No more cakes with blue insides. No more explosions of pink powder. Stop those gender reveal parties! demands a writer at Marie Claire.

You’ve seen the pictures on Facebook. Friends and family gather around an expecting couple, who giddily complete some craft, game or activity that reveals pink (they’re having a girl!) or blue (they’re having a boy!). Often ultrasound results are handed off to a trusted relative who plans the reveal, so that parents can be surprised along with everyone else.

The creativity of these endeavors knows no bounds. They can involve food, balloons, confetti, or even firearms.

But feminist writer Diane Stopyra says they should end. First of all, she writes, such things are “antiquated” and “absurd.” You must “swallow your feminist pride” to play along.

Second, gender reveal parties “don’t actually reveal gender.” They “reveal anatomy.” Celebrating a baby’s “anatomy” is insensitive to people who are transgender or intersex. It reinforces false gender stereotypes.

And yes, Stopyra admits, babies are “milestones.” But “because we don’t celebrate non-pregnancy-related milestones with the same enthusiasm, we’re reinforcing the archaic notion that a woman’s value rests squarely in her ability to grow tiny humans.”

There is a lot wrong with Stopyra’s piece.

Baby Shower Games Aren’t Anti-Feminist

No one need swallow their feminist pride to enjoy baby shower games. I’ll agree that sometimes they’re “absurd.” We’ve all witnessed at least one that involved yards of toilet paper.

So what? The point is to have fun. Celebratory fun. If new life isn’t cause for celebration, what is?

Is it really against the principles of feminism to engage in some innocent hilarity every now and then? Perhaps we’d all benefit from focusing less on the “dismantling of patriarchal social structures,” and more on causes for celebration. Like a new baby.

‘Projecting’ Gender isn’t the Problem. Trans Ideology Is

That’s not the real problem with Stopyra’s complaint. Stopyra argues that “projecting” a child’s biological sex from the get-go is “potentially damaging.” Why? Because assuming that one’s anatomy will dictate the sex one will live as adds “to a culture of trans and intersex shame.” She has it backwards.

Projecting (read: accepting) a child’s biology will not harm them. Raising them to believe they can live as the other sex if they want to will. Consider the numbers:

• Forty percent of people who identify as transgender have attempted suicide.
• Ninety percent of suicides result from untreated mental disorders.
• Over 60 percent of people who identify as transgender are suffering from more than one mental disorder.

These numbers reveal that serious mental illness plagues most people identifying as transgender. Yet culture says to simply give them cross-sex hormones and irreversible surgery. Meanwhile states outlaw therapists who want to treat the real issues — lest patients change their minds about being transgender.

Walt Heyer, an author and speaker who previously lived as a transgender woman, says many people with gender dysphoria are suffering from a traumatic experience in their past that was never properly dealt with. Living as the opposite sex can offer a temporary reprieve. But it never truly solves the underlying issue.

Stopyra uses intersex people to help justify her argument against gender reveal parties. Intersex people are born with sexual organs that aren’t clearly male or female. These conditions are very rare, and they actually reinforce the truth that there are only two sexes. Lumping them in with the dangerous, often deadly cultural movement of transgenderism is dishonest. And it’s no reason to cease gender reveal parties.

That ‘Ability to Grow Tiny Humans?’ Yeah, it’s Awesome

There’s one more problem with Stopyra’s piece. Mainline feminists love bemoaning how women are only valued for their wombs. In the process, they minimize the miraculous fact that women can, as Stopyra says, “grow tiny humans.” Such abilities should be met with awe and gratitude, not grumbles of resentment.

Don’t misread me. I’m not saying women are valuable only because of their wombs. Where would that leave women who never marry, never bear children, or struggle with infertility? Are they any less valuable as women? Not at all! I could easily name several heroines who changed the world without ever giving birth.

But the reality that not every woman has babies should not make us any less celebratory of that fact that women, as a group, are the only ones who can. And while other milestones are also worth celebrating, there’s no shame in preparing to welcome a new human soul into the world with enthusiasm.

So gender-reveal away. As the popularity of the trend testifies, it’s a fun way to discover and announce the sex of your baby, and yet another way to celebrate the coming of new life.