Woman attacked by transactivists at speakers corner - part deux

[BeyondNoone]

Here's the link to thread one
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3033126-London-meeting-to-discuss-Gender-Identity-attacked-by-transactivists

I'm just going to sleep, if someone else can add the news links for me please? Thanks :)

JAPAB

"Maybe it is a bit like chest-feeding in public places."

Honestly, that just made me laugh out loud. You read all these threads about how erasing women and the terminology is frightening and deeply concerning and then deliberately poke that into your first sentence.

Are you 12?

As I say, if you object to the stereotype that women wear dresses then by far the biggest perpetrators of it are "cis" women

But there is your logical fallacy @JAPAB

Women wearing dresses is a social convention - a convention of the feminine gender role.

It is a symptom of femininity, not its cause.

Wearing a dress is a symptom, not a CAUSE

But, I don't get why I have to change the language used to define me, in order to include you.

Why do I have to change?

Is someone trying to stop you referring to your breasts as breasts, or to call a purpose you put them to breastfeeding? Is someone trying to stop you referring to yourself as a mother?

Once again, the target group may include you but it includes others too. So sometimes "pregnant people" et al will be needed when someone is talking generally and there is no guarantee that they are only going to be referring to non-trans females.

Blimey, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I don't get why people keep bothering to engage with a poster who is not remotely interested in the subject at hand, but gets kicks out of getting attention and winding women up.

Pregnant people

Biological fact. Men can't get pregnant. I don't even know why I am posting this

Anyone capable of making milk in their own body to feed a human baby is using a breast to do it. A breast attached to a female body.

That female body may have been butchered, stuffed with hormones and answer to the name Derek, but it is still a female body.

But men wear dresses in loads of countries. They might not be called dresses but that is essentially what they are.
All these random stereotypes being dragged up.
Women are a series of observable biological characteristics. And of course we have xx and xy chromosomes.
Xx also pass on mitochondrial DNA. Males cannot possibly do this.

Chestfeeding is a derail.

TRAs are NOT AFAIK demanding call BFing chestfeeding.

I think people have got the wrong end of the stick about chestfeeding,

Transmen specifically call what THEY do chestfeeding. They do not call BFing by women chestfeeding.

It's up to them what they call it's, it's their body! It can be different to BFing because lots of them have had their breasts removed (but still have a bit of mammary glands) and have to contend with not only anti-BFing people but also people staring coz they think they're a man. So it has its own name. Plus there's the whole dysphoric stuff too of course.

It's important we're aware of this stuff if we're going to debate about and with TRAs / transfolk. Otherwise it risks totally derailing the conversation.

Maybe it is a bit like chest-feeding in public places. The law made it clear that this has to be allowed whereas previously there was nothing to formally say that you had to allow it in your restaurant (etc).

I think the reference here is suggesting that we are all chest feeding, and that the law is protecting our right to do so. When, in fact, we are breast feeding.

And, yes, it is not the most important issue. But ALL of it matters.

What is chestfeeding and how does it relate to breastfeeding?

"International Board Certified Lactation Consultant Rachel O'Brien noted on her website that chestfeeding is the term often used by transgender men who nurse their babies, but are uncomfortable with the term breastfeeding. "

"why chestfeeding?

Because not all men who chestfeed have breasts. In a study published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, researchers looked at the experience of transgender men through pregnancy, childbirth, and feeding their newborns. Of the 22 participants, nine had chest masculinization surgery before they conceived their babies, six had the surgery after they gave birth, five wanted the surgery in the future, and two participants did not want the surgery at all. According to The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery, chest masculinization surgery includes removing female breasts to create a male chest, but doesn't remove all of the mammary tissue.

But whether most of the participants had the surgery or not, the study found that nearly all of them avoided the term breasts and preferred to call their upper torso their chest. When it came to feeding their children, however, there was a wide variety of terms used. Six participants used the term breastfeeding, four used the term nursing, three preferred chestfeeding, and some used a combination of terms like mammal feeding and nursing or feeding and mammal feeding."

Although - I take it back, I don't know enough about this to know if some TRAs expect us all to use the term.

Given their track record on other words there probably are, aren't there!

But the word itself doesn't offend me and I think we should be careful of ridiculing it.

One of the reason I am so worried about the TRA ideology is because of the number of women feeling pressured by society to undergo majoy surgery to live as men to shake of the limitations put on them because they're female or a butch lesbian. (The stories from detransitioners are heartwrenching IMO.)

If you've had a mastectomy and you're still managing to feed a baby you can call it what you damn well please IMO, we shouldn't be ridiculing or trying to police the language of others, as long as they're not trying to enforce it on us.

Sorry stripysleeves, as much as it might offend some transmen I believe we need a bit of common sense here.

As well as being a thing a woman might choose to do with her breasts, breastfeeding is a method of infant feeding.

Transmen who have had a double mastectomy but who retain a few mammary glands have to contend with not only the usual disapproval of breastfeeding, and doubletakes if they have taken enough testosterone to look like men, but also the almost definite likelihood that they will be unable to effectively provide nutrition to a child from what's left of their breasts.

