There was seemingly no end to the rhetorical indignities women suffered under the Biden administration. First, their federal government referred to them as “birthing people.” Then, they were “menstruators.” They have also been known as “people with vaginas” and other vulgar terms, reducing them to their parts and bodily functions. 

Under the Trump administration, women are women again. You can expect no such nonsense from the president who, on his first day in office, signed an executive order making the radical declaration that there are two sexes. No need to start discussing parts and functions. We adults know what those are. 

But despite this radical shift at the top, some states are still bitterly clinging to their anti-woman sentiment. Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) is so committed to gender ideology, in fact, that he recently released a budget proposal featuring perhaps the most vulgar moniker of all. In Evers’s world, a mother-to-be who used fertility treatments to get pregnant isn’t a mother at all. She is the “person inseminated.”

Here is the previous legal direction: “If the registrant of a birth record under this section is born as a result of artificial insemination under the requirements of S. 891.40, the husband of the woman shall be considered the father of the registrant on the birth record.”

Now, the governor wants the state’s language to swap “husband” with “spouse,” “woman” with “person inseminated,” and “father” with “parent.”

This may have sounded like a good idea to Evers and his advisers, but the language does not look good in the light of day.

“Nonsense,” said former Packers quarterback Brett Favre on X.

“Hi Mom, I mean “inseminated person,” quipped Tesla CEO Elon Musk. 

“I think it’s a prime example of sometimes politicians focus so much on the people who are inside, they forget what real people are thinking,” said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. 

Vos is right. Real people are not so blinded by the idea of gender identity that they let exceptions (women who identify as men seeking fertility treatments) guide their rules (anyone who is pregnant can most succinctly be referred to as a “woman” or a “mother”). 

But common sense isn’t stopping this crazy train.

“Moms are moms. Dads are dads, and what we want is legal certainty that we’re able to have that moms are able to get the care they need,” Evers said in defense of his wordplay. “That’s it. End of story.”

HOW THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CAN TAKE A RESPONSIBLE STEP TOWARD WOMEN’S SAFETY

That’s not it, though. If mothers are mothers no matter what they’re called, why not call them, you know, the word they put on Mother’s Day cards? Perhaps the ones overreacting are not the everyday people who object to the idea of vulnerable, pregnant mothers being referred to so crassly but the ideologues who insist on rejecting basic biology and corrupting one of life’s most beautiful mysteries.

Evers and his ilk can keep trying to diminish women by catering to the feelings of a tiny portion of the population, but they can’t change the truth. At least he was right about one thing. Mothers are mothers. End of story.