![A cake. [Aaron Davidson/Getty Images]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-512560306-e1459451202403.jpg "A cake. [Aaron Davidson/Getty Images]")
SPRINGFIELD, Mass.- Move over, carbon-neutral birthday parties. There’s a new popular way to celebrate for the country’s trendy progressive families: Gender declaration parties for teenage children.
The new phenomenon is a natural outgrowth of one of the latest trends in progressive parenting: Intentionally obscuring the gender of one’s children. Parents, frustrated by a society where people are declared “boys” or “girls” simply because they have penises or vaginas, are fighting back by opting out entirely and waiting until children have grown wise enough to choose a gender for themselves. Typically, this point is reached when a child is able to complete Algebra II, and it is accompanied by a big party comparable to bar mitzvahs or high school graduation parties.
Like other progressive parents, Bryce and Priscilla Hawkins-Hart of Springfield, Mass. did everything they could to keep their “penis-child” Taylor from being pressured into one gender or another. In addition to Taylor’s androgynous name, they insisted on using the gender-neutral pronoun zhe, painted zher room a monochrome grey, and forced zhim to play with both dolls and toy trucks while growing up.
“I remember when the doctor told me ‘It’s a boy!'” Bryce told The Daily Caller. “I just said to him, ‘Well, we’ll see about that!’ Then, I reported that doctor for child abuse for trying to force a gender onto young children.”
Now, 15 years later, little Taylor Hawkins-Hart is finally ready to declare zher true gender, and Bryce and Priscilla are planning a big party.
“Everybody in Taylor’s family that hasn’t disassociated with us is coming,” Priscilla said. In order to be ready for all contingencies, the family has purchased 17 different gluten-free, gender-themed cakes, in case Taylor chooses a gender identity such as two-spirit or genderqueer. If Taylor announces a desire to undergo any kind of sex reassignment surgery, a surgeon will be on hand to perform the procedure then and there, in front of everybody.
“Some might say that’s too much,” Priscilla added. “But I say nothing is too much for our little child of indeterminate gender.”
One of Taylor’s friends, @rin Wong-Cohen, had a gender declaration party of his own four months ago and announced he was a male. Taylor’s parents didn’t allow zhim to attend, as they didn’t want zhim feeling peer pressure one way or another.
“It was a blast,” @rin said. “But I think my mom took it badly. She grabbed me and kept asking if I was sure that my dad didn’t tell me what to say.”
With the profusion of parties has come some new lingo. Parties for a newly-announced boy have informally been dubbed “peenceañeras,” while parties for a girl are often called “vag mitzvahs.”
But many are unhappy with those terms, including the Hawkins-Harts.
“Calling a party for a girl a ‘vag mitzvah’ just perpetuates the notion that girls should have vaginas,” said Priscilla. “But that’s just an offensive stereotype. Plenty of girls have penises. I think Taylor is going to be one of those girls.” (RELATED: UCLA Paper Apologizes For Saying Women Menstruate)
Bryce says he has no idea which gender Taylor is going to settle on.
“Zhe really likes playing football and ‘Call of Duty,’ and zhe recently started dating a vagina-person in zher Spanish class,” he said. “But since those are perfectly neutral activities that can’t be associated with any gender, they don’t really give me a hint which way Taylor is leaning.”
Taylor seems undecided as well.
“I’m a boy. My parents are insane. Please help me,” Taylor told The Caller.