A transwoman feeding their new born baby with their own milk..

[Soubriquet]

A website has said they have lost many followers with supporting this.

I just don’t understand why this is being promoted. If men in general were able to breastfeed children, why is this not being encouraged among married couples? Im sure plenty of men would be willing to step up and share breastfeeding with their partner.

It can’t be healthy for a baby to be fed this way, as surely the transwoman would be taking multiple type of hormones in order to remain transitioned?

Link

I don't think that anyone who uses the term born-woman is a gender critical feminist.

None the less I wish you well.

What? I'm an adoptive mum, and it was certainly never suggested I might be able to breastfeed my boy. Thank god

I never understand people loudly announcing that THEY ARE LEAVING MN, not just that, I AM DELETING MY ACCOUNT TOO!! (You see what you made me do?!)

The announcement is unnecessary, and deleting your entire account also unnecessary. Just say you are no longer going to reply, and move on. Like everyone else.

I don't identify as a femininst and yes, sometimes this board is a bit echo chambery, I'll certainly agree... but whilst that is sometimes just true in itself, it is also going to be that way because a) there accepted agreed upon features of being a feminist, just as with any group with a joint mission and outlook and b) the subject at hand sometimes has very narrow room for a difference of interpretation.

Trying to claim that artificially inducing milk production in a male is somehow laudable and about the wellbeing of the child and that the 'milk' produced is equivalent in anyway to that produced by a woman (even a sick one) and is good for a baby is almost equivalent in my mind as arguing that there are 'some' situations in which an older child can agree to enter a relationship with an adult, or agree to life limiting puberty blockers. I mean you can argue for both those things, but the margin for a credible argument is very narrow.

Someone asked if her husband could breastfeed in the Domperidone support group after "Princess Mom" posted all their questionable posts.
She was verbally attacked by handmaidens who were saying that TWAW and men are different.

Absolutely nuts.
Literal nuts.

In this instance the TW wants to do something in her own home that impacts her, her partner and the baby - there is an overall risk assessment to be done for that and I think we can agree we don't have enough data here to conclude it is always or never dangerous, but otherwise it is a personal decision.

Revulsion and disgust add nothing to the debate AND otherwise counterproductive in discussions concerning breastfeeding.

Primary issue with this is the prioritisation of the child. It's clear from research that it's phenomenally difficult for TW to feed successfully for any length of time. I started low level hrt while still feeding my then 3 yr old. My supply was knocked.

Revulsion is secondary to me, it makes no sense in a situation where the primary focus should be on mother (recovering from birth) and child.

The effort (when mum may also be trying to work on latch and feeding positions) and drugs needed, show a higher level of support input for the male than the female. This is centring the male's rights. Women do not get this level of priority- you yourself have described that.

It cannot be ignored that women are facilitating this and waving their poms poms. We cannot ignore it.

Penelope, we agree that dysphoria is a socially driven issue. As such I do not believe in a balanced society dysphoria would ever exist.

You also do not seem to be aware of the level of porn involved in many's desire to transition.

You claim to research offenders; I work on the coal face with vulnerable children and do not ever turn a blind eye when there's even a tiny red flag flying.

We do not ignore this and allow these individuals to make these choices within their family, when we know that post partum is THE most vulnerable time for women and babies and we know about rates of offending for this demographic.

I'm not talking about disgust. I'm talking about serious safeguarding.

100%

I genuinely appreciate the debate you've provided Penelope as it made me consider your opinions and views and helped me to formulate why I disagree.

Your views could very easily become the latest way I see peer supporters twisting the acceptance and validation so I'm glad to have stretched that debate muscle

The fact a man says he got off on having a baby suck his nipples should be enough for most sane people to think this is wrong.

But no.

Fucking HELL.

You can support the trans community without supporting every single thing every trans individual does. There's no reason to do this, would anyone support a sad breastfeeding instead of the mother in any other scenario?

I am rather amused by posters who have not taken part in this thread at any point thus far popping up to say that it's an echo chamber.

Any actual points to make?

Very good point

Femaleandlearning, I'm so sorry for what you went through.

Penelope, you have interpreted this debate against your own situation, which has clearly been challenging, which we all do. It's not about husbands stepping in and wishing they could help, and helping the best they can.

Before it's mentioned as a "natural" gotcha, The Aka pygmy tribe in Central Africa are known for the huge amount of time they hold their babies and also the way they'll step into sex/gender roles quickly. It's an egalitarian society. They centre the child. They hold them constantly and they sleep and nap on them. They have apparently been known to occasionally offer a nipple when mother is absent and in the absence of modern dummies.

