Petitioning Parliament to ban males from attempting to breastfeed infants

If my grandmother had wheels she’d be a bus.

Babies have very special relationships with their mothers. That relationship is not there for the taking for anyone else.

Human’s don’t ‘take turns’ breastfeeding.

Taking a turn at feeding.

I would sign a petition looking to get this recognised as child abuse.

I would also support the scientific approach to if the milk produced is safe and as nutritious as breast- if formula is better we don't need it.

I don't think we need to argue over either or but we should do both. This is child protection we can't do too much.

At no point in either approach should this be about trans people. I think 'cis' men latching a baby to their nipple is child abuse too

What is the point in men chemically inducing lactation? It’s pointless.

So if trans woman breast milk WAS proven safe and to have adequate nutrients for feeding a baby, you still wouldn't be okay with them breastfeeding?

It’s like pro-surrogacy isn’t it? Advocates don’t see babies as actual people.

other posters have used the word "pervy" or "perversion"

Perverted/pervy = nipple clamps, cross dressing, chemically induced lactation in males, excessive interest in breastfeeding, etc.

Coercing others into a perversion = abuse.

Coercing a child into a perversion = child abuse.

Being perverted is a lesser issue than being an abuser.

Well, something can have a poor evidence base and also be perverted, you know!

I would consider all these things in depth yes. My point is that I would have an open mind about it. I wouldn't just decide it's bad before doing all that research, like you've done.

Anyway it's hard to believe any of this is your concern when two other posters have used the word "pervy" or "perversion" since my last post where I pointed out that all the other posters are saying this, and you're arguing with me and not them.

Indeed,let's not dress this up as anything other than the perverted shite it is.

Since there’s zero use of this “medication protocol” in the U.K., and only a couple of unsubstantiated case studies on transwomen lactating with no follow-up, would you be wanting to see any studies on its effect on babies before you decided if it was a good thing to do?

Would the fact that you can’t get any clinician to prescribe said drug regimen (because it’s completely untested and they don’t want to be sued for injury to a newborn) be any factor in your decision, or would you just go ahead and obtain some black market drugs if you and your partner felt like it? NICE guidelines suggest that in the U.K. a clinician shouldn’t really prescribe domperidone off-label for this purpose in women without consultation with endocrinology — so would you be happy to go ahead with it with no medical supervision if your partner wanted it? If not, why not?

Would there be any place for a big evidence-based study into the composition and likely effects of the drugs on the milk be part of your decision-making? Or would you be happy to go ahead with no evidence on this whatsoever?

It’s ridiculous. No baby needs a man to breastfeed it. Any woman who gives birth to a baby has one job - to keep that baby close by and safe, and a part of that is keeping it away from pervy doods who want it to suck theirs nipples and worse.

Any mother who hands that innocent baby over to a perv is culpable.

If your partner was a TW, then maybe let her give birth? Fair's fair.

None of those people are my child's parent? Nobody induces lactation so they can have a go at feeding a baby that isn't theirs. It's ridiculous even as a hypothetical.

If my partner was a trans woman then I would have a proper discussion with her about whether her inducing lactation was right for us or not and I would consider it with an open mind. I wouldn't consider it perverted because if I thought my partner was perverted I wouldn't be with them. And I would research the medication protocol in depth with her and we may or may not decide it sounded like a good thing to do.

Damn right I don’t like the idea of men taking a cocktail of untested drugs which could harm a newborn, just so they can pretend to be having a womanly experience? Are you mad?

Let’s try it another way: did you hand round your newborn to your childless female friends so that they could try out having a baby suck their nipples? Why not? Would you be just fine with that if they asked?

What about a sister? If your sister wanted to “experience” breastfeeding, would you let her start some lactation “protocols” and happily hand over your newborn? Grandma? The woman down the street who’s sad about being infertile? Any reason why not?

“you just don't like the idea of it”

Bit of an understatement. We’re talking about CHILD ABUSE here.

I’d be absolutely fine with the petition being about protecting babies from abuse by men with breastfeeding fetishes.

The unknown harms of the drugs could be added as a second point.

You don't actually know then? What levels of hormones trans women take and when, what other drugs they need to take to induce breastfeeding and when. You're just imagining that it must be terrible. And the other things you said further convince me that it's not actually to do with the safety of the milk and more because you just don't like the idea of it. Every poster other than you is saying it's because it's perverted. If that's the reason you object to trans women breastfeeding then make the petition about that, it's more honest.

Not just the safety of babies, what about the inviolability of babies too?

Just because babies are small and helpless doesn’t mean they are fair game to be violated by pervy men.

Yet again - those are at hormone levels for biological women! Who already produce oestrogen and other female sex hormones, and have milk lobules! And they at least have a chance of producing enough milk to feed a baby.

Domperidone is banned in the US for causing heart arrhythmias, alongside a long list of other side effects; and in the U.K. it’s now rarely prescribed even for biological women. Other galactagogues include antipsychotics with really nasty side effects. Is that worth it just for a tiny amount? All so the transwoman gets an experience? The baby needs formula or a biological woman’s milk anyway on top! Why would any genuine parent take the risk for so little benefit to the baby? Many women don’t feed, so suggesting that it’s a must-have “womanly” experience sounds a little bit biological-essentialist, no?

It seems like you honestly are so blinkered by trans ideology that you honestly want to prioritise the “experiences” of adult men over the safety of babies. How is that defensible? Show us the evidence first that such a thing is safe and effective, and then we’ll look again.

I told my DC that a man was pictured pretending to breastfeed, trying to get a baby to suck his nipple. My DC was genuinely horrified and said “If [the baby] they find out, they’ll run away from home”.

Yes indeed.

Poor child.

I know. Such a derail. If it were possible to medically cause a person to lactate out of their ear, it wouldn’t be a reason to do it or feed it to an infant.

There is no purpose to men lactating apart from to satisfy a man’s unhealthy and perverse urges.

I've been on the contraceptive pill while breastfeeding, you can take synthetic hormones when breastfeeding. Domperidone is banned in the US but not in the UK so different in different countries. I don't know by what mechanism drugs that are safe in women's breast milk wouldn't be safe in trans women's breast milk, if anything there would be less getting through to the baby if supply is lower. Your argument is that the chance of trans women's breast milk being safe is vanishingly low. You've made your mind up that that is the case even though you have no evidence. Do you know what dosage of various hormones trans women take, what dosage they take before beginning breastfeeding and what dosage they take once breastfeeding has started? What dosage of other drugs are involved and when? Do you have specific reason to think there is a problem with those specific dosages at those times?
Again I'm not saying they are absolutely definitely safe, I'm just saying that they could be safe and I don't know where your certainty is coming from.