I've been kicked out of a breastfeeding group...

[FairfaxAikman]

On Facebook for objecting to the term "chestfeeding".

For a page called Breastfeeding is the Biological Norm they have a curious aversion to biological reality. 🙄

“XY males who fetishise breast feeding” is the short answer to your question, 18.

Hormone meds are awful

Are they? Yet a lot of women spend most of their adult lives ingesting synthetic hormones.

The message they posted is insane. The last sentence is revealing. You, and all of us, are also entitled to live our lives being true to ourselves and shouldn’t be forced to accept others belief systems.

It's to be inclusive of transmen, who don't want to use the word 'breast' because we live in a pornified society. It's wrong and bonkers and TM need to get over themselves if they are actually bearing and breastfeeding children rather than helping to reinforce the pornification of 'breast' by dissociating from the word.
But I'm curious to know how much of the pressure to change the term is actually down to TMs and how much to MTF TRAs and white knight wokesisters.

I must say I have never heard of this.Surely this is just completely crazy!.When my children were young ,we had NCT groups and advice and support on BF.I would see if anything like this is available in your area(must be groups all across UK I should think).I BF until about 15 months following a difficult birth and Surgery and they were very supportive to me.The whole things sounds mad TBH!

Breast is pornified? Surely that should be tits, knockers, fun bags etc...

That's crazy. We should be promoting breastfeeding as something all women can do not making it sound like some weird niche activity. Chestfeeding FFS!

What else should we change the words for so we don’t upset a handful of men?

Surely it is transmen that want to be referred to as chest feeders? I would have thought transwomen would want to be referred to as breastfeeders, as they have made every effort to grow breasts?

LordProfFekko

Breast is pornified? Surely that should be tits, knockers, fun bags etc...

I should have been clearer: I meant 'breast' as concept rather than word. Presumably there are TMs who wouldn't be happy to think of their 'breasts'. Indeed, the way men focus on them is put forward as one of the possible reasons people want to transition. To use the word 'chest' removes the titillation aspect. I'm not defending it; I think it's bonkers to insist that everyone else uses the term.

My understanding is that 'chestfeeding' is the term used by women who transition to be a man and then want to feed their babies but don't want to call their 'chest area' breasts as this would refer to them being a woman.

I really struggle to understand this. They don't want to refer to themselves as women but they have done and are doing the thing that only a woman can do.

And tbh it is not about them but the poor little TRA who finds the term 'triggering' aka no-one is allowed to talk about biological reality because they say so. They have managed to twist it so women do it because it is 'kind'.

dumb men.

It is all about TW. All of the language we find dehumanising, is pushed at their behest - not due to TM.

If it was about TM, campaigns re prostrate cancer would be aimed at prostate havers.

They are not. Men’s health still talks about MEN although none of it relates to TM.

A scan of their FB page shows picture after picture and some videos, some illustrations of women using breasts to feed babies. No chests are feeding babies in any of their photos. Every single woman is using a breast. There are no men feeding children shown on their page. So I can’t help but wonder exactly who they think they are placating with their insistence on using the word “chestfeeding”. It doesn’t appear in their group name, it doesn’t appear in any of the images they have added to their page. It doesn’t appear in 99.9% of their references to the act. It would appear that they don’t actually consider it chestfeeding themselves, so it looks very much like virtue signalling, that they are very happy to throw women who need breastfeeding support under the bus for. For who???

And do they honestly think that the people they are placating will have their back when the chips are down? Really? Do they genuinely think these people give a fuck about breastfeeding women and their babies? Clue: they don’t.

Yet a lot of women spend most of their adult lives ingesting synthetic hormones.

And a significant proportion of them suffer side effects of varying degrees of debilitation, up to and including suicidal ideation, so it’s not a harmless thing to do.

Im thinking of joining a group. Maybe yoga. I will then demand that this now be referred to a Fekksercise. And anyone who disagrees will be expelled and banned from doing downward dog for ever.

Afficionados of the genre will recall Ms Chesty Morgan, who was ever so pornified in the film 'Deadly Weapons.'

@TeamUnicorn don't get me wrong, it's not something I agree with but I have read an article on it and that was why the 'word' came about. Personally I am not sure how you can deny you are a woman while being pregnant and breastfeeding but there you have it.

Personally I am not sure how you can deny you are a woman while being pregnant and breastfeeding but there you have it.

By confusing sex and 'gender', in a nutshell.

@ErrolTheDragon females (women) have the reproductive system that is able to create and grow a baby, females have breast tissue that will produce milk to feed that baby (although there have been rare cases of males lactating but it is usually a sign of something more sinister going on). It comes across to me as someone who wants to pick and choose, they identify as a man but biologically are happy to take advantage of being a woman. I genuinely don't understand.

Start calling it thoraxfeeding and see how many people say it's ridiculous. Then point out that thorax and chest mean exactly the same thing.

Fucking batshit.

If a trans man wanted to refer to themselves as “chest feeding”, I would find it irritating, but tbh I wouldn’t say anything. If that’s what someone wants to call it then, fine.

I would strongly object to the term being used generically in place of “breastfeeding”. Because I fed my babies with breasts. It would be like trying to deny my biology and deny that part of being a woman because it might trigger someone, as though breasts are shameful and need a euphemism. That’s misogyny.

I agree with pp who says that those saying "it doesn't cost anything" to use the term like chestfeeding to make a tiny, tiny, tiny number of people feel happier - it does cost. It costs all the women (undoubtedly a larger number than those who want to use this language) who won't access bf help because they find this exclusionary of them, as a woman. Like the OP (who obviously doesn't actually need help right now - but what if she did?).

There are woefully inadequate resources dedicated to breastfeeding anyway: my example of lack of education of health professionals around medications and breastfeeding upthread is the tip of the iceberg - ANYTHING that detracts from real, practical support costs both mothers and children. Of whom there will be many hundreds of thousands more than anyone who wants to police other women's language in this way.

And no-one's stopping someone individually from calling bf 'chestfeeding' themselves. As I said, my DD has her own word for it. But if I went around trying to force everyone else to use that word and having a hissy fit and crying toddlerphobia if other people didn't fall into line or disagreed that that should be the new word for breastfeeding and that people using the term breastfeeding was literal violence against my daughter and I then that would be different, unhinged, bullying behaviour, wouldn't it?

The OP was THROWN OFF A FACEBOOK GROUP because she refused to use the language and challenged it as unhelpful for mothers trying to breastfeed (which I agree with) and sexist (which I also agree with). She was simply giving her opinion that using that term is harmful - harmful in fact to the exact demographic a breastfeeding page is aimed at.