In Addition to Being Pointless, Gender Reveal Parties Are Now Deadly

For people with too much time on their hands, gender reveal parties are a fun way to needlessly impose restrictive stereotypes on a fetus before an audience of friends politely feigning interest. Yet simply relying on artificially colored baked goods to indicate a hoo-ha or a pee-pee has become gauche among Instagram parents. These days, gendered weaponry, such as gender cannons or gender paintball rifles are the most fashionable way to express total commitment to policing binaries. And now, competitive, weaponized gender revelry has claimed its first casualty.

According to NBC, an Iowa woman who was attending a gender reveal party was killed on October 26 by a flying piece of debris from an explosion meant to reveal the gender of a fetus. The 56-year-old woman was pronounced dead on the scene.

Perhaps it goes without saying, but most guests probably prefer gender lasagna or gender cake to a violent death in service of performative heteronormativity.