A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - The Mom Who Invented Gender Reveals Regrets It

00:00:00.000 I feel like a lot of people listening to this are going to be very surprised to know that the woman

00:00:05.240 who invented the gender reveal is now writing papers on like the importance of the intersection

00:00:11.820 of trans issues and reproductive health issues.

00:00:19.100 Hello, hello, and welcome to A Bit Fruity, the show where we try to learn something new about

00:00:24.500 each other without scorching the earth in the process. I'm Matt Bernstein, and I am so,

00:00:29.500 so grateful that you're listening today. If you like the show, you can follow us on Spotify or

00:00:34.920 Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening to this. If you prefer a visual, we are also on

00:00:40.580 YouTube with video episodes. So you can subscribe to us over there. And if you're watching this

00:00:45.040 right now, welcome to my living room. This is the first episode that we are doing from my apartment.

00:00:51.060 We had a studio, like a real studio up until now, but we lost that studio. We were kicked out. It

00:00:56.720 was a whole thing, but now we're here. And I actually think I prefer this. It's chic. It feels

00:01:02.260 cozy. I'm happy that you're home with me. And today we are in for a real treat because we are

00:01:10.160 going to hear from someone who is unsuspecting. She has described herself as a normal, boring,

00:01:16.500 suburban white mom, but she has one really weird line item on her resume. Jenna Carvanitas is

00:01:24.060 widely credited with inventing the gender reveal party on her blog in 2008. And over the years,

00:01:30.400 as things caught fire, things in Jenna's personal life really started to evolve in ways that would

00:01:37.680 color the way that she felt about this thing that she'd invented. So I am so excited to speak with

00:01:43.220 her. I'm so happy she's here. Jenna, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you for having me. I'm very

00:01:48.520 excited of course when i teased this episode on my instagram story earlier today i was like i am

00:01:56.000 interviewing someone who regrets the thing that they invented and people were like oh my god are

00:02:01.620 you interviewing oppenheimer and i was like kind of like you're the you're the oppenheimer of of

00:02:09.320 gender you're the gender reveal oppenheimer so the genderheimer the gender you're the genderheimer

00:02:16.920 exactly so jenna i want you to catch us up on the person that you were up until the point of

00:02:26.820 your first pregnancy and then you know we'll get into everything but like who is jenna where does

00:02:32.260 jenna come from oh yeah like wow like where do i come from uh so that's kind of a an interesting

00:02:38.500 question i don't think anybody's really asked me that in that way before um so i'm originally from

00:02:42.940 indiana i'm a girl from indiana and um i actually left home very early at 17 so i was on my own and

00:02:52.980 doing all kinds of things and so i actually moved to chicago um i i ended up going to school i went

00:02:59.460 i went to college on like a pell grant i was poor as you can imagine someone who's living in their

00:03:03.980 car sometimes might be and so i ended up graduating college moved to chicago and was just you know

00:03:10.120 living the life in the city. I had an apartment and doing my whole thing. And then I met my

00:03:15.880 husband and then I became a mommy blogger. You became a mommy blogger.

00:03:21.240 To shorten up 20 something years. Yeah.

00:03:24.160 Right. So you had this blog called High Gloss and Sauce. And I don't want to,

00:03:31.460 I don't want to scare the millennials, but I need us to take a second for the maybe younger

00:03:37.480 end of gen z listeners can you explain like what the internet was like in 2008 like what was a blog

00:03:43.640 it was so non-commercial first of all there was no money to be made there was no

00:03:49.520 uh reason to do any of it it felt very private so i was an early adapter to social media i really

00:03:56.720 had a blog actually my first blog in like the 90s when i was like in college that is how old i am

00:04:02.440 and uh it just felt like um more like a diary like i'll say what i'm doing today and it's for

00:04:11.200 my own benefit i'm putting things out there because i want to record what i'm doing and

00:04:15.020 it really had nothing to do with like what it is today where it's more like pandering and catering

00:04:20.500 to an audience that didn't exist so yeah it was just kind of like navel gazing at its finest

00:04:26.560 well and my I mean I'm 24 and so even though I feel like I was among the first generation of

00:04:34.620 people to grow up on the internet but I only had a few years and I was very young when the internet

00:04:40.980 was so like disparate like that like it felt like there were so many little corners of the internet

00:04:46.620 but none of them were really connected in the way that everything is now and there was no way to

00:04:52.240 like immediately unite millions of people online in the way there that there is now it's like if

00:04:57.040 you had a blog like how many readers did your blog have you know that was a hard thing is I

00:05:01.800 didn't actually get a counter on my blog to know any of my stats that's how that's how like weird

00:05:06.460 it was back then like you didn't even know how many you had but once I did you know there were

00:05:10.320 some posts I would have that have like you know 25,000 readers and like you know it would kind

00:05:16.720 of go back and forth sometimes so it was hard to say I didn't have any subscribers at that time

00:05:21.480 because that wasn't even a thing so yeah it's really hard to say like what the numbers were

00:05:24.700 but you know um i didn't even realize how big my blog was until i put the counter on there and then

00:05:28.760 i was like oh people are reading this but you weren't making any money from it like it wasn't

00:05:33.760 a career thing or was it no it wasn't um i don't even know i like really like why was i even doing

00:05:39.920 it i wasn't trying to make money from it i wasn't trying to do anything other than just like talk

00:05:46.240 about my day and myself and what was happening it was it was a lot of fun and it was kind of like

00:05:51.400 a way to really be seen and to sort of make a you know a little document like hey i was here in the

00:05:58.200 world so that's all i was doing it for just for fun and were you you had graduated college at

00:06:04.400 this point and what were you doing professionally yeah so by the early 2000s um i worked in

00:06:10.660 commercial real estate for a while i it was boring you got like a two percent raise every year after

00:06:16.840 a while i was like you know what i'm just not doing this anymore like i can make so much more

00:06:20.120 money just selling cars. So I got this job in downtown Chicago selling cars. So with my college

00:06:25.980 degree, I was selling cars. And you know what? It was way better money. Awesome money. I had so

00:06:30.820 much fun. That's where I met my husband. He's a lot of fun. And yeah, that was what I was doing

00:06:37.120 professionally. I was only going to do that for like a little while. I was like studying to go

00:06:40.920 to law school, which I have since done. But at the time, I ended up derailing for like a long time

00:06:46.780 and just selling cars and hanging out so 2008 comes and you get pregnant for the first time

00:06:56.040 no that was not the first time that's the whole gender reveal story it's kind of like uh yeah i

00:07:03.540 had we you know we got married and we were just like trying to start a family i was in my 20s like

00:07:07.540 this will be easy like aren't you trying to not get knocked up your entire time you're a teen like

00:07:11.960 you know so i was like ah finally this will be the easiest thing in the world and it was not

00:07:16.360 not easy i i had this was my third pregnancy by the time i was like sticking around you know so

00:07:22.640 yeah i'd had several miscarriages before that oh i see interesting interesting so well and so did

00:07:29.480 that i mean is that why i had the party was part of the motivation for having you know just getting

00:07:36.200 creative about ways to celebrate the pregnancy a result of like finally having this pregnancy

00:07:40.980 that you wanted for so long?

00:07:42.700 Absolutely.

00:07:43.560 Like, I finally, like, made it to that stage

00:07:46.060 of being able to find out if it was a boy or a girl.

00:07:49.000 I mean, I'm guessing 24 not having any kids,

00:07:51.680 you don't really realize how it goes.

00:07:52.800 But basically, about halfway through the pregnancy,

00:07:55.040 you have this really big ultrasound,

00:07:56.940 this one, like, really huge one where they look at everything

00:07:59.420 and they make sure that the heart is good

00:08:02.240 and the brain is good and, like, all the things, right?

