Breastfeeding is now chestfeeding, Brighton’s trans-friendly midwives are told

[Mulletsaremisunderstood]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/breastfeeding-is-now-chestfeeding-brightons-trans-friendly-midwives-are-told-pwlvmcnc7

Hope this link works as I am a subscriber to the times and logged in.

More nonsense being peddled as 'progressive' . When will the madness end!!?

:ionel Shriver in the Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d1157740-6d57-11eb-ba86-e516f9df6e0a?shareToken=5863c41c2d40b3dcdcb5ce7d942dd494

Hear, hear, Daisies.

Women who identifies as men to get their wishes heard - it's like an Onion article.

Sorry, syntax fail!

'This strained, clumsy, impractical lexicon is meant to cater instead to the tiny number of natal females who transition to male socially but not medically and give birth. As of 2017, the UK had two such people. To coin a phrase, the policy is not for the many, but the few. Women don’t matter; people who have renounced being women do.'

From Shriver's article above.

Yeah it’s like when you go,for your appointment and you realise that everyone else has same time 😖😖😖😖

And it seems Dr Ruth has tweeted that it is endangering people’s health when the 111 site asks for biological sex. Dr Ruth states there is few medical instances when the NHS actually need to know the biological sex of a patient.

Dr Ruth is not a medical doctor and is one of those consulting on this document.

As @DaisiesandButtercups hints at above, all this is made even more laughable by the UK's woeful breastfeeding statistics. Are we the worst in the world? I'm not sure but not far off. 0.5 percent of babies are exclusively breast fed after 6 months. Despite documented ongoing health benefits for children and mother's, and the financial and ecological reasons for doing so.
The lack of breastfeeding support and the utter grit and determination and sheer luck it takes to persist are staggering.
And this is obviously not an attack on anyone who chooses not to or can't, AT ALL.

'In the UK we have some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world, with eight out of ten women stopping breastfeeding before they want to.'

www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/about/breastfeeding-in-the-uk/

This is from 2016:

'Women in the UK are far less likely to breastfeed their children than in any other country in the world. New research reveals that social pressures are responsible for this worrying statistic.

Speaking at the British Science Festival, Dr Amy Brown, Associate Professor at the University of Swansea’s College of Human and Health Sciences, stated that by 12 months the UK has the lowest rates of breast-feeding worldwide at just 0.5%.'

www.britishscienceassociation.org/news/breastfeeding-rates-in-uk-are-the-lowest-in-the-world

• I did not know there was an all-party parliamentary group on infant feeding, either. I think it's now sort of unofficial, but anyway:

www.infantfeedingappg.uk/

Thanks @ArabellaScott !

Thanks for your posts Wednesday and Arabella.

One of the things which has helped many women with breastfeeding is the connection with other mothers in mother centred support groups (woman only spaces) where experiences can be shared freely, and the acknowledgment of the unique nature of the breastfeeding relationship between mother and baby. This is an exclusive relationship, mother and baby find the right balance between themselves after an often challenging first couple of months. Even if she is not breastfeeding, motherhood is a distinct role in a woman’s life and mother and baby have a unique relationship which should be acknowledged and supported by wider society. As many have argued it becomes hard to do this without meaningful language.

The use of the word mother is for many a source of strength and the recognition of the new state of motherhood can help us adjust to the massive changes in our lives which result from it.

Midwives used to visit mothers at home to offer support with this for the first 28 after the birth (every day for the first week then perhaps 3 days the next week and depending on the need of individuals after that) at which point the health visitor took over. If we want to give everyone born the best chances in life then we should allocate resources to supporting women during pregnancy birth and the postnatal period.

Gender neutral language neutralises women in my opinion and so disempowers us, it is the opposite of what feminism and maternity services should be about.

Thank you Igneococcus for the link, brilliant article by Lionel Shriver!

Floisme - Claiming they’re a “Trans man” implies they’ve decided to live as a man - becoming pregnant rather denies that claim. So why bother pandering to their lie?

I'm inclined to agree AMK42. My point is that, if a compromise form of wording is sought, at the very least make sure that wording is correct and accurate , otherwise it'll be used against us one day.

@Winesalot

And it seems Dr Ruth has tweeted that it is endangering people’s health when the 111 site asks for biological sex. Dr Ruth states there is few medical instances when the NHS actually need to know the biological sex of a patient.

