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- Gender reveal parties are events where the assigned gender of a baby is shared with family and friends, through pink or blue cakes or even deadly fireworks gone wrong.
- The El Dorado Fire currently raging through San Bernadino, California is only the latest gender reveal party to go horribly wrong.
- Many people, including the woman who is credited with starting the trend of gender reveal parties, want the tradition to end.
- Here's why gender reveal parties are harmful to kids, dangerous, and antiquated.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
A gender reveal party in San Bernardino County over the weekend resulted in the catastrophic El Dorado Fire, which has consumed over 10,000 acres of land, and is still raging four days later.
This is only the latest is a string of seemingly-apocalyptic gender reveals, including another fire in Arizona that burned down over 47,000 acres of land in 2017 and the death of a grandmother at an Iowan gender reveal party after she was struck in the head with debris from a canister that was intended to spray pink confetti that malfunctioned.
"Stop setting California on fire to tell people about your kids' genitals," wrote Los Angeles Times writer Mariah Kreutter.
Dangerous pyrotechnics aside, it is time for this 12-year-old tradition to end before anybody else gets hurt — not least given both a growing acceptance of gender fluidity, and lingering barriers for transgender, non-binary, and intersex kids to be recognized and accepted.
The woman who coined 'gender reveal parties' says she regrets creating them in the first place
While people had thrown different versions of gender reveal parties in the past (working gender-guessing activities into baby showers, for example), gender reveal parties as we know them today started in 2008.
Jenna Karvunidis, a blogger credited with starting the trend of gender reveals, wanted a fun way to celebrate her baby using cake to reveal her gender.
But Karvunidis has spoken openly and regularly about her regret for creating the trend, issuing yet another plea after last weekend's fire.
"Stop it," Karvunidis wrote on Facebook. "Stop having these stupid parties. For the love of God, stop burning things down to tell everyone about your kid's penis."
Even if we were to swap out the fireworks for cake, Karvunidis said, gender reveal parties need to stop because they perpetuate gender stereotypes before a baby is even born.
"Who cares what gender the baby is?" she wrote in a 2019 Facebook post. "I did at the time because we didn't live in 2019 and didn't know what we know now — that assigning focus on gender at birth leaves out so much of their potential and talents that have nothing to do with what's between their legs."
Gender reveals exacerbate pressures to be 'masculine' or 'feminine'
The emphasis on going all out with dolls, pretty kittens, and princess decor or sports, dinosaurs, and monster trucks for the party spread depending on whether your doctor says "male" or "female" doesn't just hurt trans kids — it reinforces gender stereotypes for cisgender children.
The sad thing is, people will go to great lengths to show just how invested they are in the assigned gender of their child.
A man in Louisiana had animal welfare called on him after using his family's pet alligator to pop a watermelon filled with blue jelly. A New Jersey man broke his ankle trying to pop a football filled with pink dust. A crop duster pilot crashed a plane spraying pink water during a gender reveal.
These reveals — while well-intentioned — establish an unspoken expectation of who your child will be based on their gender presentation.
The care and time put into these gender reveal may signify to your child that if they stray from the norms set up before they were even born, they could feel like they're disappointing you or your extended family.
Your children's genitals do not define who they are
Even blue- or pink-colored cupcakes and balloons can cause unintended harm, setting up a precedent for pressure on children who do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.
You cannot tell what gender a baby will be based on their genitals. Placing an emphasis on their assigned sex at birth draws attention to a part of a child that has nothing to do with who they are, or who they will become.
In a 2019 PNAS study, the largest ever conducted on transgender children, researchers found trans kids are not "going through a phase." Trans children as young as four years old knew their gender identity, just a cis-gendered kids (who identify with their assigned gender) did.
Celebrating a gender reveal party might make it more difficult for a child later down the line to get their relatives, particularly their extended family, to honor and respect how they identify.
Other studies have found trans children who have more supportive families in regards to their gender identity also have lower rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide.
Model and influencer Eskra Lawrence announced she would not be having a gender reveal party for her baby in 2019 because she took issue with emphasizing assigned sex at birth.
"Though right now I know what gender the professionals have announced, that may not be who my child decides to be and it doesn't feel right to make a big deal about something so personal to them," Lawrence wrote.
Genitals mean nothing in the context of gender. Your child may identify with the gender they're assigned at birth or not, and any parent should want them to feel comfortable to share that with you without hurting you.
Skipping a gender reveal now will save time, money, lives, and California's ecosystem. It will also save your child stress and pressure as they come to terms with who they are down the line.
Read More:
A grandmother died during a gender reveal party. It's time to end these rituals permanently.
An influencer and model said she isn't doing a gender reveal because 'that may not be who my child decides to be'
The woman who invented gender-reveal parties is calling for them to stop after one started a fire and burned down 10,000 acres of land in California
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