00:08:04.160 And so that's actually just sort of tangentially also

00:08:07.800 when they tell you, like, what type of peeper

00:08:10.220 the child has and so I was like you know this is this is some information this is awesome because

00:08:15.900 you know previously I hadn't made it that far and so I was just really um looking forward to this

00:08:21.160 like so much to where I just wanted to have a celebration really for that reason like it was

00:08:25.920 more about me like hello it was all about me right like it's my blog it's my life and that was what

00:08:32.180 it was about and I was not even thinking I you know this is just like announce if it's a boy or

00:08:37.840 a girl like that wasn't really my intention with the party but i figured it would be a good draw

00:08:41.480 to get people get the party going right like a draw to people in your personal life but not

00:08:46.280 necessarily on the internet which i think is so interesting because like we're in now on the

00:08:51.500 internet it's like the goal of everything i mean the goal of every brand doing a social media based

00:08:57.660 tiktok campaign or whatever is like we need to do something that will go viral like that is the

00:09:02.860 explicit goal of so much behavior on the internet today but like that wasn't the goal you were just

00:09:09.740 like finally i made it to the big ultrasound i want like my friends and family to hang out

00:09:15.140 yeah and it started to become like real like oh crap like this is really happening like i'm actually

00:09:21.640 there's actually going to be a person small who's going to be living here and i was like

00:09:25.620 kind of just trying to build that team you know i had mentioned earlier i left home at 17 i didn't

00:09:31.160 exactly have like the most like secure by, you know, family situation growing up. And so I was

00:09:36.780 like, Oh, crap, I'm bringing a child into this family that there's not we don't have like, Oh,

00:09:41.320 those grandparents are going to be babysitting and hanging out. And we didn't have that. So I

00:09:45.080 had to build that, you know, I had to build that community. And so I think a lot of people do. I

00:09:48.240 don't think that's really that unique of a story. I think a lot of people are, you know, moving on

00:09:52.540 from toxic relationships with other family members. And they're thinking, Oh, I have to build

00:09:57.000 this community for myself and so you know a gender reveal party is the type of thing

00:10:02.800 i didn't realize at the time you know i was just thinking i just need to have a party

00:10:06.180 it's something where you can be in control as the parent like oh i can have this party you can't

00:10:11.820 throw yourself a baby shower you can't have a hey anybody want to come along and act like their

00:10:16.960 grandparents to my kids party but you can get the neighbors involved in a in a party like this

00:10:22.480 that was kind of my motivation. Right. Like you mentioned elsewhere about you wanted to find ways

00:10:29.340 that could excite your mom about being involved in your pregnancy. Yeah, she didn't work. Did not

00:10:38.260 work. I don't want to poke the bear and get her to say too much to us here. But we haven't spoken

00:10:44.480 in over a decade um and it was just it's always been rocky but like it was always me trying to

00:10:53.540 mend the situation like you know i i bought her a plane ticket to come to uh wedding dress shopping

00:11:01.140 with me and she wouldn't come you know it was always me trying to be like you know could you

00:11:05.420 please be involved and when i actually had the baby at the hospital she was nowhere to be found

00:11:09.380 i was like where are you and the nurse was like yeah she said she was going out for a coffee i'm

00:11:14.420 like at two in the morning, didn't see her for a couple of days. So it's always been the type

00:11:18.340 of thing where I need to be bigger and bolder and more exciting to get this person's attention.

00:11:24.800 And that was what I was trying to do. She did go to the party, actually.

00:11:28.940 Well, and so that's, it's so human to want that, to just like want to be surrounded by

00:11:35.860 your friends and your family and the people who, you know, should be creating community for this

00:11:39.980 child like I don't know I feel like you came at this from such a like human place especially as

00:11:45.920 like someone who's been trying to be pregnant for a long time I don't know I'm I'm like touched

00:11:51.680 thank you for seeing you know you know from my point of view a lot of uh you know people really

00:11:58.380 kind of see me as a villain in the story like oh this woman who's she's you know really propagating

00:12:05.940 that gender binary out there and i'm like oh my god i so am not but that is the story of of why

00:12:12.020 i had the party um it really had nothing to do with the baby's gender it was it was a gimmick

00:12:17.260 it was like how can i get y'all out here let's let's have a party you know and and try to get

00:12:22.120 some yeah some people going for this uh this new child so we get to the big day we've planned the

00:12:28.040 party the people are coming the loved ones are coming from near and far to reveal what you know

00:12:34.700 what we assume to be the gender of the of the baby describe the actual like logistics of

00:12:41.400 the first gender reveal party how did it go what was the creative what was like the top level

00:12:46.460 creative well that would have been me running the whole show so i i was trying to figure out

00:12:52.800 a way to surprise myself because i wanted to i wanted the the information if there was pink

00:13:00.600 icing or blue icing which i now realize is you know hokey and problematic and very 2008 but um

00:13:06.800 i wanted that information to be available to the whole party at once i thought that was more of a

00:13:11.140 fun way to do it like i'm also learning this information like you know you guys can witness my

00:13:16.320 reactions or whatever um right it was like it was like the live youtube reaction video but like in

00:13:22.760 your backyard with your family yes and actually i i've lost the original video i don't know where

00:13:29.340 it is i have to find it somewhere i'm sure i can find it somewhere i've got like old school

00:13:35.720 technology like the little reader card kind of the eighth wonder of the world the lost

00:13:41.220 original gender reveal vhs tape yeah exactly i've got the pictures from the blog and all

00:13:47.160 the screen grabs from that but i don't actually have the video but anyway so yeah it was a cake

00:13:53.080 it was a cake yeah i decided and the reason why is part of my like trying to get people to do this

00:13:58.960 is it was my mom's birthday so i was like well we'll tell the party for you but then it'll be

00:14:04.920 this so i was hoping it would be this whole thing um but anyway actually everyone at the party didn't

00:14:10.500 treat it like a birthday like they didn't i don't even remember i don't think we even sang happy

00:14:15.160 birthday it was just about the gender reveal but that was kind of where like the idea of the cake

00:14:18.900 came in um and i had recently done a birthday cake for a co-worker of mine um i had made a

00:14:24.140 little ducky cake and this is like before pinterest like i really felt like i was martha stewart like

00:14:30.300 i had this cake i was like oh it's got a duck head on it it looks like a ducky this thing was

00:14:34.960 the ugliest thing you've seen in your life well so we have we have pictures of the cake

00:14:39.960 oh no i should not claim this thing it is oh it was burnt too

00:14:46.080 we we have pictures of the cake um i'm looking at it if if you're watching the youtube version

00:14:54.700 of this episode we will throw it up on the screen how would you describe it it's pale yellow

00:15:00.740 i'm not gonna bash your cake jenna oh bash it it's ugly it's a it's a it's a round two layer

00:15:08.040 like eight inch cake and then on top there's like a little mini cake for anybody who like you know

00:15:13.740 was listening to this only it's you know it had like a little like maybe like four inch little

00:15:18.600 cake on top that was supposed to be like the duck head and so i put like those little like

00:15:23.040 orange candy what is that called like those orange gummy right like the little like kind of sugar

00:15:28.840 coated dish like sugar coated gelatin slices for the lips yeah so it had big collagen looking lips

00:15:35.300 like those big duck lips and little m&ms for the eyes this thing was satanic looking but it got

00:15:41.220 the job done i mean people were like oh okay the um description that comes to mind for me is very

00:15:47.580 diy it looks very diy which is kind of a read but like you know it's but you could tell it's a duck

00:15:54.380 i mean it was duckish okay it was duckish it was duckish um so okay but so was there just the one

00:16:03.520 cake no so i actually made two cakes i made one duck head and then i made two bodies and one of

00:16:09.600 the bodies I filled with blue icing and one I filled with pink the reason why I didn't make

00:16:13.780 two complete cakes was I was like well there's little subtle differences in like a little face

00:16:18.160 like I would know which cake was coming out of the kitchen I sent my sister-in-law actually I

00:16:23.180 kind of backed up on that part of the story you're like oh what were the logistics we went to the

00:16:26.120 ultrasound earlier in the day and I had the midwife put the information about the child's

00:16:31.580 anatomy in an envelope and seal it and I was like don't tell me what it is and I was describing the

00:16:36.260 party to her. And she was like, what? I've never heard of anything like that. And I'm like, yeah,

00:16:39.460 it's this thing I'm going to do this afternoon. She's like, okay. So I had the little secret

00:16:43.120 envelope and I put my sister-in-law up to the task of, okay, go in the kitchen. There's these

00:16:48.920 two cakes. One has a toothpick in it. That one means it's got blue icing in it. Just take the

00:16:52.600 toothpick out, put the duck head on the correct cake, whichever one is, you know, I explained to

00:16:57.740 her how to do it. And so, and she did. So that's how, so she put the little mini duck head on the

00:17:02.980 big body that was correlated with the correct icing and that's how we had our surprise so the

00:17:08.660 idea was like your sister was going to come out back with the right cake but you didn't know which

00:17:12.780 one it was just looking at it from the outside and then like she cuts it open and everyone's like

