Request - token_replace to include :parent

Ran into a slight inconvenience. Looked through the token code in core and it's a little beyond my abilities so thought I'd put in a request.  I would like to replace a token with it's parent. D7 would look something like this:

[node:TERM_REVERENCE_FIELD:parent]

This works fine in Backdrop:

token_replace('[node:field_category]', array('node' => $node))

However, this does not work (it works in D7):

token_replace('[node:field_category:parent]', array('node' => $node))

PS: As a "work-around" (to get the parent), I'm using a couple Taxonomy functions:
taxonomy_term_load($tid)
taxonomy_get_parents($tid)