The fact that gender reveal parties aren't a trans thing is a failure on the part of trans and cis alike
this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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it's cause trans people are generally terrified when they're coming out and ready to pull a deer and bolt out of the room at the first sign of trouble. now that I've been out for years, coming out is whatever and I could handle a party, but I couldn't have handled it was fresh.
Would you be less terrified of possible transphobic pushback if you had rigged all your interlocutors up to explosives with an explosion in the trans colors
hmm, I think I'd be terrified of accidentally setting them off if it turned out they weren't transphobic but I got too fidgety or excited at their response. can I leave the trigger in the hands of a trusted trans mentor?
I think that would be fine. But I think you're socially obligated to help others rig up their explosives at that point.
ofc, at this point I'm the trans mentor more than the baby trans anyway
Still safer than a cis gender reveal party.
That means you must make more explosives.
Okay so we have a group of people building improvised explosives to send up pink and cyan smoke into the air, to reveal a gender identity and it's not trans people
I'm cis but if I was trans and came out you bet your sweet ass we'd have a reveal party with cake and cocktails.
I'm always down for cake and cocktails whatever the occasion
At this point in my life, they'd probably be vegan pot brownies instead of cake. Unless someone can find me a solid German Choc vegan recipe. There's still be pot tho. And Yellow Tail cab because I'm poor.
Gender reveal parties are cool because people blow stuff up.
Trans people should have gender reveal parties too.
Why turn down a chance to celebrate a person weather it’s because of a label assigned to them by everyone else or their own recognition and revelation?
Plus who’s gonna fuck with you while you’re shooting 50bmg into a rusted out s-10 filled with tannerite and colored powder?
Wasn't there like a serious wild fire some time ago due to a gender reveal party?
Yeah, Several.
Gender reveal parties are even good for the rejuvenation of prairies!
Don't get me wrong, I think gender reveal parties are ridiculous as well, but what would your guys opinion be on how gender assignment should be handled at birth?
I have a (cis) daughter and would be fully supportive if she came out as non-binary or trans, but as a parent I still want her to be able to socialise with other kids and that means that there just are some societal standards we have to conform to in order for her to be accepted by her peers. It's not like I can raise her as this gender neutral entity until she is old enough to grasp the "gender is a social construct" thing, especially not if I would take things away from her she enjoys or might enjoy.
Reshaping how society thinks is a slow burn matter, and getting mad at people for conforming to current standards or for being happy that they are having a child won't help them see your point of view.
i'm not advocating for people to not know what gender a kid was assigned at birth or anything (in the short term, it would be nice to live in that world someday), just be chill about it. don't make it a big deal, don't go have a party to celebrate it, and when you tell people don't frame it as you being incredibly excited to have a baby of the gender they've been assigned. don't say "my partner and i are having a baby!" and then later go "oh my god i'm so happy it's a boy!" or anything like that
i mean, i might still get a little grumpy if you feel the need to tell me about how you got the ultrasound and saw your kids genitals but i recognize that that's not actually that big a deal if you're chill about the other stuff and i probably won't think less of you
My personal opinion? Keep it relatively gender neutral but raise your kids as their assigned gender until further notice and maybe talk to them about how GNC and trans identities are OK and stuff.
i know some people that raised their kids degendered (re: not referring to them as she/her or w.e., only by name, until the kid 'picks a side'). its been a bit now and the kids are pretty well adjusted and seem to have a better understanding of how gender works and the ridiculousness of how we assign certain things to certain genders. honestly not sure if thats specifically how id raise a kid, but its interesting i guess
I wish we lived in the kind of society many North Americans had - you know, before the settlers wiped them out. kids weren't gendered and their names were neutral and temporary until they announced their adult names and genders at a coming out ceremony. literally broke down sobbing in public when I read about it in an anthropology book because of how much kinder and humane such a system is. obviously that's not something you can implement on your own but you can deemphasize a kid's assigned sex at birth and give leave them space to tell you who they are when they know it for themselves.
My sister and I were discussing how to refer to our cousin's child a while ago - my sister said we needed to use "she", because that's what our cousin uses, while I said we should use "they" because they're too young to understand gender, or "it" because the baby is entirely dependent on its parents for everything, making it a mildly animate object, like a furby or tamagotchi.
My sister said I was absolutely not allowed to use "it".
"it" because the baby is entirely dependent on its parents for everything, making it a mildly animate object, like a furby or tamagotchi. My sister said I was absolutely not allowed to use "it".
Wtf, don't use it...
Both times I've met the baby they've been passed from person to person to hold, and eventually got hungry and cried. Like a tamagotchi.
Babies are objects until they start crawling.
I always try my best to recognize babies and young children as very intelligent and internally thorough and complete.
I've found that as I've gotten older, my internal world and emotions and what I want to say really hasn't changed. The biggest thing that's changed is that I'm more articulate, able to better say what I need or how I'm feeling. Meanwhile, when I was young, I lacked the vocabulary or social know-how to articulate what I was feeling, and that adults would just about never sit down and try to work with me to figure out what I'm feeling, and they'd try to invalidate how I'm feeling because they're better at using words, or just generally don't take me very seriously.