00:17:16.380 oh my god yeah well the reason why i chose her is because she's very good at keeping secrets

00:17:21.700 i don't mean that she has any of my secrets i mean she's just like a very like she can keep a

00:17:26.980 very straight face when she needs to and i was like that's who i need because if i give it to

00:17:30.540 somebody who like I who has like an expressive face they're gonna look at me and like be smiling

00:17:34.820 really big if it's like you know truth be told I did I did actually want a girl so they would

00:17:40.500 have been like yay you know I was gonna ask like did you have feelings about the you wanted a girl

00:17:46.640 I did I did what's so interesting to me as like a side note is that some of the gender reveals now

00:17:55.680 that are most frustrating to me are there's obviously the ones that are like you know causing

00:18:02.160 environmental disasters and like hate that but on like you know just a psychological level the ones

00:18:08.940 that are the most frustrating to me are the ones where the dad clearly wants a boy I don't know if

00:18:16.360 you've seen videos of these but sometimes they'll go viral on TikTok where they'll like pop the

00:18:20.740 balloon or like shoot I don't know a tree or like whatever the fuck people are doing now to

00:18:25.400 reveal the genitals of their child and then it'll be pink and the dad will like walk away like

00:18:32.420 visibly upset i despise that yeah those are the ones that make me the most upset because i'm like

00:18:38.800 oh wow like god he's he's checking out he's checking out early you have this party and you

00:18:46.000 share it on your blog and this wasn't like twitter or instagram or tiktok where like something can

00:18:51.760 just be sent around a million times in a day like theoretically it could have but that's just

00:18:55.960 the internet didn't work that way um so but you like what you like write up a post on your blog

00:19:02.900 about it and like post a few pictures yeah so i posted about it before the party like here's

00:19:06.960 what's gonna happen you know like teasing that it was gonna happen and then after the party i wrote

00:19:11.060 about it again and then it was like i had a picture of the cake and you know it used to be like the

00:19:14.980 big the big trick was like to click on the picture and then when it pops out it's a different picture

00:19:20.300 so i had like the pop out was like the inside of the cake i thought i was very clever i love hearing

00:19:26.280 about the early internet yes that was so mesmerizing back then you know um so yeah that

00:19:33.700 it got it got some traction it got a lot of you know attention and stuff like that but yeah it

00:19:39.100 wasn't like you know it was on the news the next day that it was more of a slow burn

00:19:42.060 for the takeoff because you know this was the summer she was born in 08 so that was the summer

00:19:46.700 of 08 um so about i don't know it must have been a couple of months later you know that's when i got

00:19:55.160 a call from this magazine and they were like you know they emailed me hey can you hop on the phone

00:20:01.480 i was like sure they said they wanted to do like a centerfold spread in their magazine it's called

00:20:08.680 the bump i don't i don't actually know if it's still in publication but it used to be a big deal

00:20:12.160 Oh, like pregnancy?

00:20:13.700 Yeah, it's kind of like The Knot.

00:20:14.920 Remember The Knot website for weddings?

00:20:16.780 I don't know if that's even still going on.

00:20:18.480 Is it?

00:20:18.960 Okay.

00:20:19.240 Yes.

00:20:19.560 Wait, you know what's so interesting?

00:20:21.060 Do you know the movie Bottoms that just came out?

00:20:23.380 Oh, I think I've heard of it.

00:20:24.880 There's this movie Bottoms that just came out.

00:20:26.620 And one of, I was like Googling all of the actors in it.

00:20:30.220 And one of the main love interests, this actor, her,

00:20:34.720 I was reading all of their Wikipedia pages.

00:20:37.120 This is such a bizarre cameo.

00:20:38.740 It's such a bizarre cameo.

00:20:39.840 but the actor's dad founded the knot oh bizarre they made money off the knot it's just so

00:20:48.880 interesting when you like find out who someone's parents are side note oh i'm sure they had all

00:20:53.540 the money for like the headshots and acting school and all that right and she's beautiful

00:20:58.100 she's great in the movie but like i was like oh yeah her parents founded the knot that's nice

00:21:01.740 yeah so bump magazine which i'm sure had readership at the time uh wants to do a spread on you

00:21:10.280 yeah they actually wanted to do a spread about just me like my blog and all the things that i

00:21:16.240 talked about on there so like i had like went shopping for a stroller and with no monetary

00:21:20.940 gain whatsoever i was like and here's the different strollers i'm looking at and i'm

00:21:23.820 driving them and that type of thing before that was really like a a thing you know and they were

00:21:29.160 like oh there were no affiliate links that you were earning commission off of right yes but they

00:21:34.740 could and they could run this in their thing and then they could have a little blip on the side

00:21:39.160 here's what here's a stroller that jenna chose and here was the place where she likes to shop

00:21:43.020 for this i mean so that was kind of like the idea i think it was you know the bump magazine is

00:21:47.820 there's it's like any other magazine it's mainly advertisements you know and it's a little bit of

00:21:51.720 article but it's fluff stuff you know um but the gender reveal party was in there at the time i

00:21:58.360 called it a peep show because the duck was a bird and it made a peep i don't know also

00:22:04.180 kind of a dirty joke a peep show that is a dirty joke i love that that's like such a great detail

00:22:11.140 um for the younger listeners again i don't i feel like i feel like peep show is kind of an

00:22:17.400 outdated term but a peep show is like a peep show is it's like a a stripper show where you would put

00:22:23.440 in the quarter and then the i think so like back in old timey times i think that you used to look

00:22:29.760 through a hole in the wall and you saw something with maybe the sailors i don't really actually

00:22:33.540 know like you would well the way i understand it the way that i understand right this is like

00:22:38.600 before either of our times um but it's i love that you called it a peep show a peep show is

00:22:44.180 like you would go into i think i don't know someone gen xer is going to get very mad at me

00:22:48.560 if i explain this wrong but you would like go into the little um into the little room and you

00:22:54.620 would put in your quarters and you would stand and uh the the people would open you would look

00:23:01.300 into it and someone would be on the other side of the wall like stripping so i like i like that

00:23:07.280 you called it a peep show because of the duck but okay so you called it you called it a peep show

00:23:11.380 because we didn't have gender reveal yet that didn't that wasn't a thing right yeah that was

00:23:15.780 coined by somebody in the media somewhere talking about it right but that was what it was at the

00:23:21.600 time we believed we were revealing you know the gender as well as the anatomy but i don't know

00:23:27.280 right i was i wasn't thinking too hard about it to be honest with you sure but so they so they

00:23:31.880 published this yeah they did and so the kind of like what happened it was just kind of a comedy

00:23:37.300 of errors i guess or the swiss cheese theory whatever happened is that this magazine ended

00:23:42.100 up being the magazine that was waiting in the waiting rooms at all the doctor's offices,

00:23:46.760 midwives, OBGYN offices, and all the Midwestern United States.

00:23:50.980 So the whole middle of the United States gets this magazine for free, basically.

00:23:56.840 And before cell phones or smartphones, really, we had cell phones, but it was before smartphones

00:24:01.380 were ubiquitous, people would literally read the magazine at the doctor's office.

00:24:06.320 Right.

00:24:06.880 You remember Highlights Magazine when you were a kid, you know, you go and read the thing.

00:24:10.560 It was like that, except, you know, and it was just so easy just to flip right to the middle.

00:24:14.880 And it was an actual article instead of an ad.

00:24:16.560 And so people were like, wait a minute, I'm reading this article about this party.

00:24:20.880 I'm literally about to go in and get my information about my child's anatomy.

00:24:25.040 I can make a cake.

00:24:26.420 It's a dollar for a box of cake.

00:24:28.260 I can make this happen today.

00:24:29.620 And so it just was such an easy thing for people to do to kind of just like, you know,

00:24:33.700 add some excitement in their home drum lives, myself included.

00:24:38.440 And so, uh, yeah, it just kind of caught on. And from there, you know, that was at the birth of

00:24:43.180 really social media. So I was vlogging. Um, a lot of people were on YouTube. I wasn't on YouTube

00:24:48.980 at that time. Um, but yeah, that's kind of how the party propagated.

00:24:54.100 And so would you start like getting sent things like, Hey, look, like someone

00:24:57.960 copied your thing or whatever.

