La Leche League will support males (of the male sex) who wish to breastfeed.

[ExLLLeader]

I picked this up on a recent Facebook post and could not quite believe it so made the following complaint/query and it is true. I was a La Leche League Leader for many years and am very upset to see how the organisation has lost its focus on the Mother and baby.

Complaint To The Board of Directors/Trustees

Dear Board members,

I was alarmed to see a post yesterday on the LLLGB Facebook page. The post in celebrating Transgender awareness week. The post links to the this page which states

LLLGB supports everyone who wants to breastfeed or chestfeed in reaching their goals. We do not discriminate based on sex, gender or gender identity.

And
Trans men, trans women and non-binary individuals may choose to breastfeed or chestfeed their babies.

And
Trans women can use a protocol similar to adoptive and other non-gestational mothers and stimulate their milk supply: it is called the Newman-Goldfarb protocol.

I have two issues I wish to complain about and they relate to the idea that males/Transwomen can breastfeed.

LLLGB should not be promoting the idea that males can induce lactation to feed a baby. There is no evidence to say this is safe, only an anecdotal example of a case where a doctor in the US enabled this to happen using off label drugs. The focus of the paper is mainly on the desires of the male bodied person and there is little interest in the impact on the baby and indeed the mother. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5779241/ . I would hope you have also considered the fetishisation of breastfeeding which does not only apply to men watching women, males lactating is also a paraphilia.

Why would LLLGB of all organisations choose not to discriminate on the basis of sex as it is perfectly entitled to under the equalities act? By saying these two statements there is nothing to stop a male wishing to come to women only meetings. Even I presume, before the baby is born. Im not sure if you would require that the male considered themselves to be a woman by performing gender stereotypes or not. (The male in the study had no surgery so still had a functioning penis.) Does this entitle a male who has breastfed to apply for Leadership?

Yours Sincerely
(ExLLLeader)

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Dear (ExLLLeader)
Thank you for taking the time to contact us with your concerns.
Your first concern is that there may be safety concerns relating to inducing lactation via drugs. The protocol used by Trans men is very similar to that used by women wishing to induce lactation. This treatment has an established treatment history. As lay breastfeeding counsellors, LLL Leaders role is to provide up to date and accurate information which individuals can use to inform their discussion with their healthcare provider.
Our groups have discretion to consider the needs of their communities when they decide who can attend. Some will by default be women only, however our support is and must always be open to anyone who needs support and information to breastfeed (which some individuals call chestfeeding). This would mean that a group would need to find a way to balance the needs of members who needed a single sex space, with the needs of an individual who needed chestfeeding support.
Eligibility for La Leche League Leadership is set by LLL International and can be found here: www.llli.org/get-involved/prerequisites/
As an organisation with a robust safeguarding culture, if we had concerns about an individual's motivation for seeking breastfeeding support we would take appropriate action to protect families and babies.
Best wishes (LLL Trustee)
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Dear (LLL Trustee)
Thank you for your reply, I have copied my complaint below as I was raising concerns about the male sex – i.e. Transwomen and breastfeeding and you have answered as if my concern is about female sexed i.e. trans men.

Best wishes (ExLLLeader)
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Dear (ExLLLeader)
My apologies - I used the wrong word there. I should have said the protocol used by transwomen wishing to induce lactation is very similar to that used by women. The rest of my reply is intended to answer your points as raised.
(LLL Trustee)
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Dear (LLL Trustee)
I am surprised to hear this. Would you therefor support a ‘Cis” man to breastfeed and provide the nutrients for a newborn baby?
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Not had an answer

Well obviously this is going to need to be made open to all males, the most obvious group here being fathers. All fathers should be made aware that they can breast feed, and have drugs and support to do so. And judging from the relationships board and AIBU there will be a lot of grandmothers absolutely loving to take drugs and get to breast feed their grandchildren. So we'll basically have two groups: those who breast feed without drugs and those who breast feed with drugs.

