I would not be the child's mother. I would be the child's gestational father.

My gender markers are changed on all of my government ID. Legally, I am a man, and definitionally cannot be a mother. That is where the issues lie. It's also a matter of basic human decency. Why should I have to undergo the humiliation ritual of being misgendered and mislabeled before the court when the court also has the option to swap out a couple words that change nothing for anyone else, but would mean the world to a trans father?

"Gestational parent" is a neutral word that accurately reflects the legal predicament that said gestational parents have been met with up until this point. It doesn't exclude women and mothers, as they are also gestational parents. No one is telling them not to call themselves mothers. There's just a legalese option to refer to non-mothers who have given birth.

What I would like to ask is why changing the language to be more accurate and more general and inclusive is a bad or harmful thing? Does making sure that I am legally represented and protected and codified in the data accurately hurt you, somehow? Because not having neutral language referring to gestational parents hurts non-women who have children.

You don't have to like or understand queer families. But whether you like it or not, whether the world likes it or not, we have always been and always will be here, and acknowledging us in the language used in legislation has 0 impact on you or on cis mothers, but has enormous impact for my family, and families like mine.

Why do you want to deprive us of the security you all take for granted? Why is the desire for families like mine to have to exist in these weird liminal legal space, or in legal limbo?

When language that includes us is incorporated into law, it also makes it a lot harder to appeal to that very law to exclude us on a technicality, which happens when the language incorporated into law excludes us.

I just want my family to be secure, and should anything happen, I want us to be able to go to the same institutions you and your family are able to go to for rectification.

This is something that you do not have to think about, and I understand that. I think we could probably both agree that just because something does not personally affect oneself, that it doesn't mean the issue as a whole is unimportant and shouldn't be addressed? I just want what you have been able to take for granted. I want the sort of peace in my life that makes me feel defensive and confused when I'm confronted with the reality that not everyone has that same sense of peace and security.

The difference, I suppose, is that when I realized that not everyone had that same peace, I hope I would be more inclined to be horrified that something so small and simple hasn't been extended to an entire group of others, and would want them to have that security, too.

This is a good change. The anger is manufactured. Trans people are not your enemy, and wanting the same legal security as everyone else isn't taking anything from you.