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Mom who 'invented' gender reveal parties denounces them: 'Who cares what gender the baby is?'

If you&#39;re ~~with child~~ then you know the drill: announce the pregnancy as the first trimester ends, consider names for 1,000 hours, mail baby shower invitations, and - of course! - plan how and when to reveal the gender. Some go so far as to throw elaborate gender reveal parties. These parties have included cakes, fireworks, and dyed hair. One reveal gone wrong caused a widespread forest fire in Arizona. But how, exactly, did these parties proliferate the culture?Yesterday the woman behind High Gloss And Sauce, Jenna Karvunidis, explained her evolved stance on gender reveal parties - and her role in popularizing them. While she didn&#39;t personally kick-start the trend, a piece in The Bump featuring the gender reveal party for her first child did help popularize it. The proto-Mommy Blogger didn&#39;t mean for the concept of a &#39;gender reveal&#39; to become so widespread and she no longer endorses it. A weird thing came up on Twitter, so I figured I&#39;d share here. Someone remembered it was me who &quot;invented&quot; the gender reveal party. I had written about my party on my blog and a parenting forum in July 2008. It was picked up &amp; and an interview with me was published in The Bump magazine and the idea kinda spread from there. I&#39;ve got the article framed! 2008? You mean I&#39;ve been addicted to the Internet for over a decade? Lordt. Time flies when your brain is web-poisoned. Anyway, I&#39;ve felt a lot of mixed feelings about my random contribution to the culture. It just exploded into crazy after that. Literally - guns firing, forest fires, more emphasis on gender than has ever been necessary for a baby. Once the gender reveal party idea took off, it snowballed into something Jenna couldn&#39;t have imagined. She didn&#39;t think her initial blog and forum posts would resonate beyond their respective platforms. How wrong she was! Who cares what gender the baby is? I did at the time because we didn&#39;t live in 2019 and didn&#39;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&#39;s between their legs. There you have it, folks: gender is arbitrary. Which anyone who understands reproduction knows, but these parties have turned it into a high-stakes, deeply meaningful &#39;fact.&#39; &#39;Gender&#39; as know it is a social construction and someone&#39;s gender identity doesn&#39;t necessarily match the sex they were assigned at birth. And even if it does, reveal parties reinforce a binary that people&#39;s gender expressions don&#39;t always adhere to. PLOT TWIST, the world&#39;s first gender-reveal party baby is a girl who wears suits! !!! Edit: if you want to see more of Bee&rsquo;s looks, her Instagram is @bianca_k_actor (I run the account, so if anyone tries to slide into a 10-year-olds dms I will end you 😁) Here&#39;s a few of Bee&#39;s killer lewks:         View this post on Instagram            A post shared by Bianca Karvunidis (@bianca_k_actor) on Jun 20, 2019 at 8:21pm PDT         View this post on Instagram           Throwback! A post shared by  Bianca Karvunidis (@bianca_k_actor) on Jun 20, 2019 at 8:32pm PDT         View this post on Instagram            A post shared by Bianca Karvunidis (@bianca_k_actor) on Jun 20, 2019 at 8:26pm PDTJenna&#39;s Facebook post has gone viral and continues to circulate. People were thrilled to learn her views on gender have changed over time and are inclusive of trans-identified folk.  Facebook  Facebook   Facebook  Facebook   FacebookWe stan a mom who&#39;s not afraid to learn and grow! Her willingness to change has benefited her whole family, including suit-rocking daughter Bee.

If you&#39;re ~~with child~~ then you know the drill: announce the pregnancy as the first trimester ends, consider names for 1,000 hours, mail baby shower invitations, and - of course! - plan how and when to reveal the gender. Some go so...