To be offended by the term ‘Chestfeeding’

[Coco2891]

The Breastfeeding Network (UK) has just shared an article on Facebook from Kellymom about trans people and the term ‘chestfeeding’ and that people should be asked what they would like it reffered to as by their health visitor-having not read a lot about the trans movement I am a bit behind on it all but this term has really got up my nose ! I’m tired and hormonal btw so any other day it may not have bothered me enough to post on the internt about it 🙄

I really hate threads like this, they make me so sad.

Visiting FWR won't make you "informed" on this, it'll just colour your perspective. There's a good chance that, like so many others, you'll start from a place of "live and let live" and you'll come away scared for the future of women, somehow convinced half the population will cease to exist if this tiny minority are in any way accommodated. It's through the looking glass, where things that never frightened you before are suddenly misogynistic plots masterminded by paedophiles and sex offenders, and enabled by the stupid or the vile. You'll be told to pick a side; on one side is women, all vulnerable, all (supposedly) in agreement, and on the other side is anyone who will use the term "chest feeding" of a trans man trying to feed their baby, should that make that person more comfortable. The war isn't real. The war isn't real, but who doesn't want to be on the side of women?

Imagine there is no war. Imagine for a second that trans people exist, that they always have, that it's a rare but normal way for someone to be, and that it can cause you huge hardship in life. It can also cause you to find things difficult that other's wouldn't struggle with, but instead of understanding those hardships - hardships you didn't choose - you're called a snowflake. A misogynist. That the words you would like used to you, about you, are somehow an attack on others; an attack you're not making; because the war isn't real!

I have never seen it written anywhere that no-one should be able to use the term "breast feeding" about themselves. Or that it should always be "chest feeding". Perhaps people really are calling for that, I don't know, but that's plainly a bit nuts. What's also nuts is saying, "I will not refer to you as chest feeding, despite that easing your hardship, because we are at war." Because we're not. Trans people are just people, people like us, for whom certain things are just a little harder. Like being referred to as breast feeding, when all you want to do is feed your new baby, because god knows that's already hard enough.

If HCPs are required to give pregnant and post natal women the option of what they would like to call it, dirty pillow feeding should definitely be added to the list.

Breastfeeding
Chestfeeding
Boobing
Dirtypillow feeding
Funbag munching
I'm sure there are lots more.

This is saying that the starting point should be whether someone would like to use chestfeeding or breastfeeding as a term.

What people are saying is that breastfeeding is the correct term. And given that the vast vast majority of women who breastfeed are, well, women, using their breast tissue rather than some random part of their chest the starting point should be using the correct term, breastfeeding. If a transman wants to use a different term, then they can say so. But we shouldn’t be rewriting language and messing around with medical and biological terms in order to play to the vanishingly unusual circumstances of a very small minority of breastfeeding folk.

It's not necessarily about the terminology imo, it's that the terminology is being used to erase our existence. People are that scared of speaking out for fear of bomb threats or threats to die in a fire, or doxxing and so on that eventually most people will answer "chestfeeding is fine" so they aren't given side eye from a woke midwife. Then lo and behold, no one pushes back anymore and everything refers to it as chestfeeding.

Yy, then it will be accepted that we feed our babies with our chests, so our breasts can be available for their proper purpose: advertising beer

I actually really hope the breastfeeding massive kicks off about this, the trans lobby won't know what has hit them!

Ridiculous.

If a trans man wants to chest feed that's fine. Why does it have to negate the breastfeeding that other women are doing?

I would argue that if you can feed a baby from your body you have breasts whether they're man breasts or not.

Which idiots at the NHS have sanctioned this shit? It should have been stopped right at the beginning. I can't stand these pandering dipsticks, just fuck off and grow a backbone. You're health care professionals, use the correct anatomical terms FFS.

Is it any worse than the term 'nursing'?

Well nursing is not a term I’ve really come across to any extent in the uk. Apart from when nurses talk about their jobs, nursing.

But we already have a correct term for it. It’s breastfeeding. Men have small amounts of breast tissue too - hence the capacity for male breast cancer. So no need to fuck about with the term really. Just carry on with breastfeeding. It’s a term everyone understands, and if a tiny number of people find it unpalatable to them, then they can ask for an alternative rather than demanding that all women are asked whether they prefer breastfeeding or chest feeding.

Leaving aside that I see my chest and breasts as different parts of my anatomy. A chest infection would not be a breast infection.

"Which idiots at the NHS have sanctioned this shit?"

Where does the OP mention the NHS?

Where does the OP mention the NHS
It mentions health visitors, who are usually employed by the NHS.

I think it is just an article that has been shared on Facebook. Nothing affiliated to the NHS even if the article does say health visitors should be more inclusive by doing xyz. I cannot see that the NHS uses that term anywhere.