00:25:00.160 Yeah. It took like a while for that magazine then to come out. So I would say about a year

00:25:04.400 after my party is when i started seeing it and it was you know kind of kind of weird but kind of

00:25:10.340 like a maybe like a little annoying too uh like they copied my thing yeah you know you ever had

00:25:16.720 like a friend who like wore your outfit it's like annoying i just that was kind of the feeling that

00:25:21.560 i got like uh i don't know so i kind of laid low on that for a little while you know then i had

00:25:26.360 another baby i didn't do any more gender reveal parties because at that time i was kind of worried

00:25:30.480 that people would think that i was copying them and i'm like you were like you were like this has

00:25:35.500 become passe yes i was doing that you know back then and i didn't want it to seem like i was

00:25:40.820 catching up to a trend like no like right decorate my house with my own paintings i

00:25:47.180 forge my own way a lot of different areas of my life and so that i just yeah it was kind of it

00:25:53.400 was kind of annoying right you had to reinvent because the thing that the thing that you created

00:25:57.380 this becoming too saturated so so when was the first time you started having second thoughts

00:26:05.240 not just about like the popularity of gender reveals but also like the meaning and intent

00:26:09.600 behind them well i started kind of you know examining gender more and the problems with

00:26:14.540 the concept of gender around the time i had my second child which is around 2011 so three years

00:26:19.700 after the first party you know i have these two children they're both girls and they seemed so

00:26:24.600 different to me one you know had a certain type of personality one had the other and they were

00:26:29.140 just you know these flourishing little people and we kept running into this brick wall with

00:26:34.420 everything had to be pink i didn't make their nursery pink it was a very beautiful little

00:26:38.220 blue and yellow twall thing i was doing and but it's like the minute we walk out the door

00:26:43.400 just everything's pink and i'm probably pink as you can see i'm sitting in a pink office right

00:26:47.340 now i absolutely love the barbie movie pink is great it's not a it's not a hatred toward pink

00:26:52.020 or girly girls that's not what i'm trying to say i'm not i'm not a pick me you're not not like other

00:26:59.060 girls make it known yeah i'm not not like other girls i'm probably exactly like other girls but

00:27:04.380 you know but it just got to be the thing where and one of my children she loved pink and it was

00:27:08.960 really great but it's kind of like it was so limiting it was kind of like she felt like you

00:27:14.420 know she couldn't play with all the toys she couldn't play with a toy unless it was pink

00:27:17.380 like oh i'm so girly i'm i'm i love this and if it's not pink i don't want it it was like

00:27:23.160 well you can't play with a science kit you can't play with like normal legos like why why are all

00:27:30.180 those things for boys why is the whole world and all the opportunities and all of the colors for

00:27:35.260 boys and then you got this one thing for the girls and why is she getting that information

00:27:39.560 and i know that the manufacturers of the toys were we're trying to combat a lot of this by

00:27:44.560 making the science kits in pink and by making the oh that doctor's sparkle mcfluffins or whatever

00:27:51.020 her name was doc mcstuffins they tried to make it like appealing to girls to be like oh look there's

00:27:56.820 a girl doctor and she's very sparkly but the more of that that came out the more limiting it was

00:28:02.200 because you can't make the whole world pink right it's like there's still going to be things out

00:28:07.340 there that are not pink and those things just started to seem off limits to my kids and i

00:28:11.320 didn't like it. And I just started to think about it. And then I was thinking about the gender

00:28:15.440 reveal parties. And I'm like, oh, we've made a mistake here, friends. Well, and I feel like at

00:28:19.760 the same time that you're starting to have your own realizations about this stuff as they pertain

00:28:25.480 to your kids, the parties are getting more and more because I know you did your like pink and

00:28:31.660 blue cakes. But I feel like that was really like, step one. And then the I mean, I remember like

00:28:39.540 the first time i heard about gender reveals was also through cakes but the cakes were like you

00:28:45.460 know tutus or trucks and like they would like have these really like exaggerated things i mean like

00:28:51.220 this was also the time that like the baby's clothes in stores like the onesies would have

00:28:57.240 those things like like you know the girls one would would be pink and it would say like does

00:29:01.660 this make my ass look big or or like the little ladies man you know little shirts for boys

00:29:09.520 that would have a bow tie and it would be like lock up your daughters or like whatever like

00:29:13.860 this was very um i feel like a lot of that stuff has become a little bit passe now but i do remember

00:29:19.960 the cakes being the first thing that i ever saw about gender reveals and they were all like

00:29:25.400 incredibly it was oh it's tutus or touchdowns right that's it yes the tutu and also like yeah

00:29:32.180 like it's like guns and pearls i think is one of them guns and pearls oh my goodness i think that's

00:29:38.740 one of them yeah it was like really all of that's terrible you were like you're doing this in my

00:29:44.660 good name this is tacky very tacky um and kind of the interesting thing too is like originally you

00:29:53.400 know i like i wore a yellow outfit at my party and it was supposed to be like the cake like it

00:29:58.360 could go either way you know and it's like as things have progressed it's very much about the

00:30:03.320 dichotomy right it's boy or girl it's the you know the gender binary or bust type thing right

00:30:12.860 and it feels like it would maybe be like it maybe we'd have a separate conversation about this if

00:30:19.060 it literally was about like the anatomy and they were rebranded as sex reveals and people had

00:30:24.700 an enlightened understanding of gender versus sex and all of that stuff but it's like

00:30:29.360 it's not it is literally every gender reveal you have ever seen at least in a little bit

00:30:35.040 and often a lot plays into the like social expectations of what it means to have of what

00:30:41.060 your your sex is people are like what's the issue with gender reveals you know it's it's like and i

00:30:46.520 don't agree with this but people would be like so few kids are trans like what's the big deal

00:30:50.380 like the majority of time if you predict that their gender is going to be the same as their sex

00:30:56.320 you know you're gonna be right it's not even just about gender or sex it's like those parties are

00:31:02.540 about the gendered expectations like they're it's literally about like the tutus or touchdowns or

00:31:07.780 the guns and pearls or like the whatever that you know it's like absolutely i think you're onto a

00:31:13.700 really great point about it's about you know the social expectations and also what about people

00:31:17.620 who are just gender non-conforming you don't have to necessarily be trans to be affected by this but

00:31:22.140 you might be you know a girl who we used to call tomboys maybe you're just not you know into like

00:31:27.580 ballet and all that kind of stuff but you know kids will do what they can to be accepted by

00:31:32.700 their parents and so sometimes these kids are just pretending their entire lives like

00:31:37.520 to act like they really like the stuff that they don't i mean yeah i think about like when i i was

00:31:42.960 a very effeminate little kid and i think about all through like grade school i struggled a lot

00:31:50.340 because I I actually well interestingly I didn't struggle at the beginning when I was in like

00:31:55.880 kindergarten I remember using pink and purple crayons and wearing skirts when we would play

00:32:02.640 like house I would always like get into the little like costume chest and I would put on my skirt

00:32:07.060 and I loved it and it wasn't hard for me because I didn't think there was anything wrong with it

00:32:12.720 and nobody ever made me feel like there was anything wrong with it even the other kids

00:32:16.000 because we just hadn't learned it yet. But when I got to like middle school and high school and,

00:32:22.100 you know, people learned what being gay was and people learned about gay stereotypes through TV

00:32:26.860 and the media and whatever else, you know, people would make fun of me for being a boy who was very

00:32:32.720 effeminate and who talked a certain way and who, I mean, oh my gosh, people would make fun of my

00:32:38.160 girl handwriting was just amazing to me because it was like, I just have better handwriting than

00:32:44.100 you is what you're saying thank you um but it's so funny because when it comes to like cis and

00:32:51.340 trans and whatever it's like these people who are making fun of me in school weren't like oh

00:32:56.640 you identify as cisgender oh well my bad i'm gonna stop making fun of you because you're not trans

00:33:03.420 it's like of course you know it goes without saying trans kids get it the worst but like also

00:33:11.060 people aren't like making sure you're trans in order to make fun of you and when it comes to

00:33:16.160 like being judged and affected by not meeting the expectations of the gender binary like that's all

00:33:21.580 of our problem you know it's not just the problem of trans people it's the problem of anyone who

00:33:25.960 even slightly veers off course um that was a good little rant if i may say something that's a great

00:33:33.040 rant because i'm thinking about what you just said just helped me clarify my thought too it's like

00:33:37.060 about anybody who slightly veers off course is made fun of and I think that was kind of

00:33:41.400 where I was with the pink thing it was like there's so one of my daughters was just so afraid

