"chest feeding" men should not be put above women and babies by La Leche League. Reasonable?

[GenerativeAIBot]

How many women will self exclude based on this outcome? How many children will suffer because of it? Anything more than zero is unacceptable

This is the direct and foreseeable outcome of ever allowing the word woman to be mutable. This is the ultimate outcome of all these progressive policies, generally well meaning, with terrible outcomes

https://archive.ph/NsquC

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/breastfeeding-charity-chief-quits-over-transgender-policy-zhvhl8nps

Identity politics should be dead and we need to bury it.

@izimbra has missed quite a few simple questions. You have to wonder about the motivations.

There was no sense in that post. At all.

Indeed Wes. But I am ever the optimist and believe that maybe it is just because they miss the questions rather than their sole purpose for posting is to shame people who they disagree with.

Maybe they will answer the other questions too?

Or maybe they really have nothing to contribute except for posts intended to minimise legitimate concerns, and demonise those raising legitimate concerns. Considering I have seen them post that they rarely come across people with transgender identities in real life, they seem to then spend a whole lot of time dismissing the experiences of others based on their own experience and posting shaming posts when others are having discussions.

But hey, we may get an answer yet!

Back to trans men and "chestfeeding", riddle me this.

Apparently we are supposed to call it "chestfeeding" because calling it "breastfeeding" is upsetting to people who see breasts as a female body part and don't wish to consider themselves female, even though they have kept their breasts and all their other female body parts in order to become pregnant, give birth to and feed a baby.

But the people who apparently find the word "breastfeeding" triggering because it includes the word "breast" (a female body part) are the same people for whose benefit terms such as "menstruators" and "people with cervixes" are being used.

If "breastfeeding" is unacceptably triggering for you, surely being referred to as a "menstruator" or a "person with a cervix" is also triggering for the same reason.

It seems to me that when we wish to use the term "women" to talk about women's health issues, we are being told to refer to individual female body parts instead for the benefit of female people who believe "women" is an identity they do not share, but when the term we are already using relates to female body parts (such as "breastfeeding") it is still unacceptable and still needs to be changed.

This makes me think it actually has nothing to do with triggering anyone's dysphoria and is actually all about control, hampering women's ability to describe their own biological reality, and forcing compliance with an ideology most of us don't share, regardless of the circumstances.

The language used has to straddle the dysphoria and biological reality. A female body lactates and menstruates as a matter of fact. But language can be chosen that enables those facts to be described but avoids emphasising their female nature. Similar slightly obfuscatory language is used elsewhere in medicine and life where the reality is uncomfortable or brutal.

Bloody good point @MissScarletInTheBallroom

I'm not sure I quite follow.

"Breastfeeding" has been renamed "chestfeeding" which is an absolutely nonsensical term because you cannot feed a baby from a male "chest". You can only feed a baby from a female breast which has mammary glands inside it.

If we are going to invent a nonsensical and non scientifically accurate term for breastfeeding in order to pretend that it has nothing to do with being female, why have we not also invented nonsensical and non scientifically accurate terms for menstruation, cervix and other female body parts?

Unfortunately I fear they’re trying, with eg the abysmal and deeply offensive 'front hole'.

Just to go back to @BalletCat's The word cis is a real word that has a meaning. Just because you don't like it doesn't it isn't a thing - you what now? Words are 'real words'…..well…..yes? And? Why does that mean we can’t object to them, or analyse the ways in which the definition of words are being twisted and/or misapplied? What a strange and confused statement. You can’t be the sole arbiter of language (much as the TRAs are trying to be).

The other significant issue with ‘cis’ is that its very usage forcibly categorises someone into having a philosophical belief that they may or may not have. It is very problematic for those who do not have a ‘gender identity’.

In fact, to extrapolate it out : if ‘cis’ excludes those who do not ‘identify as having a gender aligned with the sex they were born’ then the trans gender community would be fucking huge. Because it would include everyone who doesn’t believe in gender identities at all. Not through deliberately self-categorisation as ‘agender’ but simply through rejection of anything to do with that philosophical belief that is the foundation for gender identity and the theories that shape those identities.

Because, the only commonality with all those claiming a transgender identity is philosophical belief. Not a medical condition according to transgender people and academics and medical professionals who are transgender and shaping public awareness. No scientific and robustly established material facts.

So only philosophical belief.

And I would be pleased to know just what other philosophical belief should be given the power to shape a whole populations language to the extent that we are seeing these language changes being demanded?

If someone who was religious called me a non-believer, I cannot dispute that. Because it reflects my reality. I don’t believe in their religion so in their religion centred language that is what I am. It could be considered neutral in that respect. It doesn’t change my belief.

However, calling me ‘cis’ is not neutral. It falsely categorises my beliefs and is not a neutral act at all. Calling me ‘cis’ coercively forces me to believe in gender identity and the theories that are foundational to them.

“I stand by the fact trans man/woman is a simple self obvious term and the only peouwho don't understand it are either stupid and can't understand the semantics of the English language or are misunderstanding on purposes to make a point, like you have done in your post. Your prejudice is showing.”

