Today on Twitter

[DancelikeEmmaGoldman]

It’s genderwoo whack-a-mole.

[PickleC]

Nothing seems to be enough until language has been utterly twisted, until women have been erased as a sex class and been forced to completely capitulate. I don't think people would even believe me half the time about the sort of text being used because it seems so ridiculous to the average person.

Some of these sorts of messages will surely include serious health advice and to make them more difficult for women unsure of the biologicial terms used, or where English isn't the first language or where there may be learning difficulties goes beyond annoying to being outright dangerous. To obscure that when you should be as accessible as possible is disgusting. But hey - maybe women just need to 'be kind' and its a small price to pay eh?

[NeedToKnow101]

@PurpleHoodie

The Plain English Campaign was fantastic.

It needs reviving.

I agree.

[Quaagars]

Missing what's wrong with that first one?
Is it because they include chest feeding?
They also say breastfeeding, that hasn't been left out - so they say they support everyone to feed, that's a good thing, surely?
Could understand more if they hadn't mentioned breast feeding too but they have

[ErrolTheDragon]

@Quaagars

Missing what's wrong with that first one?
Is it because they include chest feeding?
They also say breastfeeding, that hasn't been left out - so they say they support everyone to feed, that's a good thing, surely?
Could understand more if they hadn't mentioned breast feeding too but they have

'Human milk feeding families'. I've given my critique of that upthread.

[ErrolTheDragon]

(Leaving aside that 'chestfeeding' is odd - 'breast' applies to both sexes and is different to chest. Clear if you remember males can get breast cancer.)

[Escapeplanning]

More twitter. Jamil again.

[Deliriumoftheendless]

She’s sounds like a lovely bleeder.

[Escapeplanning]

The bleeder is ironically correct though, it's definitely the way young girls are experiencing trans "treatment" that should be questioned.

[HecatesCats]

I always think of the film Carrie when I hear the term menstruators.

Tempting to post a photo of Sissy Spacek drenched head to foot in blood & "MENSTRUATORS!!! 😱" every time it's posted on Twitter. It's so freaking othering.

[GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman]

Is it because they include chest feeding?
Well, let's face it, it's fucking hard to give a baby human milk without breasts being involved in some way, isn't it?

I am so tired of language being contorted, and women and womanhood being erased.

The term is breastfeeding. Coz human milk in made in breasts.
Get the fuck over it.

[GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman]

*is

My rage is having an impact on my spelling.

[CharlieParley]

@Quaagars

Missing what's wrong with that first one?
Is it because they include chest feeding?
They also say breastfeeding, that hasn't been left out - so they say they support everyone to feed, that's a good thing, surely?
Could understand more if they hadn't mentioned breast feeding too but they have

As they are talking about breastfeeding babies, their language is incorrect.

A female who identifies as trans who has had a mastectomy and therefore presents with a chest that resembles that of a man, cannot breastfeed. A female who identifies as trans who still has breasts, is feeding her baby with her breasts, not her chest. Because the chest is the entire frontal upper body, hence we say chest infection. Men are born with a small amount of breast tissue, which is why they can get breast cancer, we don't say chest cancer.

You need fully developed breast tissue with milk ducts to be able to nurse a baby, and anyone who can do so is breastfeeding.

Accurate language is important, vital even in medicine. And with millions of women breastfeeding every day and just a few score (if that) of females who identify as trans breastfeeding, demanding or expecting the language change to accommodate a fraction of a percent of these mothers is preposterous overreach.

We do not proclaim that humans have 11 fingers or toes even though polydactyly is more frequently occurring than babies being nursed by a mother who identifies as trans. Why aren't companies falling over themselves to proclaim that we have 11 fingers as if that was just a standard variation?

As for human milk feeding, if you read up on the cruel exploitation of birth mothers within surrogacy arrangements in countries where that practice is booming, you would never use that word.

Women who either all or some of the time express for their babies are still breastfeeding, even if they put their expressed milk in a bottle. It's still not formula feeding and almost always done where the mother absolutely wants to breastfeed, but it is not an option for all feeds.

And where women donate their breastmilk, usually for babies where formula is not an option, the baby is fed donated breastmilk. We've never called it "human milk feeding".

So that horrendous word is a neologism no one needs.

