A progressive activist has pushed for Mother’s Day to be renamed because, according to him, transgender men are now labeled as mothers.
“The word ‘mother’ is not gender-specific,” Norrie May-Welby, who was born male and had gender reassignment surgery at 28, said.
“It’s not based on sex. I believe that mothering is in all mammals, regardless of biological sex,” the activist told Daily Mail Australia.
In 2014, Norrie, 60, won a Supreme Court case in New South Wales to be designated neither male nor female.
The court ruled that the state’s Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages may record a person’s sex as ‘non-specific.’
‘Mother’ is a verb. One can be mothering without being a biological birther,’ Norrie said.
‘And Mother’s Day, before Hallmark hijacked it, was Mothering Sunday, when one returned to the church one was baptised in. ‘
While not offended by the term Mother’s Day, Norrie suggested it be renamed ‘Nurturer’s Day’.
‘Of course language shifts with time and place, and it may become Nurturer’s Day, but that’s an extra syllable, and for now, I am happy with ‘Mother’s Day’,’ Norrie told the publication.