ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York State Legislature advanced legislation earlier this month that removes the words “mother” and “father” from state laws, the Washington Times reported.

New York’s Democrat-led Legislature approved a bill that would replace the traditional terms “mother” and “father” with gender-neutral language like “gestating parent” and “non-gestating parent” in key sections of state family law, sending the controversial proposal to Gov. Kathy Hochul for her signature or veto

“It’s an example of how out of tune the New York legislature is,” State Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar told the Washington Times on June 5. “It’s an unnecessary and wasteful use of time. Imagine people who are considering moving to New York seeing this and saying, ’Do I need this silliness?’”

According to the Washington Times:

Under the legislation — designated A8382A/S9316 and co-sponsored by state Sen. Luis Sepulveda and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, both Democrats — “mother” would become “gestating parent,” “father” would become “non-gestating parent,” and the legal term “paternity” would be replaced by “parentage” across family court proceedings, domestic relations law, child support statutes, and education law. A “putative father” — an unestablished biological parent — would be redesignated as “alleged parent” in official records.

Divorce.Law explains it further:

The practical legal effect centers on three primary changes. First, all court filings, orders, and judgments will use “gestating parent” instead of “mother” and “non-gestating parent” instead of “father.” Second, paternity proceedings under N.Y. Fam. Ct. Act § 516 will become “parentage” proceedings. Third, all existing statutory references to maternal or paternal rights will be reframed using neutral language.

Fox 5 New York ran a segment after the bill was passed:

A Technocratic Rewrite With Cultural Stakes

At its core, the bill is a technical overhaul of the language used in New York’s family‑law statutes, court procedures and certain education‑related provisions. In place of “mother,” the legislation substitutes “gestating parent,” while “father” is replaced with either “non‑gestating parent” or the more generic “parent,” and “paternity” and “filiation” proceedings are rechristened “parentage” cases.

The changes would ripple across the Family Court Act, domestic relations law, child support statutes and related codes, touching custody disputes, child‑support orders, surrogacy arrangements and adoption proceedings. The term “putative father,” long used to describe an unestablished biological father, would become “alleged parent,” signaling a broader shift away from gendered assumptions in legal parent‑child relationships.

A Bill Years in the Making

The Assembly version of the measure, A8382A, cleared that chamber in March; its Senate counterpart, S9316, sponsored by Senator Luis Sepúlveda, passed on June 2. The bill’s title is straightforward — it “replaces the terms father, mother, and filiation to gender neutral language” — but its implications go far beyond the few words it targets.

If Hochul signs the bill, the new terminology is slated to take effect on November 1, giving courts, agencies and lawyers a few months to adapt forms, pleadings and procedures. Supporters describe the timeline as both ambitious and necessary to “harmonize” statutes with evolving case law and administrative practice.

Supporters: Law Must Catch Up to Families

The bill’s backers present it as a pragmatic response to realities that have already transformed the family‑law docket: same‑sex marriages, surrogacy and assisted reproduction, and parents who do not identify with traditional gender labels.

They argue that legal phrases rooted in the mid‑20th century often fail to capture the nature of modern families, especially in disputes involving two mothers, two fathers, or a surrogate and intended parents. “Parentage,” in their view, better expresses the fundamental question judges must resolve: who is a legal parent, and on what basis.

Advocates also contend that the language shift could reduce confusion in cases where the “father” is not necessarily the non‑birth parent, or where genetic, gestational and social parenthood do not line up neatly. By decoupling legal status from gendered titles, they say, courts can focus on evidence and statutory criteria rather than tradition and assumption

Critics: A Line Crossed on Identity

Opponents, however, see the bill as a step too far — not a neutral modernization, but a symbolic erasure of “mother” and “father” from the law. New York’s Catholic bishops have denounced the measure as mocking the foundation of the family and undermining the distinct roles that mothers and fathers play in children’s lives.

Local officials have joined the backlash. In the Town of Hempstead, the largest township in the country, leaders moved quickly to pass a resolution preserving the words “mother” and “father” in their own local code, casting the state bill as an overreach that “replaces” parents with sterile bureaucratic terms. Republican county executives and town leaders have used phrases like “war on families” to describe the change, warning that once such language is embedded in law, it will filter into how bureaucracies and schools describe parents.

The Governor’s Balancing Act

Governor Hochul, a Democrat, has offered a carefully calibrated response as she weighs whether to sign the bill. Her office has emphasized that “mothers are mothers and fathers are fathers, and no legislation changes that,” an attempt to reassure voters that everyday identities will remain intact even if legal terminology becomes more clinical.

At the same time, Hochul faces pressure from LGBTQ+ advocates and progressive lawmakers who see the bill as a test of her administration’s commitment to inclusive policy. The decision will arrive in a charged environment, with conservative media, religious organizations and local governments already mobilized against the measure, and supporters warning that a veto would stall long‑needed reforms in family law.

Beyond Symbolism: How Courts Would Change

If enacted, the law’s effects would be most visible not in press releases or campaign ads but in the paperwork of everyday legal conflicts: petitions for custody, child‑support orders, adoption decrees, and surrogacy contracts. Forms would be revised to list “gestating parent” and “non‑gestating parent,” and judges would refer to “parentage” determinations rather than “paternity” findings, particularly in cases involving unmarried parents or disputed biological ties.

Family‑law attorneys say that, in practice, the bill could clarify how non‑birth parents in same‑sex couples or surrogacy arrangements are treated, reducing ambiguity that sometimes forces courts to shoehorn modern families into outdated categories. Yet they also acknowledge that the new terms may require careful explanation to clients who identify strongly with “mother” or “father” and may bristle at being described as “non‑gestating parents” in official documents.

Does California have similar laws?

California does not use the specific “gestating parent” and “non‑gestating parent” terminology now debated in New York law, but it does have a deeply embedded system of gender‑neutral parentage rules that function similarly in practice. Over the last decade, amendments to California’s Uniform Parentage Act and related family‑law provisions have systematically stripped out “paternity”-centric language and oriented the statutes around “parentage,” “birth parent” rather than “mother,” and “other parent” instead of “father,” particularly in forms used by the Parentage Opportunity Program and child support agencies.

State materials now emphasize that the parent‑child relationship “extends equally to every child and to every parent” regardless of marital status or the gender of the parents, and official Voluntary Declaration of Parentage forms explicitly use “parentage” and gender‑neutral labels to accommodate LGBTQ+, non‑binary and transgender parents. California courts also apply gender‑neutral presumptions — for example, recognizing a presumed parent based on “holding out” a child as one’s own, regardless of whether that parent is male or female — and custody statutes bar judges from considering a parent’s sex or gender identity in best‑interest determinations.