Pushkin

Americans do this really weird thing.

Expectant parents hold gender reveal parties.

Now to the mystery explosion that rocked a southern New Hampshire town.

The often feature explosions with smoke that's either pink or blue.

An alarming number of these stunts have gone awry.

Turns out that blast came from an over-the-top gender reveal party.

A couple apparently using explosives to announce the sex of their baby.

People have been killed.

Houses have burned to the ground, even forests.

We begin tonight with new video released from the US Forest Service showing the moment a gender reveal video started the 47,000-acre sawmill fire.

Elon Musk and his former girlfriend, the musician Grimes, didn't hold a gender reveal party.

In a way they did the opposite.

Last year on Twitter they announced the birth of their baby, who was named X.

Grimes said the baby would be raised without a gender, like most things involving Elon Musk.

This move looks like it has its origins and science fiction.

Once upon a time, a baby named X was born.

The story of Baby X was published in 1972 in Miz, a feminist magazine, during its very first year at the height of the women's liberation movement.

This baby was named X so that nobody could tell whether it was a boy or a girl.

Its parents could tell, of course, but they couldn't tell anybody else.

They couldn't even tell Baby X, at least not until much, much later.

You see, it was all part of a very important secret scientific experiment known officially as Project Baby X.

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