00:33:46.940 to veer off the pink that it would be something that she perceived as being like wrong and it was

00:33:52.360 like dude literally you don't have to do anything pink yeah but they get this message at some point

00:33:58.660 that it's like conformity is the way to survive and it's so sad because it's not it's the way to

00:34:03.580 to be creative and flourish so as you're coming into your own with your understanding of gender

00:34:10.600 and with your understanding of who your daughters are gender reveals start flying off the fucking

00:34:17.620 rails so jenna i'm not here to blame you for this but we do have to address it sure gender reveal

00:34:27.500 destruction statistics we have six deaths one missing person 20 plus injuries hundreds of

00:34:34.000 thousands of acres of wildfires that is definitely true uh plane crashes car fires there was actually

00:34:40.520 just another plane crash in mexico mexico yeah i love i love imagining that like anytime there's

00:34:48.560 a natural disaster related to a gender reveal like jenna carvanitas gets like a ping on her phone and

00:34:53.520 she's like, fuck. But yeah, so there was just another plane crash in Mexico, which was not the

00:35:00.280 first gender reveal plane crash in Mexico. There have been car fires, damages to property, and

00:35:05.120 there was also a minor earthquake. I want to ask you, when you first saw, because I feel like people

00:35:10.680 started figuring out about the natural disaster component of this with the wildfires. Was that

00:35:17.380 the first kind of disaster you saw and what was your reaction i was very upset this was a couple

00:35:27.180 years ago when that first brush fire happened because the gender reveal and i i was very upset

00:35:31.740 i actually cried i mean i was president in my of my environmental law a society i have been a

00:35:37.540 vegetarian my entire life which is a lot of environmental basis for that um and so to see

00:35:42.900 the the the brush and the forest to be burned i mean it's like 40 80 acres it was like so many

00:35:49.620 it was it was awful i i felt responsible and really bad i also feel like it's a cop-out too

00:35:55.820 because we have real climate change issues to address and it's much easier to say hey there's

00:36:01.200 these two idiots in the forest having a gender reveal party which is problematic but also there's

00:36:05.640 100 000 forest fires a year why climate change you know what i mean so i kind of like i don't

00:36:11.340 feel as bad anymore. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, yeah, it's not good that these things

00:36:15.080 happen. And I don't know, it kind of reminds me of the straw thing. We like to feel like we as

00:36:21.560 individuals have more power over these huge things that are often led by like corporations that are

00:36:27.740 seemingly untouchable. But it's, you know, easier if we feel like we have something to point the

00:36:31.780 finger at that we can control. I'm not here to say stop making fun of gender reveal people who

00:36:37.080 cause natural disasters.

00:36:39.920 I think we should shame these people.

00:36:42.300 I think we should keep shaming these people.

00:36:44.520 There was the couple in Brazil

00:36:45.900 who, did you see this one with the waterfall?

00:36:49.000 Oh, I think so.

00:36:50.420 Yeah, they died a waterfall.

00:36:51.900 That's right. I think I did.

00:36:53.060 They died a waterfall which

00:36:55.140 contaminated the water supply of a

00:36:57.200 nearby poverty-stricken town.

00:37:00.280 Like, go to hell.

00:37:01.240 Why are they doing this? Go to hell.

00:37:03.520 Absolutely. Go to hell.

00:37:05.380 you know why they're doing this jenna because their baby has a penis that's why

00:37:09.820 so i guess i want to ask first of all you kind of went viral again in 2019 because these articles

00:37:19.440 started popping up that were you know and 2019 is like around the time that like the natural

00:37:25.240 disaster stuff starts really like cropping up in popular media and these articles start

00:37:31.080 circulating around the same time that are like this woman invented it and like there was um

00:37:37.420 there felt like a blame component well i mean i there is a blame component to it because

00:37:44.120 first of all i am one person that it's easy to blame second of all they don't have anybody to

00:37:49.140 call because when these crimes happen okay when you're out here you know killing your grandma

00:37:53.620 with a pipe bomb i'm sorry no one's sensitivity to the family but like what are you doing i don't

00:37:58.220 if you have to bleep me or what but like oh no we don't you you can say fuck jenna say fuck

00:38:02.740 yeah okay like what the fuck are you doing out here making a building a pipe bomb these people

00:38:08.020 are unavailable for comment they're under investigation right they don't have anybody

00:38:11.960 to call who do they call me and you would think that i would maybe stop giving a quote maybe i

00:38:17.460 would stop but i don't for two reasons one i pick up the phone because it's my opportunity to affirm

00:38:23.900 trans people to you know disparage the gender binary and to talk a little bit about some things

00:38:29.720 that need to be talked about every once in a while i can work a little climate change in there sorry

00:38:33.020 but secondly i have also found out that i i became that person and there's nothing i can do about it

00:38:40.320 i actually have an editor of this magazine who shall go unnamed and she said to me i said listen

00:38:46.040 i was actually crying i was like could you just stop writing about me can you please just not

00:38:49.520 mention me like why are we doing this like this is a story out there with these people like why

00:38:54.960 are you calling me right and she said jenna the story is going to be written with or without you

00:39:00.080 and it's going to be about you so you can either give me a quote or you could say nothing and we'll

00:39:04.460 just write about you and i was like scared me to death so now i'm like all right um i could probably

00:39:13.700 at this point not but they were running photos of your family yeah that was our christmas card

00:39:19.020 picture which i posted not uh thinking anything of it i was just like merry christmas and there

00:39:24.820 we are and then my uh one of my daughters was in a tuxedo and she looked fabulously dashing

00:39:30.800 and i guess that made it a story right like gender reveal inventor's daughter wears suits now

00:39:40.020 yeah she looked awesome which is i mean that is that that is a compelling story i just wish that

00:39:46.220 you were the one to tell it I guess which is which is why you're here I just wasn't you know ready I

00:39:52.120 didn't know people people have this idea of like oh that that gender reveal ladies out there getting

00:39:57.140 attention on herself I've literally never called one person I've been like hey I've got a story

00:40:01.040 for you I'm the gender reveal lady like that's not how it works you don't know when or how things

00:40:06.140 are going to go viral I mean you could be walking down the street and next thing you know you're a

00:40:09.980 meme that's kind of like randomness of it so yeah I wasn't really ready for that but I'm actually

00:40:15.160 fortunate that i got a an opportunity to to say what i had to say let the record show that jenna

00:40:21.020 did not contact me and was like i'm the gender reveal lady and i'd love to tell my story

00:40:25.400 i reached out to jenna and i was like you're the gender reveal lady and i'd love to tell your story

00:40:30.080 so those articles come out whatever how responsible or not responsible do you feel

00:40:40.040 for like the crazy shit that transpires now because i know like you were you were sad and

00:40:45.380 you cried when you first saw the wildfires and i can imagine that there's like a big personal

00:40:49.140 tie-in to the emotion there but like you know this now happens often and i doubt that you

00:40:56.600 react with the same intensity every time no i mean it's like getting mad at the wright brothers

00:41:02.860 every time there's a plane crash or something like who would have been a happy birthday but

00:41:05.820 how many people have like died at their birthday party because they you know got drunk in a pool

00:41:09.280 or something. I mean, I don't have any control over these people or what they're doing. I wish

00:41:13.520 they would stop. I mean, I've said to stop, but I don't think anybody's necessarily going to do

00:41:17.780 what I say because I said so. But yeah, it would be great if like they didn't blow things up

00:41:23.440 anymore. But I really kind of feel like it's the reason why it maybe got so crazy is because

00:41:28.680 there's been this huge division, like politically, as far as like ideology. And I feel like they're

00:41:35.340 going to more and more lengths to punctuate their point that we believe a baby is a boy or a girl

00:41:42.660 and i'm gonna shoot my gun off to violently punctuate that so you know this is the type

00:41:49.120 of family we are and it's like oh no like uh if that is your point of view i don't know that i

00:41:56.360 can necessarily do anything about it that sucks and i wish it wasn't like that but for anybody

00:42:00.200 who's kind of in the middle ground that was like oh i was thinking about doing a gender review i

00:42:03.200 thought that might be kind of cute for my family just think about who you're wanting yourself with

00:42:07.080 just think hey maybe I have maybe I have a party but like I celebrate in a different way like

00:42:12.660 I don't know right it's when when you had your gender reveal in 2008 you weren't like going

00:42:18.820 onto Facebook after that and being like hashtag two genders back the blue make America great

