Gender reveal parties!

and when they are absolutely appropriate (under my new proposal)

I read a meme recently that talked about holding Transition parties for trans people who had just come out as trans. I am not going to kid you here, the idea of this sounded wonderful and I wanted one immediately because holy crap, coming out later in life sure makes things expensive if your transition includes things like wardrobe changes, any medical changes, any body changes, any hair changes, any document updating, etc. Because when you do come out later, you have rent payments, grocery payments, paying for kids (if you have them), and the things that come with being alive. It is real difficult to come up with any money to do the things you envision happening in your transition when you don’t have money to be alive to begin with. So yes, transition parties, love the idea.

This, really, is what these ridiculously elaborate gender reveal parties that I also have the misfortune of seeing online should be. The ones where you see people squealing pink smoke from their diesel engine trucks, or set off blue fireworks and accidentally set your neighborhood on fire, letting everyone know there will be a penis in your home so please forgive us.

Not to go all extreme on everyone, but we really never truly come to know our gender. We play with these ideas in our head if we are willing to or we assume we know it if we’re stubborn and have been taught to think there are only two genders. We certainly do not know our gender before we are born, and the people giving birth to us do not, under any set of circumstances know our gender for us. So, I do propose, that if gender reveal parties must exist, they from this point forward, only exist when trans people come out and need support for things like electrolysis or packers or name change application money.

If anyone knows their gender, it is a group of people willing to undergo societal hate because of sharing theirs. Trans people come forward, share their gender, and are immediately told, wrong. Yet, they move forward because they know they are right. We know what gender is and how it feels in our body. We know how gender doesn’t feel right in our body. Gender diverse people know how to break away from the idea of gender altogether.

So, if there is a need for our world to hold on to the idea of the gender reveal party, so be it. But gone are the days of helium balloons flying away before the father gets to shoot it with his rifle, and here are the days when trans women get a new passport.