Breastfeeding is hard enough already for many many women who have no physical reason why they should not succeed and who desperately want to.

Who are they doing this for? What is the baby supposed to get out of this?

Why are they doing this? Why does the act of feeding a child from your breasts not cause dysphoria for a transman but the word 'breast' does? Why are we expected to tiptoe around words when there is clearly something far more fundamentally amiss with some transmen's mental wellbeing for them to insist on 'chestfeeding' with their non-existent breasts.

The breast is an organ which lactates and is capable of providing nutrition to a whole separate human being. Breasts are female organs and lactation is female physiology. Breasts are fucking amazing! Men are capable of lactation in rare circumstances but it usually signals that something is very wrong.

I'm not prepared to change my language to make a small group of people with deep hatred of their female bodies feel more comfortable, whether they have had a double mastectomy or not. I don't believe that's a good or healthy thing to do for transmen, women or babies.

Totally agree 'pencils'.

Again what would the black community say to a black person who tried to deny their blackness and describe themselves as white or some other colour instead? They sure as hell wouldn't be endorsing that decision or being pressurised into using those words in order to be 'nice'.

More than anything else, the intense focus on words convinces me that trans as we know it today is primarily a cultural phenomenon.

YY Backing. It's internalised oppression. We should be eradicating the causes not tiptoeing round language.

But it's not OK for us to tell a distinct group what to call their practices. This is where we get into dodgy territory.

I really wish some women didn't feel the need to chop their breasts off to be themselves in this society. But that is my perspective. I have NO right to tell transmen what to call their practice of chestfeeding, no matter what I might think of it. It's their culture and up to them.

Where it becomes problematic is where one set of people tries to enforce their ideology on another.

I am not going to call my own breastfeeding chestfeeding/ I would find that offensive.

But to try to police what trans people call their own practices is hypocritical, is it not, when we're objecting to them enforcing terminology on us?

"Why does the act of feeding a child from your breasts not cause dysphoria for a transman" Where are you getting this from?

I would hazard a guess that plenty of transmen do feel dysphoric at breastfeeding. I haven't looked it up. Have you or are you just assuming stuff?

Come on, if we're going to make way with this debate we must treat people with respect. Particularly those who have been pushed to such extremes by our culture, even if we fundamentally disagree on whether transition is the answer.

trans as we know it today is primarily a cultural phenomenon

I agree, it's today's punk. It'll blow over and not be so popular at some point The next generation will look at the narciscistic culture, the ridiculous get-ups, the agression and think "no thanks, you washed up old has-beens" just as my generation looked at the junkies and coke-heads before us and thought "no way! We're not going there!" and all took esctacy and acid instead. We saw the tail end of their cultural movement, and it was ugly enough to warn us all off!

Every large youth movement has some lasting effect on society though. It's the laws that are particularly worrying, isn't it.

The trans movement are the first large youth culture based on body modification (I think?) but they won't be the last.

Technology is changing, fast. People will be able to choose all sorts of body enhancements, modificatons, new senses and transformations in the future, to the point we will have to question - what is a human? This is the stuff of science fiction, but really not so far off reality. We'll see this in our lifetime, I'd bet good money.

I suspect the current trans ideology that you are already what you want to transform into will fall by the wayside and start to look very old fashioned as the technology gets cheaper and people don't need to rely on insurance or the NHS to give them the transformation they desire. There will be no need to justify it on health terms then.

7 real life cyborgs

People are already starting to do this shit for themselves, at home

I just hope the current TRA ideology doesn't do too much damage before it fizzles out and the genuine dysphoric people are allowed to get on with it in peace.

The laws are key though aren't they - if self-ID passes we're in big trouble aren't we, it'll be hard to put that genie back in the bottle.

Why are they doing this? Why does the act of feeding a child from your breasts not cause dysphoria for a transman but the word 'breast' does? Why are we expected to tiptoe around words when there is clearly something far more fundamentally amiss with some transmen's mental wellbeing for them to insist on 'chestfeeding' with their non-existent breasts.

And I guess I can't help wondering why/how a transman - post-op mastectomy - is getting pregnant. I mean I know how a woman gets pregnant - generally through PiV intercourse - but why would a post-op transman be doing this?

I understand about chaotic lives and non-vanilla sexual desire although it makes me feel very vanilla thinking about this and I could also understand a transman who's actually a lesbian wanting a baby and using artificial insemination, but the whole thing is so tangled & weird.

Of course, there's also the awful possibility of rape ...

I know I might seem prurient - I'm judging myself actually and trying to pick my words - but it seems to me that a post-mastectomy pregnancy is evidence of mental confusion needing careful and compassionate therapy, not surgery. If getting pegnant triggers dysphoria, then surely as well as a mastectomy transmen might be looking for a hysterectomy or tubal ligation?

GiantSteps I find your post uncomfortable reading.

Why would a transman want to get pregnant? Well, I would imagine for much the same reason you or I would want to get pregnant - to have a child. Also, people's feelings change as time goes by. I would hazard a guess that 18 years olds having their breasts removed may not feel BFing is at the top of their list of priorities. As time moves on their feelings on that may change.

