Gender reveal parties are now transphobic apparently

Genderists have a point but they always stop short of taking it to their internally “logical” consistent conclusion. In essence what they are saying is “gender reveals are transphobic because the baby with a penis you are celebrating as a boy with blue things might turn out to reject those blue things in favour of pink things and therefore is actually a girl”. Rather than “gender reveals are sexist because they start to impose harmful expectations of gender norms and stereotypes on babies before they’re even born whereas it’s fine for boys to prefer e.g. pink ballerinas or girls to like blue dinosaurs, doesn’t make them any less of a boy or girl respectively”.

One side is saying “don’t have a gender reveal as you might get it completely wrong and have to change your child’s body later with drugs and surgery” and the other is saying “don’t have a gender reveal as you might make it slightly harder for your child to realise they can be whatever they want to be regardless of their preferences for clothes or colours”. Which of those messages is less harmful for children?

Loathe sex reveal parties but that's because I'm a crusty old snob and because I have more than one friend who had very late miscarriages so I'm effectively superstitious about pre-birth celebrations.

Agree entirely that the TRA argument and the feminist argument on this are pleasingly similar - in a sexist society making the sex of your baby a gendered deal before it even arrives is a negative thing. It's like a flashback to when transsexuals and feminists were able to fight sexism together. Now distorted by gender poison.

I too am not against gender markers for sex, in fact I think that certain aspects of gender are really valuable (provided no-one feels compelled to comply). I also see huge value in rituals and marking events, a value that is increasingly dismissed. I agree, though, that the new crop of baby showers and gender reveal parties feel over the top, perhaps because they do feel rather like manufactured rituals for commercial gain, rather than rituals that have organically risen to fulfil a need (and then been taken over by commercial forces!). But then again I don't know enough about their origins to be honest.

Thank you those who have mentioned the same fight.
It's the same argument- rejection of gender stereotypes. We are just wanting different outcomes.
Eventually this will all come full circle.

As an oldie - no scans when I was pregnant - I am utterly baffled why anyone would want to know the sex of their baby before birth anyway. It risks leading to expectations of what the baby will be like (because of subconscious or even conscious ideas about gender ingrained in many of us) ,

A surprise gives a better chance for the baby’s personality to emerge unfettered by months of expectations.

Plus possibly less of the ghastly pink/blue garbage in readiness for the baby’s arrival.

Donquixote--Nope

Yes, my woke friend started campaigning against these parties a while ago.
I think arguably they are about "gender" to a large extent, it's all blue for a boy, pink for a girl, etc. I actually don't mind cultural markers of sex necessarily, but it's rather over the top.

I think they are largely meant to make money for party suppliers, so they can sell more junk. But maybe part of it is that people crave rituals around major life changes. It's just kind of a lame ritual.

2) All those (above) will jump straight on board with the idea that the celebration is transphobic and their parties will indeed reveal to family and friends that the expected infant is non-binary, genderqueer whatever
Wonder what colours will there be for the 125 genders, will everyone at the party need a colour coded chart.
Shart brown is demi queer, chocolate brown is Albanian sworn virgins, barbie pink is androgyne, ultra pink is trans femme.
Then if held in real daylight, watch everyone try to match the colour. Oh the fun.

Nope, went unremarked upon, thread died though. Will be interesting to see if it now gets mysteriously reported, way after the event, after mentioning it here where the monitors keep watch.

Here's the person behind Assigned Male Comics:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Labelle

I'm not going to link to their website although you can find it very easily.

My head always hurts after looking at Assigned Male Comics. The knots they tie themselves into to prove a point is ridiculous.

@Bananabixfloof I actually snorted into my coffee

Cwen I like your style.

Did MN give you a condescending "not in the spirit of the thread" warning? The get out clause for any thread that walks the tightrope of sex and gender?

This could go two ways on MN.

1. All those innocently buying in to this sweet but pointless “reveal” will first be hurt and then angered that their little surprise celebration is seen as potentially hateful, and will begin to see how wrong and harmful genderism is.
2. All those (above) will jump straight on board with the idea that the celebration is transphobic and their parties will indeed reveal to family and friends that the expected infant is non-binary, genderqueer, whatever. It could go either way IMO.

That’s a bloody good point PaleBlueMoonlight! I suppose it could be possible to hold a pretty fiercely feminist “sex reveal” party, if you pitched it carefully. Would that be transphobic? To not assign stereotypes to the biology of the baby, but celebrate your intent to raise the child free of preconceptions, to be their own person and resist the expectations attached to their sex.

I may have answered the odd “what gender do you think my baby is?” post with guesses such as “non-binary genderqueer” when in a very, very hacked off/exhausted/facetious mood. I would hope that “non-binary genderqueer” would be a TRA-approved response on the face of it, though. Give it sunlight, as they say.

Cwenthryth You are right, gender reveal parties are just that, gender reveal. They seem to be setting out how you are going to raise your child based on one of the crudest and earliest methods society uses to assign opportunities to girls and boys (whether something has been pinkified or not). A sex reveal party wouldn’t set that ball rolling.

I suppose it’s predictable that TRAs would hate these sex reveal parties.
The scientific fact that sex is observable on scan well before birth makes a mockery of their “assigned at birth” nonsense. They want to force us to pander to their delusions, and they can’t tolerate too much reality. Like PPs, I hope they keep screaming about this - it will help to raise awareness among parents of exactly what risks lie ahead for their future children in being pushed into medication, mutilation and sterility by this cult ideology.

The truth is transphobic. That’s the point.

No gender reveal party for me- my children were assigned sexed at conception dependent on whether my egg was fertilised with an X or Y chromosome sperm- which was then observed 9 months later at birth.

Can’t remember the role of the mother or father - biology doesn’t count

In my view we should be trying to create a society where opportunities are not limited because of your sex....However, I don’t want to live in a society that says that noticing sex and thinking it is important is somehow wrong.
I’m with you on this 100%.....if you ignore sex, you ignore sexism, and you can’t fight it. I don’t think ‘gender reveal’ parties with pink/blue balloons/confetti/cupcakes are at all helpful in this though!

It is really interesting how often our fights are the same; just that the feminist answer is to reject the stereotypes,

Cross posted Cwenthryth Findumdum1. Yes! Gender stereotypes serve nobody but the patriarchy.

I know some posters have had posts deleted for pointing out that it's sex, not gender.

I think I do follow the guidelines but surely your gender is not established at this stage, only your sex? I guess its the difference between believing gender is performative and thinking it's an inner feeling.

I'm all in favour of TRAs fighting against lazy sterotyping of babies based on their genitals, and wish they would do it more often.

I think gender reveal parties are over the top (however, I love that people are so thrilled about their baby that they want a way to celebrate that fact with people that care) but I disagree that we should somehow be downgrading the importance of sex. That someone has a sex is critically important to their lives and to the lives of people around them. It is ridiculous to suggest that it isn’t. In my view we should be trying to create a society where opportunities are not limited because of your sex. Sometimes that might mean hiding sex in specific circumstances (eg names removed from CVs) in order to achieve that aim. However, I don’t want to live in a society that says that noticing sex and thinking it is important is somehow wrong.

Transgenderism doesn't come from the U.S.

I'm not sure that's true of Genderism (this odd belief that sex is a social construct and all that matters is the role one performs).

Much of this modern version seems rooted there, e.g. the push for early hormones, people who make no attempt to pass just saying they are the opposite sex.

I thought it was a parody, but then I remembered that you can't joke with fundamentalists.