A transwoman feeding their new born baby with their own milk..

BF for 18 months and literally nothing erotic about it. Christ. First two weeks were hell until post tongue tie op. After that I was just overjoyed that my baby could latch without triggering horrendous pain. It felt fine but in no way pleasurable. I was happy that I was able to provide for my baby and hopefully help both our health.

If I remember correctly, I think the transitioned male specialist who worked with another transitioned male also pointed out that the male was on testosterone suppression and how unreliable those drugs are. That specialist was concerned about the other drugs, but also the testosterone being delivered through the substance that was lactated.

There was a reason the specialist did not use the procedure to feed their own infant when they had the chance. They were very clear about why.

If you put all your verbiage to one side Penelope, what point are you actually trying to make? I’m none the wiser despite reading your endless screeds 🤷🏻‍♀️Do you want to discuss soup or cruelty to newborn babies?

Agree @Helleofabore I felt the same way.

There is a vulnerable, tiny child at the middle of this who needs nutrition and nurturing that centres his or her needs. Still no one has said what is in these male breast secretions being forced on the baby due to their newborn suck reflex.

As Lottie Lewis said on Twitter:
If a man says he's sexually aroused by doing something with a baby, why is there suspicion and belittling of people calling this child abuse? How did we get here, where men are so emboldened by the veil of 'trans rights' they can openly admit to abuse and be called progressive?

The claim that 50% of women find breastfeeding erotic is clearly utter horseshit probably made up by a bloke.

This is what I remember too. And the later mastitis and rock hard exploding breasts.

It was not ‘pleasurable’ at all. In fact, the pleasure came from emptying breasts so they didn’t hurt anymore.

Actually sexual stimulation is one of the reasons women why do give. It's a natural reaction to oxytocin but many women don't realise that- no one ever tells them- and ignorant comments like yours won't help.

@KimikosNightmare

What did I say that's ignornant?? Ahem?? Move pls.

I wouldn't worry too much. For one thing, women can do most things that men can do, and vice versa. (Lordy, you even hear of women, these days, who see a transwoman in a women's toilet, and don't burst into tears over it. That's how equal they've learned they are, with people who have penises!) For another thing: if this were harming this woman's baby, I'm sure the signs would have been there, the mother would have reported them to her doctor, and things would have been sorted out. I'm sure of this because, principally, transwomen don't go around wanting to harm babies. They really aren't, in general, that evil ... no matter what some utter misandrist fruitcakes here at MN might want to imply. :)

Absolutely right.
Some drug- filled secretion of male hormone blockers and other far from nourishing things is very concerning.

@WorriedWoking I never used the word transphobia though. I was quite specifically referring to disgust and revulsion in the context of this photo, not implying they were directed at transpeople generally. And my sole point about that was not that they were not OK to feel - feelings are feelings, but they are not rhetorically useful. If someone says this soup tastes revolting but I find it delicious we won't agree just by reasserting our positions.

"We aren't going to reverse the misogyny by shaking our pom poms for them either."

But just ignoring it is also an option.

I don't subscribe to the view this is a mens rights movement so we're just going to disagree there. I would agree some claims for trans acceptance in some spaces are unjustified. In this instance the TW wants to do something in her own home that impacts her, her partner and the baby - there is an overall risk assessment to be done for that and I think we can agree we don't have enough data here to conclude it is always or never dangerous, but otherwise it is a personal decision. Revulsion and disgust add nothing to the debate AND otherwise counterproductive in discussions concerning breastfeeding.

My own view is to be trans at all implies accepting a hyper-real concept of gender which is itself a symptom of misogyny. If you struggle to accept yourself in the body you have because at some point you have been told your body is unacceptable due to the diverse other experiences you have of social identity then that struggle is of course real in the same way that anorexia nervosa reflects real distress at body size. But underlying it is a fucked up world which has recently started to commodify 'acceptance' but only in a way whcih serves the ends of the patriarchy.

We serve people's distress back up to them as a product for them to consume, whether that is as gender acceptance, transition or other. But the deeper scrutiny of the structures that make us unhappy to begin with never happens - the child gets the referral, not the society that makes the unhappy child.

Critical psychology views like this aren't new, they have been around since the 70s. So yes I worry deeply about the significance of the rise in gender dysphoria, the implications of people who are in the process of transitioning having access to some but not all, formerly female only spaces. But i don't agree that to experience dysphoria is a powerplay by men to get access to female spaces (except perhaps in a tiny handful of cases, some of my research involves working in prisons, prisoners certainly try it but it is exceptional for prisoners to be granted transfers to an opposite sex prison even after diagnosis of GD and transitioning, the vast majority are held in vulnerable prisoner wings). Dysphoria is disruptive and isolating and if we want to reduce it we need to critically scrutinise why now as a society identities framed around gender and sexuality have become so politically relevant.

