How would you respond to this?

[Contraceptionismyfriend]

So thanks to this board I've found that I'm not comfortable with the emergence of the forceful Trans movement.

Every single day for the past week without fail my Facebook feed has had discussions regarding the Trans community and how hard they have it (my heart bleeds) usually these have just been on debate groups. One for example was how disgusting it was that people wouldn't have sex them post surgery based on them being Trans.

Anyway. Today this post has broken the camels back. How is this bloody possible?! Women (ACTUAL WOMEN) are still fighting for breastfeeding rights and protections. And while we're doing that we now have to bow down and ensure that 'chest-feeders' aren't upset by a bloody image that they don't feel represents them.

What I'm asking is. When I have jumped in and started debating my view I usually can't sound forceful or knowledgeable enough. What sources are good to read? I've seen some twitter users mentioned. I try to follow threads on here but I find they move to fast.

Also. What's this science that proves trans brains are different? Is there a peer reviewed paper I can read?

Here's a great Twitter thread which critiques the transgenderist interpretation of an article I've seen referred to by trans activists as proof:

twitter.com/FeministBiolog1/status/1181518191564079104

It includes this link to an article in "nature," which is a science journal.
www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17563-z

Sorry, a bit unclear there- the second link is to the same article dealt with in the twitter thread (and I have seen this article offered as "proof" before)...

Thanks for that link; really useful.

I suppose a critical analysis of the image is that women don't have to have long hair and so with that whole gender stereotypes thing in mind, you could say let the image have short hair.

However, in the olden days, when most people breastfed or passed the baby around, everyone had long hair. Maybe. So it's a bit of a silly point. But hey, short hair looks cool and let's face it is easier with a small baby. From a truly inclusive POV the hair looks like straight Eurasian hair so perhaps could be a bit different.

Every female who has given birth and is breastfeeding a child WILL have breasts. That's an anatomical name of that body part. Mastitis is an infection of the breast. Thrush is an infection of the breast. A bleb is a thing on the nipple. On the breast.

ODFO. Twats.

By being inclusive to trans men and saying "not just women breastfeed" , effectively and logically "woman" now means femininity.
This is offensive to those of us who associate woman with our biology and not our personalities.

The convention in health is not to publish data where there is a vanishingly small number of people affected - typically less than 5 - so that individuals can't be identified.

I propose adopting the same approach to Transmen who wish to breastfeed and respecting their anonymity.

In what way is the image supposed to be non-inclusive to trans people?

Do TRAs understand that a group for breastfeeding people is exclusionary to people who aren't breastfeeding and that's normal and okay of course they don't

OP, who gets to decide about your logo? presumably you have a steering group/committee or similar? you need to ignore what these people are saying on FB and focus on your core task (I presume to encourage and support breastfeeding mothers)- think about those people, they are the ones who matter. Will your logo attract them? will they understand it as applying to them? For example, if your logo featured an obviously white woman, it could be reasonably criticised as potentially off putting to BME women. As a PP has said the number of trans men likely to want to bf is absolutely tiny. Better to alienate them than risk not attracting the other 99.999% of potential breastfeeders. Your function is not to tick some crazy inclusive box but to support women and their babies.
Good luck

Och just tell them to fuck off till they find their brains and start using their brains

I like the logo with the shorter hair. Actually it looks like the same woman with her hair tied back as she hasn't washed it for (insert age of baby) days.
But not because she looks male in it as she doesn't.

Yes, what StillWeRise said.

It seems that everything women do, even things that men cannot possibly do because of biology, must still be focused on men; women are being derailed into becoming a support group for men, even though it's something that men cannot ever, ever do, because of biology.

I would ask them, what is the real objection here to this image? Anyone, whatever they call themselves of identify as, who is nursing a baby, will have those kinds of breasts, whatever word they want to use for them.

As an aside, I think the logo is beautiful.

I would ask them, what is the real objection here to this image? Anyone, whatever they call themselves of identify as, who is nursing a baby, will have those kinds of breasts, whatever word they want to use for them.

