NY lawmakers gender-neutralizing bill would dehumanize women and strip us of our most meaningful identity

Americans were assured that if Donald Trump became president, women would be stripped of our rights. As it turns out, Gov.Hochul is the one poised to make good on that prediction in New York. The Empire State is rapidly becoming a scene out of “The Handmaid’s Tale” — not because of conservatives, but because of Democrats in Albany. The state Legislature has now passed Senate Bill 9316, and if Hochul signs it, New York law will replace the terms “mother” and “father” with so-called gender-neutral alternatives. Under the bill, mothers become “gestating parents.” Fathers become “non-gestating parents.” In the name of inclusion, New York lawmakers have managed to do something remarkably regressive: stripping women of perhaps the most meaningful identity they can ever hold. Just a few weeks ago, Americans celebrated Mother’s Day. Politicians flooded social media with tributes praising mothers for their sacrifices, their love and their irreplaceable role in the lives of their children. Schools sent home handmade cards; restaurants filled with families honoring the women who brought them into the world and raised them. Now many of those same political leaders are supporting legislation that effectively tells women that “mother” is no longer an appropriate word. The issue isn’t merely semantic: The bill has real-world implications in family court and legal settings, where mothers and fathers have historically been recognized as serving distinct roles in the lives of children. By reducing motherhood to a gender-neutral biological function, lawmakers are not simply changing terminology; they are redefining one of the most fundamental human relationships in existence. What makes this especially offensive is how profoundly dehumanizing the new language is.

Progressives are quick to deploy passionate rhetoric about empowering women, especially in their reproductive rights, but now they themselves have created the term “gestating par...