Men can breastfeed

[shinynewusername]

La Leche League - the US equivalent of the NCT - now claims that men can breastfeed. NB, they are not just talking about transmen (born women), but actual men. WTF?

(Mens' nipples do occasionally produce some fluid, often as a result of disease but to say this is breast-feeding is deranged and insulting to mothers)

Over the weekend, I have also seen transwomen on social media claim that women seeking abortion should feel privileged to have an unwanted pregnancy and a 16 year old student at an American school in Spain reporting how she was not allowed to mention FGM or use the word 'woman' in a class on feminism because it 'triggered' a non-binary male in the class.

AIBU to think this is fucking out of hand? Every aspect of women's identify is being colonised and erased.

zzzzz

Not just breastfeeding in public. Access to women's rape shelters, women's sports, women's aid. Being told you are transphobic for things that are specifically female. Things like mother, women who menstruate, female genital mutilation.

Being told that a man has actually been female since he was born. Just mistakenly assigned the sex of male. So therefore his genitals are female, his penis is female. And so lesbians are transphobic bigots for not wanting to have sex with him, if he identifies as a lesbian. Most of them do, because they are heterosexual men. As a previous poster said, the ones who are not making a fuss about any of this are normally gay.

The dayak fruit bat is one of the only known cases of normal paternal lactation.

The term galactorrhea means spontaneous production of milk, and this can happen to women, men, newborns, adolescents... This is different to lactation, which is associated with childbirth and nursing. There are plenty of cases of galactorrhea in men, no one is disputing that. But lactating is different.

datum what do you do if you want to change an appointment for another reason? Does it make you blush, explain, beg? There's no need to do that and weDo have to take some responsibility for carrying those behaviours into the world.

I've never needed to change an appt while looking at the person. If you ask to see a woman and are faced with a sizeable Adam's apple it would be very obvious why you were suddenly refusing to be seen.

Not to mention that gp surgeries try and have a female doctor for patients who want them. What if that's their 'female doctor quota' filled? I find it difficult already to be seen by a woman

sounds so bigoted

Or statistically accurate?

resigninginagain

I understand what you are saying. Most of the feminists on here, also campaign for things like period poverty, food banks, encouraging girls into stem subjects, etc. Issues which still affect women.

None of these things are mutually exclusive.

I suspect the disconnect comes directly from how much of an online presence one has.

What you see as trivial, was identified by feminists several years ago. They were shouted down. And they are now being proved right.

Campaigning on behalf of women, at the moment, still has some traction. But as laws change, and society follows, women as a class are being undermined.

People, particularly younger people, are seeing this on an individual level. They are framing what is happening to their own personal experience. They are not realising that women are oppressed in the framework of their class, not as individuals.

If the class of women now means anyone who says they are a woman, nothing can be identified, nothing can be analysed. And that is not a stretch. At the moment the numbers are too small. But gender identity politics are taking such a hold that sex based discrimination and differences are going to be eliminated to the detriment of women.

I would like to see gender abolished completely. There is nothing that men can do that women cannot do, apart from when they are using their biology. It is those biological rights that need maintaining.

Most of them do, because they are heterosexual men. As a previous poster said, the ones who are not making a fuss about any of this are normally gay

Jesus wept! Gender dysphoria is not a fucking perversion, it is not related to sexuality.

Today 14:41 zzzzz

I think when you start saying things like "most of them are" and "the ones who....are normally gay", I lose a bit of respect because it sounds so bigoted. sad

You don't have to take my word for it! Do a little bit of googling.

Studies (Blanchard) showed that transwomen were divided into gynephilic and androphilic. So, attracted to women or attracted to men. Like the general population.

The ones who want into women's spaces, unsurprisingly, are the gynephilic ones. The ones attracted to women. 80% of them keep their male genitalia and they identify as lesbian. If you accept that they are women, you must accept that they are gay women. And if they are going out with a woman, that is a lesbian couple.

The ones who are attracted to men don't tend to insist they are actually biological women. They are far more aligned with feminists.

Miranda Yardley is a transwoman who is attracted to men. She writes a very powerful blog and totally understands how women are being appropriated.

Her latest article is about autogynephilia. Men who transition because they fetishise the idea of themselves as a subordinate woman.

mirandayardley.com/en/

Fl0ellafunbags

No, gender dysphoria is not a perversion. I didn't say it was!! Nonetheless, transwomen are divided into gay and straight. that's not a perversion either!

zzzzz

You ask for a woman. You get a man. You think of a reason why you want someone different. It can't be because he's a man, if he identifies as a woman.

So I f you want to woman, you can't express that.