At a guess the objection would be that the person in the logo is too feminine/not feminine enough, that she's too obviously a 'ciswoman' which makes the TW have bad feelz about themselves, and that the person in the logo isn't sitting under a banner proclaiming TWAW to show her understanding of her place and acknowledgement of the stunning and brave ones.

Most of all, I'd say it's a front and centre fuck you to persons with lady penises, essentially saying 'you're never going to be able to do this no matter how much noise you make' and they can't stand it.

Once again it's our place to make men feel better about themselves (it really isn't, no matter how much they scream about their feelings).

How do people manage to survive in the world at all if they get upset when breastfeeding (something only women can do) is illustrated with a woman WITH LONG HAIR!

Questioning their thinking rather than making statements is often a useful way to shed light on this stupidity.

I find this useful in most discussions, anyway.

I think that is a beautiful logo, just saying. It's only representative of a woman not saying all women have to have long hair. And surely a transman can have long hair too! (Unless that's not manly enough. )

On the logo, it can be argued that it's too stereotypical feminine, though. In the sense that many women don't have such long flowing hair. It's also white centric if anyone wants to go there.
But that's the problem with most images. There is no single image that can represent an entire group.

Having said that, maybe just focus on baby in arms feeding, rather than the mother.

(Side note: I'd be all for men getting hormone treatments to be able to breastfeed, but I can't see that there would be many takers. )

cookies thanks for that twitter thread, really useful. Brains are plastic and if you feed them a stereotype, you'll see a stereotype sometimes, I guess.

This research shows a difference between trans and none trans people. So forget about sexed brains completely!
agencia.fapesp.br/study-investigates-brain-structure-of-transgender-people/27325/

This research says there's no difference, and both the two articles above are pants.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31368487

Basically a huge amount of research needs to be done to find out what on earth is going on.

No one's brain was born in the wrong body.

Apparently a " lady brain is one that sees the body as female." I'll never understand how gender dysphoria got declassified from the range of mental illnesses.

Also fuck identity politics. I am so sick of this bullshit. Your logo is lovely.

And women breastfeeding their babies is a beautiful thing.

I'm so angry about this. Breastfeeding is hard enough for some without this total nonsense.

Of course the group is exclusive. Exclusive in the non-moral sense of being for breastfeeding women only.

You could try the tactic of playing them at their own game. Ask them what it is about the image that makes them assume it is not of a trans person? Are they assuming that a trans person doesn't pass, shock, horror? The bigots!

Have you heard of the Hawthorne effect? Famous psychology experiment where factory workers increased their output because they were being observed?

Small focus groups can have the same effect and are less valid than for example, asking people on the street to take a glancing look at a logo. A small group will over perform and come up with all sorts of objections / creativity / ideas because they feel they ought to justify their worth and will over analyse something, which has happened here with this breastfeeding symbol.

Common sense says you should stick with your logo. If you asked 100 people on the street (which I'd recommend), you'd get very little come back.

And ultimately you are the decision holder. You've asked for their input, you can consider it but you hold the decision. Publish it as is, and if you get come back have a standard wording you use for any negativity such as:

as 99.5% of breasfeeders are women, we feel the the logo accurately represents the overwhelming majority of our target population.

Or: we discovered that our readers are a varied bunch - from breastfeeding mothers to supportive male and female partners, supportive grandparents, extended families, healthcare providers, education providers - the list of breadfeeding champions is fantastically endless. It's impossible to represent everyone in one symbol so we've taken the purposeful decision to focus the symbol on the heart of our topic, a mother breastfeeding a child.

I've now joined the group. There was no transphobia and I love the symbol.

As I said before, BAME women are actually and actively discriminated against in breastfeeding. There was a horrifying woman's hour series on ante and postnatal care and breastfeeding was covered. It was quite horrifying that racist assumptions were made about BAME women and feeding.

So if there's any hoo har about inclusion and breastfeeding, I think this should be considered first and foremost. As far as I can tell, a trans man seeking bf help either 1.doesn't make a narcissistic fuss. Or 2. Is treated with huge amounts of care and respect because they're relatively unique.

Has anyone pointed out that the transman might be non binary and have long hair and so that's transphobic to assume they'll have short hair...