[CharlieParley]

Or rather than neologism I should say it's a term usually used in medical research papers and within a limited medical care context for preterm or unwell newborns. This group is addressing parents and not medial professionals, which is why I believe it is superfluous to requirements.

[Quaagars]

Well, let's face it, it's fucking hard to give a baby human milk without breasts being involved in some way, isn't it?

Yes, but if it refers to trans men (as in biological female) what's wrong with including them as well?
Yes, we know they're breasts, but if it makes them more included to say chest feeding, not seeing a problem personally.
As I said, if they had just not bothered to say breastfeeding as well I would see the point, and that would be but it's right there too - breastfeeding is mentioned.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Re the Femcare/PCOS one - I thought the screenshot in this OP was bad enough but there's an even more egregious example mentioned in another thread.


www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4061147-Menstruators-who-take-the-contraceptive-pill

[GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman]

Yes, but if it refers to trans men (as in biological female) what's wrong with including them as well?
Because NOBODY is a 'chestfeeder'. It's not your chest that nourishes the baby, it's your breasts. If you are able to use your womb to grow the baby, you should be able to face the reality of which bit of your anatomy feeds it once it's born.

After all, the press and the courts have come out with mind-benders like 'her penis' in the recent past, haven't they? So why not 'his breasts'?

People need to deal with bloody reality, even if they do think it's a nasty meanie.

[HecatesCats]

If you are able to use your womb to grow the baby, you should be able to face the reality of which bit of your anatomy feeds it once it's born.

This is what I've never understood. If your dysphoria can tolerate having periods, getting pregnant, growing a baby in your womb and pushing it out through your vagina, why is the word breastfeeding a bridge too far?

[LostAcre]

@nauticant

Have a think about "human milk feeding families" and what that means. It means milk extraction from human females to be provided to others for their use.

Might they be talking about women who express breastmilk to feed to their own babies?

DC1 couldn’t breastfeed. I expressed milk and bottle-fed him my expressed breastmilk, instead of using formula, until he’d got a good start on weaning. I wouldn’t have called that breastfeeding. I suppose it would fall under a “human milk feeding” umbrella, although that’s a term I’ve not come across before.

[thinkingaboutLangCleg]

Yes, but if it refers to trans men (as in biological female) what's wrong with including them as well? Yes, we know they're breasts, but if it makes them more included to say chest feeding, not seeing a problem personally.

Quaagars, this thread is about language being distorted in an effort to earase women and female biology. Dishonest language serves lies. No one feeds through their chest.

[thinkingaboutLangCleg]

to erase women ...

[yourhairiswinterfire]

That FemCare one looks like it's deliberately trying to take the piss.

One of their tweets says complications with PCOS can lead to a 'menstruator' having a miscarriage.

Except in very rare circumstances, women don't menstruate when they're pregnant, so using that degrading term is incorrect.

Utter fucking arseholes, talking about a sensitive topic like miscarriage and getting off on coming up with the most inhumane, degrading terms they can to describe women affected by it.

It's like they're all playing one-upmanship to see who can come up with the most repulsive ways to refer to us. What will we be next? Breeding pods? Wombs on legs? Ejaculation absorbers?

[littlbrowndog]

That femcare twitter feed is very suspect. They have like 23 followers

Have a look at it

It’s breast feeding

It’s breast milk

Charley says it so much better than me. Awesome Charley

[Gncq]

Might they be talking about women who express breastmilk to feed to their own babies

Human milk feeding families... Is a huuuge wraparound linguistically to avoid saying "breast fed". Babies drinking from a bottle of expressed milk are still breast fed, and women expressing the milk into the bottle will know this!

Basically the term "breast feeding" already covers trans men and daddies who feed their baby expressed milk from their mummy in a bottle.

The phrases "human milk feeding" and "chest feeding" take the "female" out of it. Turns breast feeding a baby into a vague clinical process "any person can provide human milk it's nothing to do with women".

Also we tend to refer to it as cow's milk not Bovinae milk...

[FWRLurker]

This makes me want to just go “women women women women women women women women WOMEN”

[Deliriumoftheendless]

Wouldn’t “expressed milk” be a better term than “human milk feeding”?

Doesn’t even have to say where it’s expressed from if you can’t bear to hear the word breast.