Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers blasted for replacing 'mother' with 'inseminated person'

The Biden administration referred to expectant mothers as “pregnant people” and “birthing people,” but Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers prefers the term “inseminated person.”

The Democratic governor sparked an outcry by introducing a biennial budget proposal last week that replaces sex-specific words in state code with gender-neutral alternatives, including “inseminated person” for “mother” and “person” for “man.”

The section of the bill dealing with challenges to a child’s paternity also substitutes “parentage” for “paternity,” and replaces the word “father” with terms like “natural parent” more than 100 times.

Wisconsin Senate President Mary Felzkowski slammed what she called an attempt by Democrats to “erase women, the institution of marriage, and the family unit.”

“It is disgusting to see the Evers Administration’s attempt to erase mothers and fathers,” Ms. Felzkowski said in a Monday statement. “It is becoming clear the governor not only wants the government to raise children, as we learned in the State of the State address, but that he wants to erase the concept of ’mom and dad’ altogether.”

Ms. Felzkowski, a Republican, added that the proposal replaces the word “father” with terms like “natural parent” over 100 times.

Sara Craig, executive director of the Republican Governors Association, called the proposed changes “offensive to mothers.”

“Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’ latest left-wing push isn’t just out of touch, it’s offensive to mothers,” said Ms. Craig in a statement. “Being a mother is the greatest privilege I will have in my lifetime, and every mother I know feels the same. If Tony Evers can reduce motherhood to an ’inseminated person’ then our society is lost.”

Others accused the governor of seeking to hide the changes by folding them without comment into the lengthy 2025-27 biennial budget message. The proposed subbing of “inseminated person” for “mother” appears on page 1766 of the 1917-page document.

“Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is trying to change state law to replace the term ’mother’ with ’inseminated person,’” Rep. Tom Tiffany, Wisconsin Republican, posted on X. “He is attempting to sneak it into a thousand-page budget bill. This isn’t just crazy — it’s an insult to women who give birth and raise children.”

Even NFL great Brett Favre weighed in, calling it “Nonsense” on X.

— Rep. Tom Tiffany (@RepTiffany) February 22, 2025

LGBTQ advocates have pushed for states to replace sex-specific language in state laws to reflect same-sex couples in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage, arguing that some married couples have no “wife,” “husband,” “mother,” or “father.”

Mr. Evers has not commented publicly on the pushback, but this isn’t the first time he’s tried to eliminate gender-neutral terms from the state code.

“Evers has proposed revising state statutes to incorporate gender-neutral terms in each of his last two budget requests, but the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee removed the language as part of a broad motion removing non-fiscal policy measures,” said Wisconsin Watch in a June 2023 article.

The governor’s latest effort comes with President Trump seeking to scrub transgender-friendly terms from the federal government, starting with his Jan. 20 executive order declaring that U.S. policy recognizes two sexes, male and female.

Mr. Evers unveiled the $55.5 billion budget last week, calling it the most “pro-kid” in state history.

“The budget I’m proposing balances our priorities of investing in our kids and needs that have been long neglected while providing real and sustainable tax relief and saving where we can,” the governor said in his budget message.

The Biden administration was known for scrubbing sex-specific language from the federal government as well as requiring federal employees to use preferred opposite-sex pronouns in the name of transgender inclusion.