Transgender breast / chest feeding

[334bu]

Is this really what the National Hospital Infant Feedin Network should be promoting?
mobile.twitter.com/HIFN12/status/1275353652266295296

@Clymene sorry if I’m being silly but are you talking about the medication to induce lactation or the medication that the parent might take as part of their transition/realignment (not sure what the correct term is)

Excellent post Clymene
We must not stand by while the safety of babies and children is sacrificed in favour of the narcissistic demands of adults.

A close male friend of mine died from breast cancer. He called it breast cancer, because that's what it was. His wife and two kids also called it breast cancer because that's what he fucking died from.

Your chest is something entirely different.

Quite why medical personnel are pandering to a tiny number of people when males who get BREAST cancer have no problem calling it that, I have no fucking idea.

[quote AIMD]@Clymene sorry if I’m being silly but are you talking about the medication to induce lactation or the medication that the parent might take as part of their transition/realignment (not sure what the correct term is)[/quote]
I'm talking about testosterone that people born female who identify as men and subsequently bear children take.

Inducing weird lactation in XY people is not about feeding babies.

The "chestfeeding" thing is what tipped me over the edge on Facebook. I had done so well at staying silent about the whole gender critical v trans rights debate. I had managed to refrain from commenting on posts referring to "pregnant people" and "birthing people" even though they give me the absolute rage. But when I saw a post about breastfeeding and chestfeeding it just felt like the final straw.

"Chestfeeding" is the ultimate selfish self-indulgent act.

If baby does not have a female parent who is physically able to breastfeed them, there is a perfectly acceptable alternative available: formula milk. Countless parents formula feed through necessity or choice. Mothers struggling to breastfeed are put under huge pressure to just switch to formula. But for some reason formula isn't good enough for trans parents?! They have to pretend they're actually breastfeeding?? WHY?

I agree with a PP who said that if a trans man who has birthed a child wants to breastfeed and call it chestfeeding, fine. But I suspect that person doesn't exist. This is about trans women wanting to appropriate breastfeeding, isn't it?

I will never be ok with the erasure of the word "woman" and especially not in the context of the FEMALE biological functions of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.

OMFG I just looked at the link to the organisation HIFN is promoting - one of their stories is about a man who "chest fed" by using milk from the "gestational carrier" and a test tube or something.

That is some fucking dystopian weird shit happening right there - I am genuinely disgusted that babies are being used as props in whatever weird fucking fantasies these males are having.

How the actual fuck can this be happening and organisations like HIFN be promoting this kind of shit.

Someone please tell me that it is not too long away until the penny will drop and this kind of shit will be stopped.

Just to elaborate on the DES point - none of the women who took DES realised it had harmed their babies. I heard one woman saying that she only found out after having a scan because she couldn't conceive, to discover the uterus was the size of a walnut.

It was years and years after women took the drug that they discovered the impact it had had on their developing babies.

There’s been no research on the effect of medication on infants because it’s unethical.

I took sertraline for 6 months whilst breastfeeding my youngest, my GP is very clear that they are not completely sure on the effects but medicating pregnant or lactating women is based on best outcome and the information they do have is anecdotal based on x amount of women taking whichever drug not having negative outcome (as far as they know)

Medicating a biological male to induce milk that is not designed for infant consumption is not a best outcome. It serves no purpose but to fulfil the need of adoration from the trans women, there is no positive outcome for the child as presumably there would still be a natal women who carried and gave birth to the baby and if they didn’t want to breastfeed the parents can choose formula as an alternative.

I take it back I’m not ok with the term chest feeding because it’s never fucking enough.

Jesus. Hi 2020.

No cis please

I still don't understand why that's a problem. I highly doubt the medical profession would be facilitating this if it was harmful

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This whole shit show: sterilising pre pubescent children; performing elective surgeries that destroy sexual function; setting children up for a lifetime of medication harms children.

The medical profession are walking into this through a combination of blind ignorance and fear for their jobs, because a powerful lobby group is telling them because they must.

As I mentioned on the "nursing parents" thread. It does sometimes feel as if any organisation or place where women gather together to support one another, feel safe and find strength from each other or just relax and have fun away from the pressures of male company and male predatory behaviour are being targeted.

Breastfeeding support, midwifery, gynaecology, hospital wards, toilets, changing rooms, sport, Girl Guiding, Women's Institute, if it has the word woman or girl in it or is obviously connected with our biology that is where we are being pressured to change our language and remove our boundaries.

It sometimes feels to me like we are being divided, so we can be conquered.

And chest feeding like so much of this movement seems to lack any basis in rationality. As others have said chest usually refers to what is on the inside and breast on the outside in both men an women. It seems like just another way of forcing difference or something. I can't quite find the words...

And as others have said too just how is it that a word can be triggering but the material reality of pregnancy, breastfeeding and mothering a baby isn't?

It does sometimes feel as if any organisation or place where women gather together to support one another, feel safe and find strength from each other or just relax and have fun away from the pressures of male company and male predatory behaviour are being targeted.

You're correct. They are.

