**TL;DR-There are many reasons as to why baby gender reveal parties cause controversy. One of the reasons being how they perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes and the socially constructed binary of gender.** Gender reveal parties carry on gender stereotypes due to the fact that many of them are themed around tight and outdated concepts of binary gender, with banners and cakes iced with questionable [words such as Bows or bow ties? Ties or tutus? Guns or glitter?’] (https://www.romper.com/p/11-reasons-why-i-hate-gender-reveal-parties-45878). Yet this is ridiculous as it perpetuates the idea that children’s interests etc are based on their sex- something we shouldn’t be carrying on into the 21st century. As Jamie Kenney argues in *Romper*, gender reveal parties are also often a grounds for the attendees to make subliminally (or straight up) sexist jokes, occasionally going into [really icky territory like the "joking-but-not-really" preference for a son to "carry on the family name" or the hilarious ribbing that a baby girl is going to spend all of her father's money so he'd better watch out] (https://www.romper.com/p/11-reasons-why-i-hate-gender-reveal-parties-45878). Gender reveal parties also reinforce the idea that gender is purely binary, when it is actually more of a spectrum, and a social construct. Gender and sex are two different things, and when parents plan gender reveal parties, they are actually revealing the baby’s sex through cake cutting or potentially dangerous smoke cannons blasting pink or blue. Doctor Barker states that the idea is also ‘bad for all kids because it sets them up to believe that the division between girls and boys, women and men, is a really important one’, and that they [need to conform to rigid ideas of what it means to be a feminine woman or a masculine man] (https://www.vogue.co.uk/mini-vogue/article/is-the-gender-reveal-party-over), and this is positively out of date. In many cases, gender and sex will be the same; [this is called cisgender] (https://www.scarymommy.com/hate-gender-reveal-parties/). However gender reveal parties assume otherwise, and even if that isn’t the parents intention and they mean no harm, it unconsciously perpetuates this strict binary. Arwa Mahdawi interestingly stated in *The Guardian*: [I’m only half joking here. Can you imagine if trans people regularly set fire to forests in order to tell the world their gender? The practice would be criminalized immediately] (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/12/gender-reveal-wildfires-harmful-gender-binaries). Though some gender reveals are ultimately harmless- surely all that matters is that a healthy baby is born? It would definitely be nicer to have a party to celebrate this instead, as gender reveal parties only reveal the weight we as a society place on gender and its harmful stereotypes.

Gender reveal parties are a good idea. That is, if they are not mishandled. When expecting mothers announce the gender of their unborn children, they tend to make a spectacle of it on social media. And as we've seen on social media, when people do things on social media that go viral. Most of the time they try to make it bigger than the last. Reasonably, that can get out of hand. But the real reason Americans are divisive on gender reveal parties does not have to do with controversial attempts of grabbing attention, they are more about sexism. The point of a gender reveal party is to make a spectacle of learning something new about a fetus' gender. This is understandably divisive because it invites discourse of gender before they are even born. This may also set expectations for unborn children. We are setting expectations on lifestyles, behaviors, and success rate onto unborn babies. So, it is understandable why Americans feel that gender reveal parties are a form of systemic sexism. But the discourse surrounding gender reveal parties benefited trans and nonbinary Americans, notes Lindsay King-Miller. She writes, "The truth is, of course, that you can't see gender on an anatomy scan". She quotes Daniel L. Carlson on Psychology Today piece that gender is defined by the social, behavioral, and psychological characteristics we use to distinguish between the sexes. Gender reveal parties can be harmful. They can have unintended consequences as more and more expectant mothers get creative about how they want to obtain their fifteen-minutes-of-fame, or reinforce systemic sexism. But maybe they don't have to be if they emphasize the eventual birth of the fetus. Gender reveal parties, King-Miller notes are held by parents who are "trying to meet an emotional need that might otherwise go unrecognized, and...a gender reveal party offers at least an approximation of what parents are searching for". In other words, they do not have to be these fanciful celebrations, they can just be another step towards the eventual birth. CITATIONS King-Miller, Lindsay. “Gender Reveal Parties Have Been Widely Embraced — and Reviled.” Vox, 31 July 2019, www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/7/31/20708816/gender-reveal-party-social-media-game-pink-blue-fire.

Pointless more than anything else. You're going to be celebrating the childs birth, regardless of other factors. It's a girl = celebrate with friends. It's a boy = celebrate with friends.