Oh and the distraught females who have bodies trying to do this naturally, and who are often the ones in acute need with babies and needing the help and support all this was set up for, but who will now be competing for LLL support and attention from a lot of people who are less concerned with getting a child fed and physically/emotionally surviving post pregnancy than with their lovely emotional experience and equal rights.

Maybe we could set up a group just for those females and babies?

I'm sorry but the word disgusting comes to mind. The idea of promoting babies drinking a hormone and chemical infused breast milk makes me feel sick.

I think they have not consideredwhya transwoman wants to feed

Of course they have. But its gone to far now . They either follow through or start rolling back on all of it.

This organisation has spent years trying to convince women breast is best because of the nutritional, brain boosting content of the milk, how clever it is that it changes as the baby grows in order to meet the needs of the child and how important it is for emotional development. I make no judgement here on women breastfeeding or not, I found it bloody difficult. What I find unbelievable is that they're prepared to undermine their message by announcing that people who are born male who take drugs to produce milk can provide anything like that to a baby. The complete absence of context about how and when this might happen. Under what circumstances would babies need to be breastfed by a transwoman, other than to validate the individual involved. Which brings me back to the original point of their mission being to encourage women to breastfeed for the 'amazing' health and development boosting properties.

This organisation has spent years trying to convince women breast is best because of the nutritional, brain boosting content of the milk, how clever it is that it changes as the baby grows in order to meet the needs of the child and how important it is for emotional development. I make no judgement here on women breastfeeding or not, I found it bloody difficult. What I find unbelievable is that they're prepared to undermine their message by announcing that people who are born male who take drugs to produce milk can provide anything like that to a baby

That's a really good point. I mean their entire existence revolves around supporting women through something tiring painful extremely difficult I mean I couldn't do it. I lasted 3 weeks and that was with being able to access a free BF clinic. If you can just give the dad a few drugs and hand the baby over haven't they basically just talked themselves out a job..

Yep

This should definitely be pushed more- struggling to breastfeed? Why not get a man to take drugs and breast feed for you? Chest is best!

Do you think it will take off? (Rhetorical)

It reminds me rather of the support groups for parents who had suffered stillbirth and miscarriage becoming inclusive of those whose grief at their infertility was caused being born with male biology.

It keeps coming back to the same basic principles:

Inclusive should not mean compelled to be all things to all people and a group and its purpose therefore diluted until it is no longer focused on or meeting the needs of the brief.

Services and group leaders need to be less afraid of the word inclusive and able to keep boundaries by creating new and additional groups instead of letting mission creep happen until they are giving significant time to and working with demographics and meeting needs at the expense of their core brief to their core clients.

Sooner or later it is going to have to be faced that some situations and services cannot both meet key female people's needs and provide highly emotionally valued experiences and validation to male people, particularly when those experiences rely on using the presence and setting for the female people in sensitive situations where the proper meeting and support female people's needs should be the priority and those female people should be centred as the primary client and consideration. Centering females and exclusively focusing on female issues is not a naughty thing to do, much as we're under pressure to believe otherwise. Other ways are easily available to meet people's wider needs in other ways.

How many babies will LLL accept frustrating and permanently damaging their breastfeeding association so that they may never be able to successfully breastfeed to satisfy the desires of men who want to validate their identity?

I wonder if Nestle would do a study, on the basis that their formula is just as likely to be more beneficial than drug-induced man milk.

That would be a good study to do.

@HecatesCats

This organisation has spent years trying to convince women breast is best because of the nutritional, brain boosting content of the milk, how clever it is that it changes as the baby grows in order to meet the needs of the child and how important it is for emotional development. I make no judgement here on women breastfeeding or not, I found it bloody difficult. What I find unbelievable is that they're prepared to undermine their message by announcing that people who are born male who take drugs to produce milk can provide anything like that to a baby. The complete absence of context about how and when this might happen. Under what circumstances would babies need to be breastfed by a transwoman, other than to validate the individual involved. Which brings me back to the original point of their mission being to encourage women to breastfeed for the 'amazing' health and development boosting properties.

