINE, she commented. Just fine! There's nothing wrong with them. Shame on me for shaming others.
And then things got weird.
And then things got weird.
She seemed to launch a one-woman crusade against me over this one issue. She commented on every new blog post circling it back to my views on gender reveal parties. She followed me around the internet on various social media platforms leaving similar comments on unrelated things.
She did this for a few weeks. Insulting me, mocking me, trying to get me to take back what I said about gender reveal parties. It was WILD. I don't think I even replied to her once (maybe the first time?) I eventually had to block her. I had to block her IP from my website too.
This woman is an extreme example of what I encounter every time I talk about the problems with gender reveal parties - more specifically, our obsession with children's gender. I get called a lot of names. I get told I'm overreacting. Just let people have fun. Why am I a killjoy?
But, uh, I'm not the one calling people names, hounding them online, trying to make their lives miserable because they don't like the parties I throw that are supposedly... no big deal.
If it wasn't a big deal, people wouldn't get so defensive. But they do. Let's think on that.
If it wasn't a big deal, people wouldn't get so defensive. But they do. Let's think on that.
In summary: You don't really know much about that tiny person in your belly until they're able to tell you who they are. And for that to happen, you need to make it safe for them to do so. And in order to do that, you need to not place big expectations on their gender/sexuality.
