Breastfeeding is now chestfeeding, Brighton’s trans-friendly midwives are told

Where are the backbones of the women being affected by this? Where are the backbones of the mothers and sisters and friends and work colleagues of the women who support are supporting this? This isn't a men vs. women issue, this is a women vs wankers wokers issue, and there seems to be a substantial deficit of spinal column on one side. If the woke community bring a fight to our door, and we are happy to let them walk all over us (except maybe some tutting on MN about how simply awful it is), then we deserve everything that is coming.

I don't feel that's an entirely fair assessment of what has happened or is happening. We haven't just sat around tutting on MN, a large number of individuals and grassroots groups fighting back on this have sprung from this very site. We've also had some fairly significant successes but it's not all going to happen overnight, it's going to be a long slog.

British women have shown incredible backbone in this fight, I don't have the sense of us being walked over rather that we are holding the line for everyone else.

Where are the backbones of the women being affected by this? Where are the backbones of the mothers and sisters and friends and work colleagues of the women who support are supporting this? This isn't a men vs. women issue, this is a women vs wankers wokers issue, and there seems to be a substantial deficit of spinal column on one side. If the woke community bring a fight to our door, and we are happy to let them walk all over us (except maybe some tutting on MN about how simply awful it is), then we deserve everything that is coming.

I for one am too old to give a F. I'm just gonna watch the train wreck and see if today's younger generations have any fight left in them, or if we really did raise a bunch of snowflakes. At the moment is seams like society is crumbling because we turned everyone into spineless whiners.

@teezletangler. This is utter nonsense. Any woman turning up claiming to identify as male disproves it immediately by being pregnant. Any compromise that denies science and material reality here is another nail in the coffin of Women’s sex-based Rights. May I remind everyone of Karl Popper’s famous maxim that to tolerance of the intolerable will ultimately destroy tolerance. If a woman choose to live as man, fine, as long as they remember that ONLY WOMEN can become pregnant. Can’t have it both ways.

But if you put up with it, that is tacit acceptance. And if you accept it, its your choice.

Can someone help find a thread, this issues has now appeared in my local breastfeeding group and whilst I have no issue with the addition of language I want to point to the pathway that one of the large breastfeeding groups are inclusive of transmens. There was thread about it.

No it doesn't make you sound bitter, Meredith. When I look at this list of extra services provided (anyone interested, please go to the link in my last post) it makes me feel angry. To an extent, all women need these services. However some of it seems utterly OTT. Personal antenatal classes at home is mad (though I'm sure not everyone gets this). It appears they have not just the midwives but their own dedicated team including OB, ped, infant feeding midwife, etc etc etc. Feast for the few, famine for the rest??

I have looked after a couple of women whose partners were trans (I'm not denying it's probably more challenging to be pregnant and trans) and they were not delicate people. They were normal people with a few different needs who didn't require endless hand holding and mollycoddling.

I honestly wonder if there isn't a human rights complaint in here somewhere... if you're excluding women from all these extra services based solely on their gender identity, isn't that discrimination on a protected characteristic?

You are 100% right Meredithgrey1 all women should have these services.

That gender inclusion policy sounds great, lucky them!
Midwife appointments at home - that would have been great when I had a breakdown during my first trimester, but it wasn’t offered, but maybe that’s just my NHS trust (or maybe not, does anyone know if BSUH offers this to all women, I can possibly guess but would be very happy to be proved wrong).
Antenatal classes at home as well, I imagine there isn’t the budget to offer these to every woman who wants them.

I do agree with this. I think you probably get treated like you're a bit special when you're trans and giving birth at BSUH. You get two dedicated midwives!

So in theory if all women want double the dedicated care all they have to do is inform the staff their gender identity is male when they show up on the labour ward.

Surely they could try and address the terrible care many, many women report recieving before this.

I do agree with this. I think you probably get treated like you're a bit special when you're trans and giving birth at BSUH. You get two dedicated midwives!
https://www.bsuh.nhs.uk/maternity/our-services/specialist-support/gender-inclusion/

The reason this winds me up is because every pregnant woman is special. All women deserve this kind of care.

My spidey senses perked up at the name "Ash" of the one of the midwife authors, which for some reason is a very common name amongst trans men. Sure enough, one of the authors is trans. I imagine the ideology runs deep at BSUH.

And what about posters displayed, leaflets distributed? How can you tailor the language in these? They're universal to all service users. And letters sent to individuals? Will there be a tick box at booking, where the choice of terminology is noted?

You can already see it on their website. They just write "women and people" a lot for the most part it seems. It's a little clunky, but fine.

Gotta say I'm with the midwife here. I think it's a good document and it totally acknowledges that erasure is not good - it's adding terms and not taking away. It's a win. It's a common sense approach. I think there was some early misreporting which fuelled the fire.

As OvaHere says "How much will they compromise though? What happens to a prenatal class or labour & delivery tour (do these still happen?) that consists of 9 pregnant women and 1 pregnant woman who does not identify as such. Will they cater to the 1 or the 9 in their choice of language?"