It rather undermines the message that infant health and well being is a key priority here.

Promoting validation before safety is basically hand waving child abuse. Putting aside any other worrying motivations there is no evidence this would be in any way safe for infants from a nutritional standpoint.

Sooner or later it is going to have to be faced that some situations and services cannot both meet key female people's needs and provide highly emotionally valued experiences and validation to male people

Excellent point Michelle. Being inclusive of transwomen 'breastfeeding' in no way contributes to the real mission or purpose of LLL (unless you're prepared to view it through a distorted pomo lense).

This is their mission statement btw, note 'healthy development of baby and mother':

“Our Mission is to help mothers worldwide to breastfeed through mother-to-mother support, encouragement, information, and education, and to promote a better understanding of breastfeeding as an important element in the healthy development of the baby and mother.”

As an organisation with a robust safeguarding culture, if we had concerns about an individual's motivation for seeking breastfeeding support we would take appropriate action to protect families and babies.

What action? What criteria are they using?

This organisation must know what is the motivation of certain men who want to be able to breastfeed. They can't possibly be that naive.

How are they going to enact the 'robust safeguarding' that they refer to?

"Robust safeguarding" is a phrase that seems to come up alot, yet its never revealed quite why certain situations suddenly require this extra safeguarding layer....

Good lord!
I can imagine a few dangerous scenarios here..

1. male bodied people with a fetish effectively using vulnerable breastfeeding woman and their children as porn.
2. transwomen who desperately desire to breastfeed accidentally harming their baby by trying to provide nutrition in this way. Adoptive mums who do this are typically doing it for bonding rather than nutritional reasons.

I have no issue with trans men coming to a breastfeeding group. I would try to make them feel welcome. I do object to the use of the term chest feeding. I also would hope they would get medical advice to stop any hormones to ensure no accidental transference to breast milk. Does LL training cover this?

The reference in the letter for 'balancing needs' also in practice is often a euphemism for the group shifting to become exclusive to female people able to access a mixed sex group.

The excluded female people end up without services.

Surely it would be far far better for everyone (including trans people trying to breastfeed) if there was a national trans specific zoom feeding group with a specialist advisor and local groups kept for women

Justice:

I'd add as another dangerous scenario 3) Male ex partners who would see a useful way to gain contact, compete for child residency and to gain further control over their child's mother. About five minutes on the relationships board would evidence plenty of men who would have no trouble seeing the opportunities here.

If this is going to be opened to any males then obviously it will be open to all males for equality reasons.

If this is going to be opened to any males then obviously it will be open to all males for equality reasons.

Absolutely. And I hope they know that.

And that their raison d'etre could quite easily go straight down the swanny.

Just to say that adoptive mothers can induce lactation, without any hormones, they might not bring in a full supply, but they can often produce some; this can include mothers who have never given birth as well as those who have given birth and have breastfed before., women can relactate after not initiating breastfeeding at birth. So grandmothers can already bring in a milk supply, but it takes time and is quite a task to do so and maintain it. Women's bodies are amazing

So they would approve of breastfeeding mums taking drugs then?

Well obviously this is going to need to be made open to all males, the most obvious group here being fathers. All fathers should be made aware that they can breast feed, and have drugs and support to do so.

They'd probably need to take hormones for 2/3 years first to develop the necessary tissue which would very likely make them infertile and impotent so its not likely to be very popular.

@Joisanofthedales

I'm sorry but the word disgusting comes to mind. The idea of promoting babies drinking a hormone and chemical infused breast milk makes me feel sick.

You do know that all breast milk contains hormones right?

And does this apply to any women on medication, or just trans women?

And does this apply to any women on medication, or just trans women?

And you know that breastfeeding women are usually incredibly careful of what medications they are taking while breastfeeding, right?

And you know that the birth mothers hormones are already exposed to the baby they have just given birth to, right?