The recognized creator of the gender reveal party called for an end to the “toxic” trend on Monday after a gender reveal event was linked to a wildfire that evacuated parts of California.
Jenna Karvunidis, a parenting blogger who is recognized as the first person to make a gender reveal go viral, condemned the parties in a Facebook post after one was credited with starting the El Dorado Fire.
“Stop it. Stop having these stupid parties,” she posted. “For the love of God, stop burning things down to tell everyone about your kid’s penis. No one cares but you.”
“Toxic masculinity is men thinking they need to explode something because simply enjoying a baby party is for sissies,” she added.
Karvunidis added that she is receiving hate messages for starting the trend by baking a cake with hidden pink icing inside in 2008.
“Just because I’m the gEnDeR rEvEaL iNVeNtoR doesn’t mean I think people should burn down their communities,” she said in the Facebook post.
Her comments come after California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection announced on Sunday that the El Dorado Fire was started by a pyrotechnic device used to create colored smoke for a gender reveal party. The fire in San Bernardino County has since overtaken 10,574 acres and is 16 percent contained as of Tuesday morning.
Within the past decade, gender reveal parties have taken off in popularity, sometimes resulting in chaos. These events have sparked previous fires, including almost 48,000 acres in Arizona in 2017 and more than 10 acres in Florida in April.
Other incidents at gender reveal parties included a woman being killed by shrapnel from an explosion in Knoxville, Tenn., last October and a passenger plane crash in Texas last November, resulting in minor injuries.
Karvunidis knocked gender reveal parties in a Facebook post last year after her child for whom the 2008 reveal was held came out as nonbinary.
“Who cares what gender the baby is?” she wrote. “Assigning focus on gender at birth leaves out so much of their potential and talents that have nothing to do with what’s between their legs.”
“PLOT TWIST,” she continued, “the world’s first gender-reveal party baby is a girl who wears suits!”