Dr Ruth is not a medical doctor and is one of those consulting on this document.

Even us mere mortal non-doctors who have been anywhere near a hospital mostly know that basics like the kidney function/ eGFR (a test ordered on everyone admitted as an emergency to medical units) requires the correct sex to be used to calculate whether a person's kidneys are working normally or starting to break.

Mumofgirlswholiketoplaywithmud
Indeed! Seems to be a dangerous argument.

If that were the case, I am sure no one will mind if I hid my pregnancy history from my blood donation too. I am sure that any male would just be pleased to receive my otherwise universal blood.....

It is madness that they use this tactic.

Agree with you Floisme about necessity of accurate and unambiguous language. This whole debacle has arisen because the law failed to recognise that the terms “sex” and “gender” are not synonymous. “Gender” was never more than a euphemism for sex when it became shorthand for “sexual intercourse” in the early 20th c. Before that it was a purely grammatical term. Usage and meaning has changed in last 20+ years. I just deny that a woman can claim to be a “trans man” AND become pregnant. Therefore maternity services have no need to change their language at all.

I suppose there's not likely to be any accurate stats on the numbers of people identifying as transmen who get pregnant?

I suppose there's not likely to be any accurate stats on the numbers of people identifying as transmen who get pregnant?

If they are saying that increasing numbers of patients are so uncomfortable with the word 'breast' that care is compromised, they don't need a diversity policy, they need to ask why.

No Impatiens, I don’t think so. Queer theorists and gender ideologues don’t like clear data or concrete definitions.

Most policy changes are backed up with data that demonstrates need. It seems like a fairly big change alone that decisions and policies are now to be decided on some other basis.

Yeah I agree with that too AMK42 - the guidance mashes up the language of sex with the language of gender identity. It's a mess.
I guess where we differ is that (for now) I still cling to the view that some kind of protocols can be agreed, but the wording has got to be totally watertight, and at the moment it's not.

Although on the face of it this change of language is supposed to "include" transmen I can't help feeling it's more about making some transwomen feel more comfortable.

If female biological functions (such as menstruating, having endometriosis etc) are to be separated from the word woman and TWAW, eventually the only group allowed to call themselves women will be transwomen.

Mission accomplished. I'm not the first to make this point I think.

@Impatiens

I suppose there's not likely to be any accurate stats on the numbers of people identifying as transmen who get pregnant?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/breastfeeding-is-now-chestfeeding-why-are-the-language-police-trying-to-wipe-out-women-wfqmws0j0?shareToken=535fb6370d98b0926e1d0951c74ad177

According to this article in today's Sunday Times by Lionel Shriver, it's 2. Two women who identify as men whose needs to mutilate our language trumps the importance of communicating clearly and being inclusive to the remaining 650,00 ish other women who give birth a year in the U.K.

Gender neutral language neutralises women in my opinion and so disempowers us, it is the opposite of what feminism and maternity services should be about

There have been voices within feminism, though, which have sought to minimise the differences between men and women; to downplay the roles that women play on account of their biology; or to see them as restrictive nuisances. that only if it weren't for the very female realities of the body and its biological role in reproduction and motherhood then women would be free.

I do think there is a need to face up to the ways in which trans-humanist and transgender ideologies have in certain ways morphed out of this kind of sentiment. That there is no real difference between men and women, and that the only differences there are reside within individual aptitudes and identities.

There has always been the feminism that is rooted in the body, and celebrant of that ( let's call it 'goddess feminism'), and the feminism that has been more concerned with down-playing that in favour of focusing on an equal rights/equality agenda. That sees the female bodily functions as the being at the root of women's oppression. That focuses on the negatives of the female experience.

I agree with you Justhadathought.

There were those kinds of feminists who sought to be more like men, I think some have argued that Simone de Beauvoir tended in that direction at times, wanting to be free of the constraints of the female body. Perhaps it was a naturally starting point at a time when women were so restricted. Perhaps the only freedom that they could imagine was the kind of freedom that men had then.

I’ll take your “Goddess feminism” over that because you are right and I can see how genderism could follow from the idea that sex doesn’t matter.

In my opinion we cannot hide from nor escape the biological physical realities of our bodies and the healthiest approach is acceptance and celebration.

Wasn’t that what the red tent movement was all about? Actually also many of the breastfeeding and birth related groups also went along the line of embracing and celebrating our female bodies.