How would they do it? Well that's their business - I don't go about asking my lesbian friends with kids how they managed it unless they volunteer the information. But to assume that they wouldn't be having PIV sex unless possibly rape sounds incredibly offensive to me!

Transmen aren't one homogenous mass. Like any other groups of people it's a gourp made up of individuals with their own thoughts, feelings and sexualities.

This as well "If getting pegnant triggers dysphoria, then surely as well as a mastectomy transmen might be looking for a hysterectomy or tubal ligation?"

You're putting transmen into one box and trying to work out what all of them must feel using logic about a situation you know not much about. If you're curious, why don't you do some research online to find out more about transmen and pregnancy instead of making sweeping and offensive statements about them?

Your post smacks of "who would want to have sex with them?!" which is I strongly suspect not what you're trying to say.

As I said upthread, I'm deeply troubled about the rise in trans ideology and I'm particularly worried about the rise in women persuing transition as a route out of the gender roles that our society is imposing on us.

If we are to support our daughters growing up in a culture that tells them they need to chop their breasts off in order to reach acceptance then - as well as fighting that ideology with all we have - we need to treat those who have chosen that route with respect and compassion, and not other them like this and treat them like freaks. It's very dangerous IMO.

Times, on it again today.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/linda-bellos-barred-in-cambridge-university-row-0pbdq5sm9?shareToken=66000969235c795040c4c4a8c41f7d0d

And this one

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gender-fluid-girl-boards-with-boys-zv90hk5bp?shareToken=e381232f13598e12feabf59b293a04de

But it's not OK for us to tell a distinct group what to call their practices. This is where we get into dodgy territory.

I really wish some women didn't feel the need to chop their breasts off to be themselves in this society. But that is my perspective. I have NO right to tell transmen what to call their practice of chestfeeding, no matter what I might think of it. It's their culture and up to them.

This is the worst sort of cultural relativism and something I thought we'd moved on from since we learnt to call FGM what it is. You're only paying lip service to it yourself - you are saying we must be respectful by calling this 'chestfeeding' yet at the same time you refer to mastectomy and 'the need to chop their breasts off' rather than the euphemistic 'chest masculinization surgery'.

Faced with harmful cultural practices we need clear language to describe what's going on, especially when those practices affect other people as well as the one practising them. There are two people involved in a breastfeeding relationship. You don't appear to have considered the child in this at all.

GiantSteps puts it well - it seems to me that a post-mastectomy pregnancy is evidence of mental confusion needing careful and compassionate therapy, not surgery. We should be compassionate but that does not include reinforcing delusions.

MrsKnightley The Times is utterly brilliant at the moment

You're only paying lip service to it yourself - you are saying we must be respectful by calling this 'chestfeeding' yet at the same time you refer to mastectomy and 'the need to chop their breasts off' rather than the euphemistic 'chest masculinization surgery'.

Fair point.

Faced with harmful cultural practices is chestfeeding a harmful cultural practice? If it's simply breastfeeding but by another name by a transman who's not had surgery then of coruse it isn't.

I admit I know very little about chestfeeding after surgery. Is this an area you know anything about? Do you have any actual evidence it's detrimental to children?

Transmen are advised to have a hysterectomy within 5 years of starting T because of the increased risk of gynecological cancers. A transman who becomes pregnant and wants to continue needs to stop taking T because it's highly toxic to the foetus. What are the effects on the foetus of T exposure before the pregnancy was detected? What are the effects of recently discontinued maternal testosterone and the atrophy of uterine tissues that will quite likely have caused? Should we just not ask these questions out of politeness and respect?

Meanwhile IVF is increasingly rationed and women's pregnancies are heavily policed from the moment of conception and increasingly pre-conception. There are medications and treatments that are contraindicated in 'women of childbearing age' unless they agree to LARC. We can't get sterilisation despite begging for decades. We need two doctors' permission to get an abortion.

Conception, pregnancy and birth seem to be everybody's business when it's just normal women involved.

is chestfeeding a harmful cultural practice? If it's simply breastfeeding but by another name by a transman who's not had surgery then of coruse it isn't.

Do you have any actual evidence that it's not harmful to be 'chestfed' by a woman so dysphoric about her body she can't even name her own breasts? Is she back on testosterone? What are the effects of that on the child? What are the effects on the mother's mental health of doing an activity that is highly likely to increase her dysphoria? What are the knock on effects of that on the child? You seem convinced that this trans ideology will blow over at some point in the near future. Maybe it will but that child then has to grow up and make sense of this.

I admit I know very little about chestfeeding after surgery. Is this an area you know anything about? Do you have any actual evidence it's detrimental to children?

Transmen who've had 'top surgery' (another lovely euphemism) have had almost all of their breast tissue removed. It's incredibly unlikely they will be able to successfully feed a child from what's left. I ask again, who are they doing this for? What is the baby supposed to get out of this?

None of us 'have any actual evidence' yet of harm, it's all a lovely big uncontrolled experiment. On children.