I can’t see why ‘people that menstruate / menstruators‘ is acceptable but ‘people that breastfeed/ breastfeeding’ is not. In One they’re being termed after a bodily function and that is acceptable even in terms of marketing (on a monthly basis) but the other (for a major life event that will affect a minority group) they’re taking as triggering.

We need to be able to be specific in language. It’s not exclusionary or designed to offend - its biology.

I think we can safely assume that doctors would not be prescribing medication that would harm infants to parents wishing to breastfeed. I'm sure the professionals involved have a much better grasp of the science than we do!

Why do you think that? Why do you assume we aren’t scientists and medical professionals? (Many of us are). Have you heard of thalidomide? That was prescribed by doctors with the best intent to mothers suffering from morning sickness.

Or for that matter, have you read the recent report into mesh repair, hormonal pregnancy tests etc that showed terrible harm would have been avoided if only the ‘professionals’ had listened to women.

What about the ongoing maternity scandals which have caused the death of mothers and babies.

Fuck off with your patronising ‘doctors know best’

I think we can safely assume that doctors would not be prescribing medication that would harm infants to parents wishing to breastfeed. I'm sure the professionals involved have a much better grasp of the science than we do!

Clearly there are good doctors and there are those like Dr Stella Immanuel that still holds a license to practice. I am sure that while this is quite extreme, there are still plenty like the recent dr who tweeted that sex is a spectrum (dr Alex armitage) who are willing to go along with concepts they know are not true just to be inclusive.

www.cnn.com/2020/07/29/politics/stella-immanuel-trump-doctor/index.html

The vast majority of medications are completely fine to take while breastfeeding (not while pregnant normally). The teeny amount that goes through breast milk is normally considered safe. The specialist pharmacist at breast feeding support network can check all the research studies and email then to anyone whose doctors need the evidence. Drugs to stimulate lactation in female bodied people are safe also, as their breasts are designed to make food for babies. However male bodied people whose nipples leak milk normally do so because something is seriously wrong- normally it’s a side effect of cancer drugs or a serious hormonal problem, and there’s nothing to say this milk like substance is at all ok for an infant. If studies come out saying it is breast milk then fine, but until then it’s not ok to experiment on children, especially when in developed countries formula is a perfectly adequate substitute.

Jesus wept.

Would I be allowed on this board these days to question the motivations of a biological male who wants to try and suckle an infant? Just asking.

WTF will be coming out of the nipple of a biological male that a baby should be anywhere near anyway?

I am an adoptive mother and in my adoptive circles in the UK and in all the research we undertook, the only adoptive parent I ever heard discussing inducing lactation was because of religious reasons (and it was only a little - not to feed). Unless I have really missed something, inducing lactation for adopted babies really isn't thing in the UK (unless we just don't talk about it??).

It might be different in the US because if the adoption process (and the circumstances surrounding adoption). In the UK most babies/children are taken into care (because of harm/risk) rather than being relinquished. Therefore to adopt a very young baby you would have to go down the route of 'Foster to Adopt'. Even if you 'fostered' the child from day dot, you would not have full parental responsibility until many months down the line...because there is a lot of legal/court stuff to get through. With new 'foster to adopt' parents, inducing lactation would ethically (I assume) be a big no no, because of the legal status of the parental responsibility and the fact that the child could go back to the biological parents.

I know this isn't the point of the thread, but I don't want adoptive parents being cited as a 'it already happens' IYSWIM.

@Sneakyfox

I am glad you made that point. I was thinking it too. As I understand it adoption in the US is not so very different from surrogacy in that the lack of state support makes it an almost impossible situation for a single mother. A supply of babies of economically disadvantaged mothers is available for economically advantaged couples and that adoption administration in the US doesn't require a period of reflection, assessment or for changing minds. In the UK it appears that there is a presumption that a baby is always better off with the birth mother if that can be made possible. UK adoption is about finding a home and family for the child in need rather than supplying a baby for a couple who want one. Breastfeeding an adopted baby as you say is quite rare in UK due to the time needed to fully assess the situation of the birth mother and if there is any possibility of safely reuniting mother and baby or finding a blood relative who will care for the baby. In the UK most adoption is of older children, not babies. We don't have the situation where an agreement is made between birth mother and adoptive parents during pregnancy it is all via official channels post birth and due to abuse or neglect of the child which can't be resolved with support or training.

Why would a trans-gender male who identifies as a woman want to use the term chestfeeding anyway? A trans-gender female who identifies as a man might prefer the term, but wouldn't it be 'triggering' for a trans-gender male who identifies as a woman to use chest instead of breast?

For all those using the term cis....it's not a real word, you are looking for the term woman...just woman

This is all about validating the selfish needs of an adult and not putting the child at the heart of feeding. Just another way of trying to undervalue and eradicate women from an entirely female function.

This is the anecdote a PP mentioned:

www.thestranger.com/queer-issue-2017/2017/06/21/25225867/my-first-time-breastfeeding-my-daughter

This person talks about how it made them feel validated, how they got off on it and how they pulled the newborn baby from its birth mother so they could chestfeed.

It was completely unsuccessful and the baby ended up on formula.

Was it worth it? Really?

Was it in the best interest of the newborn baby? Was it fuck.