Pop star Demi Lovato shared a lengthy lecture on Instagram Wednesday calling gender reveal parties “transphobic.” Her post attacked the idea of celebrating baby boys and girls as a tradition that “naturalizes cultural myths as ‘biological facts.’”
“Gender reveals uphold the gender binary and the binary prevents people from observing reality,” said the post, which trans activist Alok originally authored. “Only individuals can determine their own gender.”
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Gender reveals, parties celebrating the sex of unborn babies, have been under attack in recent years. This is partially due to gender reveals gone wrong when couples use devices like pipe bombs or alligators to share their pink or blue news. One infamous gender reveal explosion triggered a brushfire that burned 45,000 acres in Arizona.
But Lovato’s take on gender reveal parties illuminates the deeper reason gender reveals are “problematic” — they subtly reject the progressive ideal that gender is a spectrum, as well as a social construct. The act of proudly announcing that a baby is a boy or a girl affirms what biology tells us, that yes, sex is binary, and no, gender is not a product of society but of biological sexual differences in the brain.
Lovato attempts to debunk this truth as a “cultural myth” and claims that the fact that “there are only two options, boy or girl,” is an “illusion.”
“This is not about political correctness. It’s just…correct. We condemn gender reveals not because of our identity but because of reality,” the post reads, denying the reality that there are indeed two sexes, male and female.
Acknowledging a child’s sex and “assigning” their gender is not transphobic. And it’s not about political correctness, it’s just correct.
