Pride Rewind: Gender Reveal Parties

American Hysteria

W!ZARD Studios

Society & Culture

4.4 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2022

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In honor of Pride month, here is a little rerelease of last year's special episode! Over the last ten years, Gender Reveal Parties have exploded, figuratively and literally. Parents, communities, and social media followers alike can witness the moment that parents and families find out the sex of their future baby, but lately, these parties have gotten so out of hand as to cause massive wildfires, explosions, damage to homes, injuries, and death. For this episode, we will try to figure out what in the world is going on here by exploring the history of gendered baby items, of the strange divination methods once used to guess the biological sex, and take a look at the idea of rituals around the mystery of pregnancy. Of course, we’ll also ask questions about the regressive nature of this blue and pink gender binary, and I will share a little about my own childhood growing up as a non-binary kid, a word I wouldn’t know for two decades. Become a Patron to get access to Hysteria Home Companion and Walk With Me podcasts American Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Sound design by Clear Commo Studios Research and co-writing by Riley Smith Co-produced and edited by Miranda Zickler Voice acting by Will Rogers Follow American Hysteria on social media: Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Find our merch at americanhysteria.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	On this podcast, we explore fantastical thinking, moral panics, conspiracy theories, and urban
0:13.5	legends, examine the forces that shape our culture, and tell the stories that create the
0:20.3	realities we share, and sometimes the realities we don't.
0:25.8	I'm your host, Chelsea Weber-Smith, and this is American History.
0:32.7	Galficials say a pyrotechnic device from a gender reveal party sparked the Eldorado
0:37.6	plan.
0:38.6	A prop-desting plane dropping 350 gallons of steam water, it's a girl.
0:44.8	And police say they are continuing with the investigation, and in case you're wondering
0:48.5	by the way, it was a boy.
1:02.4	Chelsea Ray Weber was born on August 19, 1988, early on a Friday morning, to a 26-year-old
1:11.4	mother loudly pleading for the drugs it was too late for her to be given.
1:18.1	From the magical divination of the sonogram, she knew she was having a little girl and had
1:25.2	originally chosen the daring name Charlie for her daughter, but her friends convinced
1:31.2	her that choosing such a masculine name would mark her as ridiculous in the highly gendered
1:38.4	1980s.
1:40.6	And so, seeking a more appropriate title, she went with Chelsea after being introduced
1:47.5	to a character on the popular soap opera The Guiding Light.
1:53.6	But as the years passed, it was becoming obvious that Chelsea was not like the other little
2:00.9	girls.
2:02.2	Her father noted that she would stop dead in her tracks as she taught her through the
2:07.2	toy store, stunned by the violent hot pink of the Barbie aisle, backing out with her hands
2:15.4	in front of her like a frightened cartoon.
	...

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