Its been picked up as click bait and probably rare. Some bf babies reject dummies and bottles within weeks as they know who their mother is. I'd imagine they'd also recognise the need for a tiny infant to bond with mum during the 40 days pp; such a society would allow mum to rest and recover and establish milk. Interestingly this isn't reported on.

They'd only lactate if they had a pituitary tumour.

Increasing numbers of TW are detransitioning and describing the impact on their bodies of the lack of testosterone and cross sex hormones, hormones blockers etc. so none of this can be good for their bodies.

Which ever way it's looked at, none of this benefits the child when we know how much male or a female partner can hold and look after an infant without actually physically feeding them. We know how many mothers who've not bf can do exactly the same.

It's a selfish narcissistic situation. The TW is likely even putting this obsession above their own health as well as the mother and child.

Why are we supporting this?

Waitwhat23

No Wait, I would expect not. We know there are some posters (thankfully only a few in the scheme of things ) who have their own deep prejudice about regular posters on FWR and take whatever opportunity they can to admonish us and to tell us we are in a echo chamber.

I haven't RTFT to see if anyone else has said it or if it's been verified but I think this is quite important...

If the story being shared with this picture is actually a picture of a woman bf the baby she carried and gave birth to and people think this is actually the trans woman bf the baby surely that is quite disingenuous.

If the person feeding the baby looked less like a woman and more masculine in appearance would people be less comfortable with it? I think they would.

@Waitwhat23 I think so far only @PenelopePipPip has said that it is an echo chamber and has refused to answer any questions from compassionate posters.

Should she wish to return and then announce another abrupt departure, there is a flouncer’s corner where I have no doubt she will feel more welcome:
www.mumsnet.com/talk/flouncers_corner

This. That cannot be healthy for the baby.

One of the most popular protocols for induced lactation in women is successful in 30% of them. I should think a certain amount of serendipity and possibly survivor/publication bias has gone into this case study of one individual.

I'm very pro breastfeeding, but only when it is good for the mother and the child. Usually, when I make this point it's in relation to maternal mental health and I find myself reminding mothers that formula has improved so much it isn't worth struggling on.

In this case, it's the child's health in question. Give chemical juice to get your name in the papers or supply reliable, well researched formula?

Therefore, I want to know why are we pouring time, money and resources and effort into this and not supporting woman's dire access to bf support.

Anyone who says this isn't centring mens rights needs to get a grip.

It's no good any of these peer and consultant led bf support charities demonstrating the dire lack of free support for women and awful bf rates and then cheering on the clearly very rare occurrence of a male who's pulled all the stops out to achieve what only 30 % of women have managed to do.

I dread to think about the expense and which other women could have benefited from the time, money and effort (not even taking the drug). That money and time could have been better spent.

WarriorN

The small population of that tribe is often used as a ‘gotcha’. I remember it off the discussion in the other thread posted earlier.

It is used to justify males doing this, just as the Samoan Faʻafafine have been leveraged into the trans debate. (Most likely unasked, and seemingly often misinterpreted and kudos to the Samoan president for his statement about males participating in female sports because it seems I have seen the Samoans leveraged much less since that clarification).

I remember also reading that some anthropologists clarified the whole ‘males suckling’ point too and that being posted on that other thread.

I am sure I am not alone in having had this discussion before and rather in depth.

I remember also from that thread (I would search for it but am on my phone and advanced search sucks) the South American model using a feeding infant as a prop for a photo shoot. And that any rejection of that infant being used in such a way was labelled as hate.

I am yet to see even one convincing argument as to why any male would be acceptable to feed an infant the substance produced through any galactorrhea method or to even encourage an infant to suckle in a modern society. Little known tribes in Africa are not the gotcha some people think.

@ItsAnOvaryAction I was referring more to Helen who is a regular 'it's an echo chamber' devotee.

Penelope has made points to add to the discussion but her arguments fall down because there is no research being done into the nutritional value/benefits of of the substance secreted by males who have been induced to produce milk. Whatever anyone's feelings about transwomen breastfeeding, surely the main argument would be whether such a substance benefits the baby and why such research is not being carried out.

Any ethical studies/research/implementation of protocol would have this as a primary, over-arching concern. There should be multiple studies. There's not.

ItsAnOvaryAction

Look back a page or two.

And we also had a fly by you admonishment from another poster a page before that did not use the term. That poster managed to include their usual derision of women, and hyperbole about reactions to males being in female toilets.

Helle is still can't fathom the reason why the odd rare, random man sucking is championed and yet women such as myself, feeding for longer than 1 year, as per the evolutionary norm, still faces stigma.

*suckling

Yes. Agree.