When I work with kids, especially ones that can't speak, I've found a little bit of respect and empathy goes a very long way. They almost always want to communicate something to me and express autonomy. A toddler whose parents insisted was very ill-behaved was very, very nice to me because I recognized that what they wanted was to handle their food on their own, go to the bathroom without being escorted, stuff like that.
I get that you're not talking about toddlers or young children, and I recognize that functionally they're essentially on a permanent escort mission and can't do anything on their own, and that's what I believe you mean by "object". I find that line of thinking to be, I dunno, maybe a bit disrespectful? Like, certainly I can see why it's "correct" from some definitions, but it's not something that I'd let enter my heart. To me, babies have deeply complicated and involved inner worlds. They've spent their entire life in this strange, alien world with massive people and brand new, unpleasant sensations. They can't do anything on their own, but they think, and they want to communicate, and they're so overjoyed when they can do something and get recognition from it.
This was actually a joke I didn't make obvious enough - I largely agree with your point but from an opposite perspective: children's lack of knowledge and experiences does make them incomplete, but the same applies to adults. There is always room for new growth and understanding towards the platonic ideal of completeness, and that means children's thoughts and feelings are just as inherently valuable and worthy of respect as any adults. Neither has every perspective and understanding, but they both know how they feel better than anyone else.
You are completely right about respect and empathy though. I used to work with 5-11 year olds and volunteer with 11-18 year olds, and a lot of the time difficult children just needed someone to listen to them, particularly the neurodivergent ones. They know full well when you're being patronising or not really listening, so talking to them in much the same way as you would an adult works wonders.
YOU CAN SAY THAT IN HEXBEAR, AND LEAVE THAT TOPIC FOR YOUR STRUGGLE SECESSIONS, BUT YOU SHALL NOT CALL THE BABY AN "IT" IN REAL LIFE... THAT IS A REDDITORISM AND A LIBERALISM OF THE HIGHEST OFFENSE AND I'M SURE THAT MAO WOULD'VE PERSONALLY STRUGGLE SECESSION-D YOU TO DEATH
No they are not, they have functioning inner minds and are learning at extremely fast rates. They are sentient humans
Please do not go around labeling children “it” unless you are playing tag
they're supportive of trans people until its their own kid. matching the furniture is a pretty apt comparison, because time and time again ive seen parents who were "progressive" be absolutely destroyed over their kid being trans, because somehow that makes the kid they raised "gone" in their eyes. its very dumb and stupid and also why im not out to my "progressive" parents bc im completely sure they'll react like that too
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Ive never been to a gender reveal party or ever heard of anyone doing this irl. Who the fuck does shit?
Cishet people.
Wow.... I don't have many close friends with kids so I've never really considered this since starting to transition. But yeah, can we just go gender neutral and have a normal baby shower to celebrate the baby is healthy and not an Lovecraftian horror?
“Gender reveal parties” are the worst cracker suburbanite attempt at manufacturing culture.
Cracker holidays:
S tier: Halloween
A tier:
B tier:
C tier: Christmas
D tier:
E tier:
F tier: Gender reveal party
Thanksgiving?
St Patrick's Day gotta be B tier at least
Christmas is not C tier
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I'll be honest. I never knew gender reveal parties were even a thing until a couple years ago. The idea sounds so ridiculous. Is this a recently American thing? I don't even remember it ever happening when I lived there.
It's definitely a new thing. I remember first seeing these around 2015ish.
The parties and elaborate displays really took off in the mid-2010s, but it was often a big deal to announce it.
ETA: also, the original reveal party was done by a "mommyblogger" who held it because she and her partner were excited about their pregnancy after dealing with infertility issues. Slightly more understandable, but then people ran off with the concept. As others mentioned down thread, she has disavowed the concept since then and also hans a gnc child fwiw.
Idk, I rarely see someone disappointed at a gender reveal party. "Aw? Pink smoke? Sucks to you be you, shitbag" is not the standard response to someone hosting a big party in celebration of their next kid.
Admittedly, I don't typically associate with families that think they are the next House of Windsor and needed a suitable number of male heirs to maintain the dynasty. So maybe you really do get people throwing little temper tantrums because they didn't get the gender of child they wanted. But it has mostly seemed like an excuse to make a loud bang noise, release some colored smoke and confetti, and clap without any real consideration for what the gender will be.
oh i definitely hear people being disappointed. a coworker was ranting about his niece's gender disappointing him! not even for like, rich person reasons. just gender essentialism, like pure "i wanted to be a cool uncle to a boy and that's been stolen from me" type entitlement
like i cannot emphasize enough this is just because many people view children as basically accessories whose gender is only important as an aesthetic they want. they want to raise a boy because they'd like to paint their kids room blue and play baseball or a girl because they want to paint a room pink and watch disney princess movies. zero actual consideration for children as beings that could have any thoughts on things
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