00:42:24.720 again like that was not what was happening no no no no it does feel a little more you're right it

00:42:32.060 does feel a little more like politically intentional because now now these parties are

00:42:38.720 existing in the context of like a political moment where like trans issues and like the the moral

00:42:44.880 panic around transgender and just like lgbtq identities has swept up this country in a way

00:42:51.140 that like i feel like if you have a gender reveal now not that you're necessarily doing it to make

00:42:56.020 a political statement but it like exists in the context and is inseparable from the context of

00:43:01.240 like this war over gender that's happening in the united states right now i wrote a paper that's

00:43:06.940 being published this spring this coming spring about basically that trans men are the real

00:43:13.640 target of anti-abortion laws that it has more to do with than just controlling women it really has

00:43:19.620 to do with getting a trans body more in line with where they want it to be because surprisingly

00:43:26.500 actually a lot of trans men need abortions and it's not really something that a lot of people

00:43:32.320 talk about but whenever you look at like the legislation politically and you track it and you

00:43:37.780 see who made what law what did they say while they were making the law and who does it really attack

00:43:43.120 it dovetails so much with trans issues and and people don't even realize it's like an invisible

00:43:49.220 force of politics right now and it's it's sad and it's awful to deny the humanity of people

00:43:57.100 who just want to live their lives i feel like a lot of people listening to this are going to be

00:44:02.420 very surprised to know that the woman who invented the gender reveal is now

00:44:07.260 writing papers on like the importance of the intersection of trans issues and reproductive

00:44:12.820 health issues yeah that's the truth we published by the southwestern law review this spring wait

00:44:22.680 so what are you what are you doing now professionally you said you're in law you

00:44:26.140 finished law school yes and so now i'm working as a lawyer i'm waiting on my bar results to come in

00:44:31.400 so i will not officially be an attorney until november but um yeah and so i'm actually working

00:44:37.020 professionally. Law-wise, I'm working in eviction defense at the center of the housing crisis in LA,

00:44:44.360 keeping people housed. That's incredible, Jenna. That's really, really fucking cool.

00:44:48.920 It's fun. So your approach to parenting and the way that like the concept of gender is involved

00:44:57.900 in that job has shifted massively, perhaps in part because of your relationship to this

00:45:03.840 gender reveal nonsense but i think for most parents in the u.s and like around the world

00:45:09.360 gender is still one of the biggest determining factors in like the way that they raise their

00:45:16.580 children why do you think that is and why do you think it's wrong i think it's really based

00:45:21.580 in patriarchy and as much as we we do criticize american culture i mean you know we're a bunch of

00:45:27.160 hillbillies in a lot of ways i think it is actually a pretty progressive place you know

00:45:31.680 overall. We can always look to Europe as like a way to be better. But there are a lot of parts

00:45:36.140 of the world where the patriarchy is very entrenched in the culture completely. And this

00:45:43.180 party has now gone on around the world. I think because the patriarchy is so strong, there's

00:45:50.280 really an idea that men are leaders, that boys will inherit the estate, that the girls are made

00:45:56.940 for a different purpose for serving for, you know, not for leadership. And so, you know,

00:46:02.220 it's such a huge part about like, which type of child am I going to have? Am I going to have a

00:46:06.080 helpmate? Or am I going to have a warrior, you know, and it's, I don't want to be insensitive

00:46:11.440 to other cultures, but I also don't think culture is an excuse for, for harming someone. So I think

00:46:18.060 that's kind of why it's kind of caught on around the world. You know, there are a lot of places

00:46:21.380 in the world where knowing the sex of a baby ahead of time is illegal. India is one of those

00:46:27.620 places. You're not allowed to know or do anything to find out. You can't go to an ultrasound and

00:46:33.300 find out if you're having a boy or a girl because they're so worried about infanticide. They're

00:46:36.960 worried about baby girls being killed. When you see these gender reveal parties and you see the

00:46:42.280 dad being so upset, you see, oh, that's why they do that. Yeah. He was just that disappointment

00:46:47.720 that you saw in that dad's face at that gender reveal party that happens and that's why india

00:46:51.760 has that law because you don't know is he is he disappointed or is he angry yeah it's scary and i

00:46:57.700 feel like there is this thing where parents think that raising their kids with gendered expectations

00:47:05.100 will make their kids lives easier if that makes sense um and i think about this from a personal

00:47:11.780 space because like when I was growing up my parents really you know again once we started

00:47:21.020 you know once I got to like elementary school and kids started to become a little bit more aware

00:47:25.080 of what gender meant in the way that they were supposed to behave my parents would tell me to

00:47:30.200 stop I mean I think about pink and purple so much I know I already mentioned that and it sounds like

00:47:34.100 silly because it's like crayons like who gives a fuck but my parents would be like you really

00:47:40.860 really need to start like using like blue and like orange and stuff because if you keep doing

00:47:46.080 the pink shit kids are going to make fun of you and like I love my parents I'm really close with

00:47:51.400 them but that was kind of um it felt like their judgment onto me under the guise of wanting things

00:47:59.440 to be easier for me you know behave more masculine and things will be easier for you and kids will be

00:48:05.360 nicer to you. And I, for the record, think that they truly believed that. And I think that it

00:48:11.460 came from a place of love and wanting things to be easier for me, you know, like, I will speak

00:48:17.680 frankly, like, life is going to be easier for you if you're not a faggot. You know, it's not something

00:48:22.300 my parents said, but might as well. And I mean, I think of this quote all the time of like, you

00:48:29.040 know, don't be your child's first bully. Because if I'm naturally gravitating towards the pink and

00:48:34.780 the purple and the skirts and the this and that it's like you can't change that you can't change

00:48:39.360 your child's interest you can't change if your young daughter wants to wear a suit or hates

00:48:44.300 dresses or you know you can't do anything about that stuff all you can do is make a decision of

00:48:51.060 how you will respond to it and you also can't control unfortunately how kids will treat them

00:48:56.380 in school but you can be their advocate and so whenever i hear this stuff about like we just

00:49:02.320 want to make sure we're raising him in a way where other kids will be nice to him and i'm like will

00:49:06.180 you be nice to him and if other kids aren't then like be their advocate you know i think what it

00:49:13.100 comes down to to circle back to building a community for your child um i can see parents

00:49:18.740 having a fear not only of the other kids making fun of their child but of the other parents of

00:49:24.660 those kids being like oh that one don't invite that one to a sleepover or don't you know invite

00:49:31.600 that one to your birthday party um and and i think those are very very painful things and

00:49:36.440 things that i've you know had to consider um as a as a parent um of you know a child uh who was

00:49:43.540 one of the rainbow colors and you know is that is that your older daughter your first daughter

00:49:49.600 yeah that's you know that's her uh that's her story to tell on her own when she's you know

00:49:54.240 ready and stuff but it's it's considerations that i've had and the conclusion that i've come to as

00:49:59.060 a parent is like well it's my job to build a community where she feels safe why i don't want

00:50:04.740 you over at that house if that's how that family feels you know i don't want you to be around

00:50:09.620 people who who think like that and that it's really difficult because you can you know a little

00:50:14.960 kid can kind of get a you know be be on the out like the out crowd and it sucks to be out i mean

00:50:20.900 it sucks as a grown adult to be left out of like my friends having drinks without me how bad does

00:50:26.060 it suck to be like, you know, a 10 year old not getting invited to a birthday party because

00:50:29.940 they're big at parents. So you just got to watch who you who you're raising your children around.

00:50:33.780 And I think parents need to walk into parenthood knowing, hey, this kid may not be straight. This

00:50:38.780 kid may not be a million things. I need to make sure that I'm building from day one,

00:50:43.320 who the type of people who I want to be around my kid and don't be a freaking asshole.

00:50:48.120 Yeah, if you're an asshole, and you're listening to this, stop it.