If you balletcat want to accept the terms ‘cis’ or ‘trans’ for yourself. Go for it.

What you should not be doing is trying to shame any person who doesn’t believe in your personally constructed reality that doesn’t reflect established and proven scientific fact. It really makes your accusations of stupidity and prejudice look like mere projection.

Or the equally grim ‘bonus hole’.

I mean, what is it about the female people who reject their materially real sex that seems to mean they must enforce such misogynistic terms.

It is like a male who has extreme body modification declaring that a cavity created to fit a male penis or a sex toy is what a vagina is. Those male people have reduced the female body part to being a fuck hole through their actions. You really cannot get past the misogyny that is apparent in this concept either.

I find this situation dangerous, repugnant and surely against every single safe guarding policy on earth.

They may as well shut up shop now, the damage I suspect is irreparable.

The word Cis is like having a word for people that don't collect stamps.

Completely bloody pointless.

Males who want to breastfeed are perverts. Disgraceful.

But the vagina isn't even the hole closest to the front. That's the urethra, surely.

I mean, bonus hole makes slightly more sense than front hole to describe a hole which isn't at the front, if you consider it an extra hole between the anus and the urethra, which everyone has.

But "bonus" has positive connotations, which seems weird when the people using this term wish they didn't have one and that they had a penis instead, and the people who have a hole created out of penile tissue call it a vagina.

If I ever see a dude trying to force a child to suck on his nipples, I shall call the police.

I'll report him for CSA and I'll report me for ABH due to punching him in the face.

I think it must be incredibly hard bearing a child as a trans man, and probably extremely distressing. I'd imagine going to a class that called it "breastfeeding" would be the least of their worries

//

Agree with this and actually have to ask - if your female biology distresses and triggers you to the degree everyone around you is compelled to change their language and processes to lessen this, why in gods name (accidents aside obv) would you put yourself through that all womanly experience of pregnancy?

There's no point. I've gone through these threads and read your comments.

The reality is this: all the huge problems facing women right now - the state of the NHS, women's lack of access to housing, appalling postnatal care, women's poverty - and you're typing hundreds of thousands of words and expending vast amounts of energy in a state of fury about any and all organisations showing acceptance and support of a tiny and marginalised community. (in fact a community so small that most of you would never know even existed if you hadn't made engaging in GC debates on social media a central core of your identity).

It's boring and frankly a bit bizarre.

I see it as I have a very rare medical condition that causes issues with my nerves and co-ordination. I don't join in on support groups for people with sciatica, because we have different nerve issues. There are no support groups for people with my condition because it's rare but also not a big deal generally. So if I need support, I'd have to make my own group.

If a trans man (i.e. female to male) wants to breast/chest feed and needs support, they need a men's group! Make their own!

"I think it must be incredibly hard bearing a child as a trans man, and probably extremely distressing. I'd imagine going to a class that called it "breastfeeding" would be the least of their worries"

The important phrase here that's doing a lot of heavy lifting is 'I imagine'.

Because nobody on this thread has any interest or experience in actually listening to transgender people, or listening to people that provide services for them.

Ok. And so because you, personally, have different priorities and women are not focusing enough on your personal priorities, you feel you should be able to shame them. That you can actively find time, hypocritically, to censure women for not believing in your personal beliefs and focusing on what you want?

Yes, we understand that you think the numbers of people in the population who are transgender are directly correlated to the significance of the issues we are discussing. The discussions you don’t like so shame others for having.

That belief that the issues are small in significance is as misinformed as your opinion has been that ‘most of us have never met or talked to a trans person’ (paraphrasing). Yet for something apparently so insignificant, you feel the need to enter threads with the sole purpose to shame others for discussing it.

I've got no interest in listening to why a male wants to insert his nipple into a babies mouth for the purpose of excreting chemicals into the baby.

Because I don't want to indulge his fetish.

You can go right ahead with that.

You can minimise child abuse all you wish but most, right minded, people are appalled that this behaviour is condoned because only a tiny minority of males want to act out their fetish on babies.

I have to question how anyone can think that this is in any way acceptable.

But you do you.

Why do they need their own support?

I would have no issue attending the same breastfeeding support group as a trans man.

I just don't think it needs to be renamed "chestfeeding" and I don't want it to become all about the trans man and their identity. If they are only there to get help with feeding their baby then their identity doesn't need to be discussed at all. At most, all I need to do is remember to refer to the trans man as "he" if I need to refer to them in the third person during the support group, which I probably won't need to do.

Trans women shouldn't be in support groups for breastfeeding mothers because they are male, and they don't need their own support for breastfeeding because they shouldn't be attempting to breastfeed.

A better question is why organisations such as LLL, the NHS and so on are expending so much energy on this tiny minority (who are not actually marginalised in any meaningful sense of the word) at the expense of the majority?

So you can't actually answer the question and you think men should be allowed to infiltrate women's spaces, without consent from women, simply because they want to.

Got it.

Just imagine holding women in the degree of contempt that you do. It's actually disgusting.

Trans men are female.