The absurdity of trying to ban mothers

Thank you, Sarah Vine, for highlighting the absurdity of lesbian, gay and bisexual and trans rights charity Stonewall’s assertion that mothers should no longer be called mothers.

By making these ridiculous statements, Stonewall is ensuring that the already mounting backlash will intensify.

Some public bodies have already withdrawn their support and other organisations will surely follow if it continues in this direction.

David Morgan, Shrewsbury

What about women who weren’t able to give birth and adopted their child or had them by surrogate? What are they supposed to be called? Are they just going to be cancelled now?

L. Brown, Birmingham

So ‘breastfeeding’ has become ‘chest-feeding’. Whatever happened to calling it ‘nursing a baby’? There was already a perfectly good term to use if one does not like ‘breastfeeding’. Chuck Anderson,

San Francisco

Surely it would be easier to just redefine the word ‘mother’ to mean a woman, or other individual, who has given birth. Then leave it at that. Although I doubt that would satisfy the activists.

B. Campbell, Belfast

Sarah’s claim that this is ‘the single most important battle feminism has faced since the hunger-striking Suffragettes had feeding tubes shoved down their throats’ is rubbish. It is actually about some over-zealous promotion of terms to help a very marginalised group of people who feel very unsafe in the UK right now.

B. Lopez, Barcelona

The cancelling of women has to stop. It took us so long to be recognised as equal human beings. Now there are those who seem to want us to vanish again.

Jane Spencer, London

This is pure misogyny from Stonewall. It should be called out for discrimination against women.

D. Robertson, Glasgow

I am a gay woman and it absolutely aggravates me that women are being diluted. Why are sanitary products being changed so that they are non-exclusive to women? Why can’t we refer to women as mothers or grandmothers? We aren’t doing the same with male products or the term ‘father’!

L. Johnson, London

Maybe Stonewall’s charitable status should now be revoked as it clearly no longer operates for public benefit.

M. Oliver, Merseyside

I agree that people should be called whatever they want and, if you are a mother, you have the right to be called that if you wish. But saying that being a mother is part of a woman’s identity is discrimination against women who can’t have children. Motherhood might be some people’s identity as a woman, but it’s not everybody’s.

L. Grant, Kent