00:50:51.100 yeah well and I I do I mean it's I don't know compassion is so important because I do hear

00:50:57.840 what you're saying and you know I've never been a parent but I can imagine like you want to set

00:51:03.120 your kid up for success and you also have to weigh the costs and benefits so like success can't just

00:51:10.420 be I want my kid to get invited to all of the birthday parties if the cost of that is forcing

00:51:16.180 my kid to you know kind of round out their edges at every turn and change the way that they are

00:51:22.800 absolutely because it also like there is something to be said for like it is traumatizing i mean i

00:51:28.060 remember when i was in third grade i'm just gonna say his first name michael i invited you to my

00:51:32.980 birthday party i invited you to my birthday party and you did not invite me to yours and this is

00:51:39.020 something that i know i know my mother and i still talk about this yeah as you should and and for the

00:51:45.960 record i blame his parents um but see assholes michael's parents are assholes i've said is there

00:51:56.080 a version of a gender reveal party that you think can or should exist oh my favorite ones are when

00:52:04.020 trans people announce their new pronouns that's a real gender reveal yeah do it for yourself

00:52:11.880 other than that no that's that's kind of everything i'm the only i agree with you

00:52:16.860 that and like maybe if a new gender comes out yeah if there's a new gender i mean my issue

00:52:22.980 with gender reveals is that every time it's it's a gender that i've heard of

00:52:26.360 if we're gonna reveal a gender reveal a new gender at least you know

00:52:31.880 yeah exactly somebody was saying that bar the barbie movie was their gender i was like you

00:52:38.380 know what i think i identify work on um on june 27th 2019 i posted something on instagram and my

00:52:49.420 instagram four years ago i still don't think it's very polished i still kind of post whatever we all

00:52:56.160 grow but i posted this thing and that just said gender reveals our bullshit oh i because i had

00:53:03.720 already I that was when I started seeing all the cakes all the the the two twos or touchdowns

00:53:08.820 cakes and I had you know a strong reaction to them because from the jump that was not something

00:53:13.920 that felt right with me at all based on you know my own experience with growing up being who I was

00:53:19.780 and being feminine and and all of that so I posted that expecting like no pushback honestly I was

00:53:25.900 like whatever like even then I had a I had a small following but it was still people who I thought

00:53:31.880 would agree with me on like that and at the time god bless 19 year old me uh at the time that was

00:53:39.380 like the most controversial thing i ever posted because i got hundreds of comments i got over a

00:53:45.920 thousand comments which again i didn't have a lot of followers then i got over a thousand comments

00:53:50.460 and i remember i lost so many followers because people were like i you know i agree gay rights

00:53:57.620 yada yada because there wasn't there wasn't a whole lot to my content at that point honestly

00:54:01.260 it was like, I'm gay, you know, but there were so many people being like, how could you be so

00:54:06.960 against, you know, the way that someone else chooses to have fun. And I did interestingly

00:54:12.120 get a lot, not a lot, but a few comments that I really remember from people being like my mother

00:54:18.200 or my aunt or my sister or someone I know really struggled with getting pregnant or with their

00:54:26.180 pregnancy and having a gender reveal party was one of the few things that they were really excited

00:54:32.320 and looking forward to and i was like okay okay okay okay okay i don't want to be insufferable

00:54:37.980 social justice warrior at every turn i don't want to rob you of your fun i don't want also like if

00:54:44.960 you're listening to this and you're like planning your gender reveal or like you have a friend who

00:54:48.820 had a gender reveal or like you're going to a gender reveal next week whatever i want to say

00:54:52.840 here and now. I don't agree with them. And also, if you have a gender reveal party, I'm not coming

00:54:59.420 to your door with an arrest warrant. It's fine. People will say, you know, well, if my kid doesn't

00:55:06.820 turn out to be trans, then there was never a problem with the gender reveal. And the gender

00:55:11.540 reveal did no harm. And I'm like, no, because the gender reveal is not just about enforcing

00:55:18.080 cisness but it's also about enforcing like masculinity on on and femininity based on

00:55:25.480 genitalia and all of these things that affect all of us regardless of we of whether we turn

00:55:30.700 out to be cisgender or transgender people it's not like everyone who's cisgender is like also

00:55:35.900 identifying with the rigid social uh constructs of what it means to be a man and a woman so that's

00:55:42.420 why i'm like there isn't really a way to do this that doesn't essentialize all of the bad things

00:55:49.040 about people's misunderstandings about gender like i just don't think there is absolutely i

00:55:53.900 think you make great points i think it's the type of thing where it's kind of like racism hurts

00:55:57.560 everyone it hurts certain people obviously way worse but it's really not creating equality for

00:56:01.460 everyone at the same time and it's the same way it's like you know yeah the people who are hurt

00:56:06.360 the worst are the people who are at the intersection of all the things right but it's really not a

00:56:10.040 great situation to have these uber masculine ideas of toxic masculinity on everyone i mean

00:56:17.160 you know it's like even the manliest straightest dude out there should you know be able to cry or

00:56:24.640 wear nail polish or whatever um so i think you're totally right it harms it harms everyone and

00:56:30.540 there's no real like awesome way to have like a gender reveal party but what's kind of interesting

00:56:36.400 what you're saying is how you're saying you got all these haters in 2019 when you dared even

00:56:41.500 criticize the gender reveal party a little bit and in 2019 when this story re-went viral that's

00:56:47.800 whenever it was in people and all this kind of stuff about my daughter wearing the tuxedo

00:56:50.800 i actually got a lot of praise i felt people were like this woman she's she's great and the gender

00:56:58.080 reveal party and it wasn't really like that much criticism about it although i was criticizing it

00:57:02.680 what happened though over the years like in the in the following years now it's 2023

00:57:09.640 i get lots of hate and i'm gonna imagine that you get a lot less hate if you were to post that today

00:57:16.420 i criticize gender reveal parties all the time i make fun of them religiously

00:57:19.880 it's like a it's like a pillar of my identity to make fun of these people at this point i know

00:57:24.200 people people do not get mad at me that the way that they used to i mean like conservatives get

00:57:29.300 mad at me but they get mad at me for for waking up in the morning so it's like kind of fine but

00:57:33.820 what do what are people getting mad at you now about well now i mean now it's like oh this

00:57:38.960 terrible woman who you know she's the reason we have the binary and she's the source of

00:57:44.700 of the problems of the the gender construct and all this like in that and it's like well i think

00:57:49.020 actually um the comments that i have made that have made their way to mainstream media

00:57:55.520 in these very major global outlets have actually influenced that and people aren't even realizing

00:58:03.120 where they're getting the ideas from do you know what i mean because in 2019 when this first came

00:58:08.180 out it was like everyone loved gender repeal parties they were like yay we know the lady

00:58:12.180 who invented it and i was like it's a terrible idea and by the way this is not my son this is

00:58:17.840 my daughter in a blue tuxedo she just has very very short hair people weren't praising you

00:58:22.820 for criticizing them people were praising you for having invented them yes people were praising me

00:58:28.580 for having invented the gender real party and i was like criticizing it and i just kept chipping

00:58:33.300 away and i and i and i always criticize it and so uh and now i i think there's a lot of people

00:58:38.560 who criticize it obviously so many people criticize it i'm not saying i'm the only reason

00:58:42.340 why the criticism has grown but i definitely am a very vocal person uh as as far as as visibility

00:58:49.660 and criticism goes. And I think that that criticism has made its way into the mainstream

00:58:54.420 a little bit more, to where now it is a conservative thing to be celebrating the

00:58:59.680 gender reveal party. Look, we all struggle. We all struggle with the gender binary. We all struggle

00:59:04.400 with patriarchy. We all struggle with the ridiculousness of gender reveals. But we have to

00:59:10.280 admit to ourselves that that struggle is complex and shared. And pointing the finger allows us

00:59:17.560 to feel better but it doesn't actually accomplish anything and so jenna i'm not here to tell you

00:59:23.360 that you invented the patriarchy even if that's something that might feel um feel like it alleviates

00:59:30.220 some pain someone who speaks really eloquently to the inherent transphobia of gender reveals is

00:59:37.440 a creator and a poet and a speaker named alok ved manan they're also my friend and they wrote

00:59:44.020 The gender binary requires that we adopt prescriptive ideas of gender, in parentheses, what men and women should be, as descriptive ideas of gender, in parentheses, what men and women fundamentally are.

00:59:55.380 In this way, it naturalizes cultural myths as biological facts.

00:59:59.580 The irony is that trans and gender non-conforming people are accused of advancing a, quote, gender ideology, when in fact we are trying to escape it.

01:00:07.480 The real ideology at play here is a system which romanticizes the denial of individuality in service of maintaining category, which I think is just better than I could have ever written it.

01:00:19.640 I'm pulling up the quote here and I'm reading it again.

01:00:22.720 Absolutely.

01:00:23.760 You know, it's more, it doesn't fit in the world the way I think it used to fit.