And what about posters displayed, leaflets distributed? How can you tailor the language in these? They're universal to all service users. And letters sent to individuals? Will there be a tick box at booking, where the choice of terminology is noted?

Surely they could try and address the terrible care many, many women report recieving before this.

Honestly I feel time and money would be better spent helping pregnant women who identify as other than a woman to come to terms with the reality of pregnancy, childbirth and the female body.

Being pregnant and giving birth is not the slightest bit compatible with 'living as a man' which is the supposed benchmark people who are transitioning are meant to be aiming for. I personally find the notion of 'living as' not terribly robust and largely based on stereotypes however without it there is literally no attempt at a coherent definition of what transitioning is at all.

Training people on terms that can or should be used with different members of the community but not excluding the majority is fine and sensible.

And as you say, this is Brighton, I lived there for years and I would not be surprised to hear that people who would prefer the term ‘birthing parent’ (which could be applied to female same sex couples, they will both be mothers) will make up a not insignificant number of patients.

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-nhs-captured?r=8ggto&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy

Midwife here. Having now read the document, I actually think it's a good, sensible approach. They affirm their commitment to the continued use of the word woman. They acknowledge concerns around erasure. Using "alongside" language is so much better than eliminating the language of women altogether, which is the North American approach. I can live with this compromise. (Though I shudder at the term human milk, at least they didn't so far as calling it bodyfeeding!!)

Given that this is Brighton, I expect they felt they had to do something. I imagine they have quite a few pregnant women coming through their doors who do not identify as such, and it probably reached a tipping point.

Live and let live.

This phrase is only ever used by cheeky fuckers on the take, ime. Which just about sums up the current woke movement. All take and no give.

Society falls down when women accept other women have the right to believe that men have periods. When women can go on TV and Radio and say that they believe men can have periods, and at the same time women are quite willing to accept this behaviour, you can see as a gender and as a species, we are fucked.

MarieIVanArkleStinks

I think the NHS are obviously an easy touch, along with police federations, local government, schools etc.

Impatiens

I think I saw a figure of five in total, but obviously this one is the only one we hear about

There were 640,370 live births in England and Wales in 2019, but the NHS trusts have decided that a handful of "people" are more important than those women.

I think it’s wanting to have your cake and eat it. As well as a scone with cream and jam both sides. None of this should ever have been indulged.

I guess this will be deleted ...

How is it compatible with “living as a man” to do literally the most female thing possible?

As far as I can figure out, this is to do with what keeps being called biological essentialism.

The sense of inner identity creates the reality the person speaks as their sex (where the intended meaning of the words sex and gender appear to have become too confused for me to work out, so my apologies if I have this wrong) rather than the biology of the body. So the idea would seem to be anyone in any biology can be anything depending on how they feel.

Which I struggle to understand too, as surely that means the same as what gender critical women have been saying for decades - anyone can make any choices and live any way they want regardless of their born sex, free of stereotypes?

And to state that you are a sex you are not, and this be important, but have done something that sex cannot biologically do, would seem in turn to be creating the idea of binary sex being extremely important which contradicts much of what we're told about sex being a social construct/no such thing as a biological male or female/ sex being a spectrum?

The thing is, the impulse to understand is to try to work out and follow the logic. I think this is based again in feelings create reality, not objective fact; which is always going to conflict as objective fact is necessary for shared meaning.

All we have really is that some female people would prefer to be called men and for language to be used according to their preferences to support them in this. Which is fine. The issue is when it is felt that all female people must have their language and reality hidden to avoid offending.

1. I feel like a man.
2. I am a man.
3. I'm pregnant.
4. Where do I go?

The discord between 2 and 3 is just whaaaaaat.

If you really believe you're a man, the same as biological men, how did you know to approach the women's unit at the hospital? Why didn't you go to an area for men's health and ask to be seen there?

I think the trans tactic of capturing parts of the systems that run or provide services is how they have been so successful. Some local outrage, a couple of threads on mumsnet and then ...

For instance this was discussed on the JV show of C5 and judging by the comments on the facebook page and twitter most people just thought it nutty.
www.facebook.com/JeremyVineOn5/posts/10165239178470422
twitter.com/JeremyVineOn5/status/1359418168456994817

But the individual outrage (and ridicule) is not linked to the number of campaigns by women pointing out that this is an example of an overall attempt to erase the reality of biological female.

Not saying I know the answer and cant think of anything worse than taking on monitoring particular programmes so as to be able to pick up and point out comments and guests who are part of promoting the trans agenda.

The irony is of course is that JV only has this tv programme because the previous presenter was sacked for not apologising for allowing someone to say that you cant change sex.

And with his following from Radio 2 has bought in a lot of older conservative viewers who seem oblivious to the fact that the BBC as much as anyone is promoting this.

And whilst I appreciate that mumsnet provides a much needed space to be able to discuss (and vent!) about this relentless tide of gender wokeness, am really beginning to feel we need somewhere to just post and record the number of times an attempt is made, whether by and institution or an individual, to erase the reality of the biological fact of women.