Breastfeeding support group wants to allow males

[user643899]

I am in a Facebook group for breastfeeding support.

There's a new comment from admin asking if we'd be comfortable with males joining the group, then a subsequent poll.

I commented on said poll, "I am a feminist. Call me a terf. Biologically you are male or female. Feel free to identify as what you wish but you cannot change your sex. This group is for breastfeeding. Only females can breastfeed."

I was called a bigot. One comment read, "you aren't a feminist. Feminists want equality for all genders." I responded,"Equality for both sexes, yes. Female is a sex. Feminism derives from the word, female."

Now my original comment has been deleted. I daren't comment again through fear of removal.

I'm upset. This is the group I used when I had thrush. I posted pictures of the thrush on my boob. I can't be comfortable in a group made for my sex.

Have they said why men want to join?

The dads is it?

Any Muslim or Jewish women on the group?

Surely they meant male partners of the breastfeeding women?

Or maybe possibly at the outside chance, a transman if there is a local female who has given birth and is breastfeeding who simultaneously wants the other breastfeeding mothers to go along with he/him. Seems unlikely though. Most likely to mean dads.

Good chance it is a woke beard dad annoyed he is not allowed to participate.

Would be a shame if he can't join as you'd miss out on his mansplaining. How awful.

I’m glad the menopause group I’m in is absolutely resolute about the women-only rule.

But then, they probably don’t have loads of males banging on the metaphorical windows. Menopause, unlike pregnancy and breastfeeding is rarely fetishised.

Could you perhaps PM the admins with links that illustrate how some men get off over images of nursing women? Because it’s all lot easier to enforce a female only boundary than it is to have to weed out perves one by one.

Can they not set up a parallel mixed sex group? There will be women quite happy to belong to both.

And yes, make the point that you are less comfortable to use the group for support in the way you have up to this point, so including males will exclude you in this way, and likely other women too.

Oh great. A new comment:

"people often forget we have 300,000 inrersex people in the UK..."

Apparently they made another group for chest feeding and males but it didn't work out.

They are centering it around transgender people so men who identify as women rather than dads specifically but I'm sure they'd be allowed too.

Yes, I would assume that it's beary woke dads who want to join, rather than transwomen (who, we are constantly told, are women not 'males' )

YANBU to state that you wouldn't be comfortable with blokes on the group, but I don't quite understand why you assumed they meant transwomen?

It sounds like you got on your high horse about trans issues when they were probably just asking because some fathers wanted to learn about breastfeeding.

Why didn't the other group work out?

Presumably the m2f people would have bf partners? I don't understand. Have they had lots of requests?

@Duckwit

Yes, I would assume that it's beary woke dads who want to join, rather than transwomen (who, we are constantly told, are women not 'males' )

YANBU to state that you wouldn't be comfortable with blokes on the group, but I don't quite understand why you assumed they meant transwomen?

They were specifically mentioned in question.

It isn't about dads. It's about people who identify as male or female.

My fiancé came with me to my local bf group once (a few years ago). He was only there for a mere ten mins and learned so much about breastfeeding in that time. He was able to have questions answered face to face by a professional and then as a result was able to support me with breastfeeding at home. He was a great support to me and I honestly don't think I would've survived cluster feeding without him!

So they have referred to transwomen as 'males' then? How terribly transphobic of them!

Why on earth do they think that transwomen would want to join a group about breastfeeding?!

@Level75

It sounds like you got on your high horse about trans issues when they were probably just asking because some fathers wanted to learn about breastfeeding.

Because it was mentioned in the first question. Also mentioned that several admin had stepped down as they don't agree with it.

Surely the answer is that anyone who is breastfeeding can join. Although I do t know how you’d police that

I think men should be banned from breastfeeding support groups - online or IRL. Only women breastfeed

@Level75

It sounds like you got on your high horse about trans issues when they were probably just asking because some fathers wanted to learn about breastfeeding.

Yes I agree. Your response really doesn't make a great deal of sense in the context here.

But transwomen don't breastfeed?

@firstimemamma

My fiancé came with me to my local bf group once (a few years ago). He was only there for a mere ten mins and learned so much about breastfeeding in that time. He was able to have questions answered face to face by a professional and then as a result was able to support me with breastfeeding at home. He was a great support to me and I honestly don't think I would've survived cluster feeding without him!

It's not about dads. It's about people who identify as female and people who identify as men. Specific references to chest feeding, inrersex, discrimination, gender identity.

@BungleandGeorge

Surely the answer is that anyone who is breastfeeding can join. Although I do t know how you’d police that

Which is what I said. My comment was deleted and I was called, bigot, terf.

It sounds like a bad idea to open the group up completely.

Lot of weirdos about. Why do they want to do that?

What went wrong with the other group they had?

Surely rather than going down the 'I'm a TERF' route you would have been better just questioning why transwomen need to join a group about breastfeeding?

The group sought your opinion.

Are you comfortable with this?
There was a yes or no answer to give.
You politely gave your answer.
You didn’t need to explain why.
You didn’t need to be name called for expressing your preference.

You need to put this to the group.

Similarly, women due to give birth are asked if they are comfortable with a male midwife. (I was, anyhow). If your opinion is sought they do not need to criticise you for giving it.

@Duckwit

But transwomen don't breastfeed?

But chest feeding they can do apparently, it can offer comfort at the very least, one of the comments said.