01:00:29.680 at some point when the world was much more transphobe just trans illiterate just gay illiterate

01:00:36.400 just that it didn't exist i mean it did exist but its existence was concealed because i think

01:00:44.100 as a matter of survival people were like well working within a framework everybody was working

01:00:49.920 in a framework that had to conceal it and now hopefully it's gotten more enlightened hopefully

01:00:55.680 the visibility has gotten out more to where it's like it's not just an automatic given that you

01:01:00.800 conceal these things anymore i remember whenever i was growing up um like watching like sally jesse

01:01:05.260 raphael like it was a long time ago and uh there was um a transgender person on there and it was

01:01:12.260 like they were using what is now a slur to talk about this person yeah there was a rare bit of

01:01:18.780 sensitivity coming out about the transgender person but it was like mainly a laughingstock

01:01:23.280 It was mainly a spectacle is mainly something that you just got that because we didn't know because it was concealed so much.

01:01:29.540 And I'm so grateful for people who don't conceal themselves anymore and allow us to really see who they are, because that really does benefit everybody.

01:01:38.680 I want to I want to raise kids in a world where we see people for who they are and we don't just prescriptively, as your friend said, tell them this is your role.

01:01:47.940 this is what you're doing and have to make yourself small and fit somewhere you don't

01:01:52.160 because it makes the past so much harder for everyone else who wants to come out there and

01:01:55.580 be who they are so i think what you said i think trans illiterate is such a great term gay illiterate

01:02:01.480 because i i wrote something recently about a trans woman named christine jorgensen who was

01:02:08.480 formerly before she transit this this was like in this in the 60s i think she was like a gi in the

01:02:15.400 military and then was um discharged I think that's what it's called when you leave the military

01:02:21.740 sorry guys but she then transitioned and she I think was the first trans woman in the United

01:02:29.500 States to have gender reassignment surgery I'm not totally sure on all of these but what's

01:02:34.120 interesting is that so much of the media and this is diverting a little bit from our main topic but

01:02:37.720 it's interesting there's so much of the coverage the early coverage around Christine Jorgensen

01:02:42.260 was like wow look how beautiful this woman is look how she went from you know a military veteran to

01:02:51.180 being this gorgeous blonde bombshell that was like the big headline and i think the new york daily

01:02:55.800 news which is like famously anti-woman anti-gay anti-trans anti-everything was like it was um xgi

01:03:03.180 becomes blonde beauty and it's so interesting and i shared that and a lot of people were saying like

01:03:09.840 wow we were less transphobic it's interesting because it's not necessarily that people were

01:03:14.600 less transphobic people just like it didn't trans illiterate people didn't even know so that they

01:03:20.560 saw a trans person they were like wow like what a medical miracle you know um the cruelty hadn't

01:03:27.460 been developed yet you know that's very interesting because there was the first woman lawyer in the

01:03:34.740 united states i believe went to my law school and the thing that stuck out about me was nobody had

01:03:40.420 any problem with her at all being a lawyer nobody had a problem with it it was like she was a lawyer

01:03:46.940 and nobody cared but then as there got to be more there got to be more female lawyers then it became

01:03:53.200 oh no sorry you can't be in the boys club right and so i wonder if almost as visibility increases

01:03:59.480 for trans people then it becomes a problem there was uh someone i was talking to who hired

01:04:05.360 a black manager at their work whatever guy was black right but then they hired a second black

01:04:12.460 manager and they were telling me that when they had they started to put more black people in

01:04:17.380 management that the higher up at their job kind of went like they didn't say anything but there

01:04:24.620 is those little subtle races on there like one is okay but two and it's almost like is that what

01:04:31.780 we're seeing with trans people it's like oh well there was the there was one you know a long time

01:04:35.360 oh one person that's fine but maybe the threat comes people feel threatened obviously illogically

01:04:41.640 stupidly with their being more in numbers they're they feel that their their normalcy is being upset

01:04:48.100 yep i think people perceive it as um a you know cis people see it as needing to cede their own

01:04:55.120 power right instead of what it actually is which is more freedom for all of us because when we

01:05:02.500 abandon these shackles of gender expectations and gender binary and what it means to be a man what

01:05:09.600 it means to be a woman that's not just benefiting trans people it's benefiting you and i it's

01:05:15.860 benefiting everyone so before we close out i want to revisit your your your mommy blogger roots the

01:05:26.720 mommy blogger within um the republic i also unfortunately want to revisit the the republican

01:05:33.200 primary debate which just happened oh i didn't watch yeah i i watched i put myself through hell

01:05:39.140 But hey, I don't know.

01:05:41.280 Vivek Ramaswamy, who's one of the more notably unhinged candidates, said, quote,

01:05:47.920 I'm sorry, it is not compassionate to affirm a kid's confusion.

01:05:51.820 That is not compassion.

01:05:53.220 That is cruelty.

01:05:54.680 So I would like your thoughts as a parent who does affirm her children.

01:06:01.040 And just as a parent who I think has notably shown, I mean, you've shown a lot of growth.

01:06:06.540 you you've spoken openly about doing something which became popular and which now you regret

01:06:13.660 and I think that's like a really rare event in a world that values consistency over almost

01:06:20.060 anything if you make a point you have to back it up and you have to stick to it otherwise

01:06:23.800 you you don't believe in anything but I think you do have a really strong belief system and I think

01:06:28.120 that you've grown and learned and been amenable to adapting that belief system so with all that

01:06:33.640 being said what do you make of that quote i think it came from his ass because the numbers and the

01:06:40.140 statistics and the doctors and the health care will tell you the health care professionals will

01:06:45.200 tell you suicide rates are so high for children who do not get gender-affirming care or attitudes

01:06:52.160 from their families i mean it's just a fact that gay people lgbtq plus non-binary people

01:06:57.480 are at higher risk of mental health um problems and also you know and suicide i don't know if i'm

01:07:04.320 if i can say that sometimes there's like trigger warnings but it's it's the cold hard fact is the

01:07:09.060 truth that if children are denied gender affirming you know it doesn't necessarily mean like you

01:07:16.160 know surgery is like people are immediately coming to these conclusions but gender affirming care

01:07:20.280 um and love from their families it can be deathly it can it can really risk their lives and their

01:07:26.560 health um not to mention their happiness so no i i don't i don't agree with him that cruelty

01:07:32.640 cruelty is listening to him i wouldn't vote for him for anything i wouldn't either but also i

01:07:40.220 think to your point it's affirming your queer kid is the key to their happiness but is is happiness

01:07:46.340 the goal that all parents have for their children like i don't really think so i think it's to keep

01:07:51.960 your child alive i think you want to keep your child alive and or it's just why would you risk

01:07:56.760 and also why do you care what the hell why do people care who is gay who is not and who

01:08:03.980 what gender somebody wants to be let people just live their lives like what does it matter you know

01:08:08.800 maybe it's a little weird that he's a little preoccupied why are people so preoccupied

01:08:12.620 oh like who's my kid gonna want a bone in 20 years like who cares

01:08:17.660 you heard it here first well jenna thank you so so much for joining us today and and for telling

01:08:31.200 your story um and and for being vulnerable i really appreciate it and um honestly i again i

01:08:38.960 think it's really rare for someone to be like i was wrong and i regret this thing and i've changed

01:08:45.660 a lot and i think differently and that is um that is so special and i'm glad we could do it here

01:08:51.840 today jenna where can people find you now if anywhere is there a way people can support you

01:08:57.940 or your work or just see what's up with you uh yeah they can see what's up with me i'm on instagram

01:09:03.240 at jenna carbonitas don't even bother trying to spell that just google gender reveal inventor

01:09:08.820 my last name will pop up it's got 100 letters but and then i'm on facebook at high glass sauce

01:09:14.900 high gloss and sauce lives on the blog name lives on yeah not the blog i took the blog off

01:09:20.080 ages ago because i don't want kids privacy out there yeah yeah i'm like on the toilet when

01:09:26.780 they're two they don't we don't need that if you enjoyed this episode feel free to share it with

01:09:33.980 your friend your mom your aunt who is on the precipice of blowing up her small town to let

01:09:40.080 people know that her fetus has a penis. If you like this show, feel free to follow us on whatever

01:09:45.980 app you are listening to it on. If you have a second to give us a rating, that would help out

01:09:52.340 the show a ton. And if you didn't like the show, please do not give it a rating. I love you. I'm

01:09:58.180 grateful for you. And until next time, stay fruity.

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - October 10, 2023

The Mom Who Invented Gender Reveals Regrets It

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