I read threads about a man in a family changing room or a 16 year old American against the term "FGM" and it makes me wonder if any of these people understand what real problems are. When you fight for smaller and smaller issues, you begin to look petty. I don't think the OP's grasped this concept

What is a bigger issue for feminism that millions of women having their external genitalia ripped off each year? If we cannot discuss FGM or even call ourselves women, we cannot name our biology-based oppression.

The point of the FB post is not that a single 16 year old was a twat but that, in a class on feminism, a young woman was told - by her teacher - that she could not mention FGM or anything to do with female biology. Why did the teacher think it was appropriate to silence her? Because of the insane idea that has developed, fed by social media, that discussing female biology is transphobic.

This is why social media are anything but trivial. They are at the forefront of attempts to silence women.

Similarly, the point about the changing room link is not that a single 70 year old felt threatened by a man, but that no woman in Canada now has the right to use changing facilities without men (who claim to identify as women) being present. That is not trivial. Look at the Target link: 17 men charged with sex crimes in a single year, in a single store chain. Imagine that reproduced across every public changing facility in North America.

A great way of silencing women is to tell them that their concerns are trivial: that an injustice cannot be addressed because a greater injustice exists elsewhere. It only seems to happen to women - I don't see gay people being told that they shouldn't be bothered about the right to marriage because gay people are thrown off roofs by ISIS.

I cannot think of a more important cause for feminism than FGM or women's safety. And to discuss FGM, safety and every other biological basis of oppression, we need to be able to discuss our own bodies.

zzzzz

Well, profiling is what enables women to use class action as leverage to change laws. Without profiling, we couldn't say that 97% of sexual crime is committed by men, for instance. It would just be 'people'.

Anyway I wasn't really debating the bigger picture, to be honest. I was just addressing your points as they came up.

However, here is a link to the bigger picture of what the erosion of women's rights looks like.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/gendertrender.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/transgender-rights-the-elimination-of-the-human-rights-of-women/amp/

I'm with you shiney. Pours . I was so depressed reading those tweets this morning, (plus the "cisprivilege" of needing an abortion one), that I found myself thinking women had it better in the 50's , when at least the power balance was obvious to everyone and women had single sex spaces as a matter of course. There is a movement seeking to erode any status women have for themselves alone, by destroying women as a class. If women don't exist in their biology, then they have no need of any special protections. Girls don't need special grants or scholarships, females don't need to be kept safe from males in prison, in refuges, in places where they might be naked or vulnerable. Is male violence going away? Hell it is. So a few men with medical issues can produce fluid from their nipples, and this is used to justify "chestfeeding bollocks"? No different from the NAM / "but women commit sex crimes too" whining. Gaslighting writ large.

That a good link Datun. I also saw this on the sidebar and my eyes opped out of my head

gendertrender.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/gay-pride-flag-removed-from-high-school-at-transgender-students-request/

zzzzz

I have actually no idea whether asking for a female HCP is considered discriminatory or not. I do know, that culturally, it is accepted. It's not discriminatory to ask for a female chaperone if you are being examined by a male doctor, for instance. In fact it is in the doctor's interest.

But again, these are all individual experiences that, until now, have not matter that much. Now there is a political point to score.

If the word woman and female no longer applies to people formerly known as women and females, there are numerous issues.

Language is important. Words and definitions are vital.

No one cares how men want to present themselves. In fact, wearing feminine clothing as a male is going some way towards abandoning gender differences. That's all good.

Saying that presenting as a woman and performing femininity means you are a woman is just reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes. Saying you identify as a woman means what? What are you identifying with? If not stereotypes.

That's why people like Miranda are so important. She is a transsexual transwoman. She presents as a stereotypical woman. She has gender dysphoria. But she doesn't claim to be a biological woman.

SirVix
Did you see the thread about the proposed bill in Scottish Parliament where they are trying to have quality of numbers on public boards but allow people to identify gender. Why bother when the terms mean nothing

AssignedMentalAtBirth

Gendertrender is an excellent resource. Always very well researched, always using citations.

AssignedMentalAtBirth

I saw that. It's ridiculous. You could have the entire parliament made up of 50% men and 50% men who identify as women.

Women, get your coat.

It's not for the parliament, it's non exec board members of public boards. In theory, you could have transmen taking men's places. But that's not going to happen. Total deal breaker for me. Def won't vote for them now

Assignedmental- no I haven't seen it. The stupidity ! All it amounts to is "anyone at all who looks a bit feminine or who feels they have a ladybrain but still wants a big beard/todger/the privilege of being listened to even though they are over 45 and not good looking" . I despair, i really do.