This is like the line that most toddlers masturbate. A small number do but yet some people seem to want to reposition the minority as the majority.

Why would that be I wonder?

@KimikosNightmare I believe it happens, but rarely, jnot at the 50% rate that the NCT are stating. That article seems to have been written with a particular agenda.

I can't wrap my head around this at all; it just seems bonkers. I just wonder, is this what is best for this baby? Its entire life revolves around feeding right now- will this be all it needs? If not, what will the cost be to that tiny child and its capacity to thrive?

It just seems performative, along with whoever posted it all over Facebook with lots of flapping and flouncing about deleting 'terfs' and blocking people.

At the centre of this is a tiny, vulnerable child. I actually feel quite furious that this has been posted at all ffs.

Penelope, you’re still not getting it. Our revulsion concerns the cruelty towards a newborn infant. Please don’t dress up our concern as the oft used ‘transphobia’. A word that’s so overused as to be meaningless and rarely, if ever, used correctly to describe phobia.

This isn't just liberal feminism on steroids; it's literally the mens rights movement.

We aren't going to reverse the misogyny by shaking our pom poms for them either.

It's got nothing to do with the barriers for women and breastfeeding.

It's a mens rights movement.

Don't believe it if you like. It's very well documented although oddly rarely discussed- probably because of reactions like yours.

@WarriorN I think we could agree the whole thing is an inconsistent mess. I just don't think we're going to reverse the misogyny by preventing TW breastfeeding.

The misogyny isn't caused by TW. Misogyny is so deeprooted in the fabric of society TW are neither a cause or a symptom. But disgust is a key element of misogyny which is why I push back against it so hard here. To overcome misogyny we have to be better than that not the same so relying on base emotions like revulsion or disgust to justify our responses isn't enough.

Misogyny is like some kind of fungus at the core of a building. We can't even see it we just know the structures around us are rotten. People scrutinise how gender dysphoria can arise in our society, what tells us to become unsettled in our gender identity and believe that relief can only be found in reversing it are also scrutinising how the structures are rotten. But attacking people with gender dysphoria is like attacking women who subscribe to patriarchal assumptions about their role in society. Its absolutely the wrong target. The misogyny is deeper and more sinister than that and needs closer analysis - and ripping it away may require radical rebuilding too.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.mattoslactation.com/blog/2019/1/15/breastfeeding-taboo-sexual-arousal-orgasm-amp-negative-feelings%3fformat=amp

Actually sexual stimulation is one of the reasons women why do give. It's a natural reaction to oxytocin but many women don't realise that- no one ever tells them- and ignorant comments like yours won't help.

Google DMER. Breastfeeding can be incredibly psychologically awful for a lot of women also it hurts and us exhausting if it doesn't happen easily. And no one gets a big bouquet for doing it if you do or can manage it. It's also crucially part of the fourth stage of labour. You can't hop in like a tourist to the journey of growing birthing and breastfeeding.

I can imagine there is a wonderful dopamine hit for some women. Not me, but sure, even if I've never heard it compared to a sexual pleasure before. It's still a hormonal response in a body evolved to nourish infants. A male body isn't, or it would not need months of drug and pumping protocol to achieve. Opening your mind to extended feeding (what some would call natural term breastfeeding) is great; I don't see how it equates to therefore opening your mind to males WHO ADMIT THEY GOT OFF ON IT latching a tiny newborn who needs colostrum or formula to suckle untested milk laced with cross sex sex hormones & questionable drugs.

I think there's too much obsfucation to keep arguing. I will never be convinced this is for the benefit of the feeding infant. It's validation only at best, absolutely disgusting abuse at worst.

As in many bf threads the focus has swung to the adults rather than what's best for baby.

Berns is muttering "minds so open their brains fell out" I'm sure, where ever she is.

In this respect I am reassured by the fact that even when taking some extremely hardcore drugs my doctors were always pretty sanguine they'd pose little or no risk to any of my children. There are drugs that pose a risk when breastfeeding, opiates in particular. Obviously I have no particular knowledge about the risks associated with cross-sex hormones but in the case studies cited the TW have sought medical advice. But it is a valid concern.

@PenelopePipPip Hormonal drugs are a different kettle of fish to other medicines when it comes to infants. My doctors were sanguine about me having chemo during pregnancy (to my face, at least). But they were utterly unequivocal that I needed to stop breastfeeding before I could start tamoxifen (a drug that works on hormones).

(Side note - sounds like we've had a similar time of things. Hope you're ok.)

Penelope, you are straw manning when you say us women find breast feeding revolting, or whatever you actually said. We clearly don’t, but neither do we find it sexually arousing. There is a middle ground here.

You are obviously ill and I’m truly sorry for you, but the concerns of most women on here is not for themselves, but for this helpless infant who has no choice but to swallow drug induced/laced male secretions instead of the colostrum he or she (because babies are born male or female no matter what some would pretend to believe) they badly need ☹️