This afternoon (25 April), the gender of a fictional unborn pig became the most talked-about story in the UK, with “Peppa Pig gender reveal” soaring to the top of Google’s trending news chart, pushing “Ukraine war latest” into second place.

Back in February, it was announced that impossibly popular kids’ TV show Peppa Pig would be getting a new character: a sibling for Peppa and George, after Mummy Pig announced that she and Daddy Pig had been having vigorous and productive unprotected sex was pregnant.

To keep the hype going, Peppa Pig’s handlers Hasbro International decided to stage an elaborate gender reveal party at Battersea Power Station today. The station’s famous towers will either light up pink or blue at dusk to signal whether Mummy Pig is going to give birth to a piglet with a penis, or a piglet with a vagina.

The Peppa Pig Battersea gender reveal plan was joyously shared with the nation in a Good Morning Britain segment this morning; a clip that was also shared on X in a post that began: “Peppa Pig’s parents will reveal the gender of their third piglet today!”

Peppa Pig's parents will reveal the gender of their third piglet today!

In February, we brought you the exclusive news that Mummy Pig was pregnant.

The gender of Peppa and George's new sibling will be announced to the world when the famous chimneys of London's Battersea Power… pic.twitter.com/6e0GNIWaYn

— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) April 25, 2025

As you can probably imagine, the appearance of the word “gender” on a social media platform where people are regularly less-than-rational about that topic attracted anti-woke warriors like moths to a flame, mouths foaming, almost all of them making the exact same handful of “jokes”.

The top reply to the clip is currently: “Let me guess, non-binary.” The second person added: “Will we need to decide what loo it uses?” Others took issue with GMB using the word “gender” at all, with dozens of responses along the lines of: “Gender? Don’t you mean BIOLOGICAL SEX?” (Repeated ad infinitum).

These comments follow last week’s ruling that left the trans and non-binary community devastated after the UK Supreme Court deemed the definition of “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act to be based on biology.

Someone else, who may or may not have been huffing paint recently, wrote the following string of words: “Any bets on non gender fluid identify as a cat non binary rainbow blah blah blah.”

What’s particularly fascinating here is that the very heteronormative practice of a gender reveal party has suddenly, just by containing the word “gender”, become somehow controversial. Presumably a lot of the people above would prefer it to be called a “sex reveal party” despite the fact that sounds like the sort of event that consenting adults do in private (just like Mummy and Daddy Pig).

The dark history of gender reveal stunts

Gender reveal parties have made headlines in recent years for the worst possible reasons, as couples throw money at lavish events aimed at spectacularly announcing what type of genitals their unborn child has: only for them to backfire, often fatally.

Multiple gender-reveal parties have claimed lives, as well as causing damage to the environment.

In 2021, a couple were charged with involuntary manslaughter after their gender reveal party saw a huge wildfire break out at the El Dorado Ranch Park in southern California. The fire was caused after a coloured smoke bomb set the grass ablaze.

A firefighter named Charlie Morton was killed while fighting the inferno and 13 other people were injured.

That same year, a gender reveal party held in Canada resulted in a family being fined $600 after a pyrotechnic at the party sparked a sprawling wildfire in Alberta.

Another gender reveal party involving a stunt plane led to a crash and the death of the pilot flying the plane.

Others have led to pigeons being dyed pink or blue and then released, only to suffer and starve.

In 2022, a couple in Brazil added to a growing list of ridiculous and potentially dangerous gender reveals after they dyed a 60-foot-tall waterfall blue. Following the incident they were investigated for potential environmental damage.

In fact, the gender reveal has now gotten so out of hand that even their inventor said she regrets creating a “monster”. Jenna Karvunidis, a parenting blogger, previously told The Guardian that she never meant to start a trend and now thinks that the idea of a gender reveal party is “not great at all”.

The child that Karvunidis held the party for, in 2008, has since been revealed to be gender-non-conforming. Will the yet-unnamed Baby Pig end up doing the same? Probably not, to be fair, but we’d love to see it.

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