A supermarket is selling a gender-neutral Mother’s Day card and people aren’t happy
British supermarket Waitrose has caused controversy by selling a gender-neutral Mother’s Day card.
The card attracted attention on social media after an article in the Sunday Times.
The card, which has now been removed from the website, was advertised as a Mother’s Day card and featured the text “Happy You Day” on the front.
A spokesperson for Waitrose told the Sunday Times that their inclusive card was: “broadening out who the cards can go to, whether it’s grandmas or transgender mums.”
(Photo: @MrAGilligan /Twitter)
Part of the article states that Waitrose made the decision to include the gender-neutral card after calls from transgender people who wish to change the name of Mother’s day.
The Sunday Times states: “The changes come after calls by some trans activists to rename Mother’s Day. Suggestions include Guardian’s Day and Carer’s Day.”
Related: Same-sex marriage will abolish Mother’s Day, politician says
Despite the rest of their stock of Mother’s Day cards remaining traditional and gendered, many people hit out at the supermarket on social media.
Journalist and Harriet Sergeant criticised the idea of renaming Mother’s Day, telling her followers to ‘enjoy Mother’s Day while we can.’
(Photo: @HarrietSergeant / Twitter)
“For us mums, let’s enjoy Mother’s Day while we can. Trans activists want it renamed Guardian’s Day or Carer’s Day,” she wrote.
The comments of one news article reporting the change were similarly critical, with one commenter calling the card ‘ridiculous.’
(Photo: MailOnline)
“If it is Mother’s Day, it is for mothers. The world has gone mad.”
(Photo: MailOnline)
“This is getting ridiclous now. Fed up [of] this BS. Stop please.”
However, some people were more supportive of the card and criticised the backlash itself, focusing on the claim that transgender people want to rename Mother’s Day.
(Photo: @cpoffers / Twitter)
“Of course, ‘trans people want to ban Mother’s Day’ is now going to be the thing that will be duly repeated as fact by the usual dipshits. So that’s nice,” one person wrote on Twitter.
Others criticsed The Sunday Times themselves, with one person writing that the paper was “ridiclously anti-trans.”
(Photo: @KatyMontgomerie / Twitter)
“My timeline is literally full of trans people saying ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ to each other and talking about how much they love their mothers.
“The Times is ridiclously anti-trans, please don’t believe everything you read. Trans people just want to a normal life like everyone else.”
Around 20,000 children in the UK live in same-sex couple households, and almost half of Brits send a card for Mother’s Day.
Mother’s Day is worth around £400 million to the greeting card industry.
Last year, Sainsbury’s launched it’s first ever Mother’s Day card for people with two mothers.
The supermarket giant said that it wanted “to reflect the diversity of our customers and colleagues” with the card.
