Communication on new building - room available for 'chest feeding'

[Sizzlysausage]

I got an email today about our new building (I work at a university). This explained space had been put aside in the new building for 'breast and chest feeding.' I find this so ridiculous I just need somewhere to vent (don't dare do so to any of my colleagues)!

Men have breasts. Men get breast cancer too. Men do not get chest cancer.

I can’t tell you how much I hate the term chest feeding.

I don't think I'm the ignorant one here. No trans women would talk about "chest feeding" a baby. This is for trans men.

Quite! And surely if you're a trans man, using said breasts to feed a baby is about as far from being manly as you can get. I don't understand how you could want to identify as a man but choose to breastfeed a baby 🤯

You might find this research paper useful to gain a better understanding.

https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-016-0907-y

Maybe if transmen are so triggered by the term 'breast-feeding' that they find it so upsetting, perhaps the grown-up job of being a Mum isn't for them?

I think they should go full-on batshit and call it the 'Chester-draws Feeding Room.'
Wardrobes not welcome.
FFS.

On the contrary. Have you forgotten there are male people out there who are feeding their infants a substance secreted by their own breasts that has not been adequately investigated? And isn't 'chest feeding' including doing so from a tube with milk that is taped so that a baby will suckle the nipple and get the milk?

This signage does indeed open the room up to any male person who does this. And as pp have rightly pointed out, women could demand a space set aside for them to be specifically for breast feeding.

However, you seem to be very keen on women ignoring that this really does potentially open up their spaces and trying to dismiss their concerns rather than acknowledge them and contribute something of value to find a solution. Why is that?

Why are you, a man, so keen on dismissing female people's concerns so often?

Chest feeding is a ridiculous and inaccurate term: the baby feeds from the breast and not the chest. And men have breast tissue, too, so I've never understood the issue with the word breast.

Ask them how many breastfeeding transmen they have as opposed to how many breastfeeding women. Ask them why they want to insult the breastfeeding women for the non existent chestfeeders because chestfeeding is not possible.

@Helleofabore trans women would say breast feeding - chest feeding is very specifically for trans men, so this issue has absolutely nothing to do with this sign.

Just because people "don't understand" why trans men would want to use chest feeding instead of breast feeding, doesn't mean that the sign can't be inclusive. Non-transgender woman who prefer the term breast feeding are included, first.

How does including a term which trans men prefer "insult you?"

I'm not so sure. Men who identify as women need to separate women from their specific anatomy, in order that they can claim womanhood isn't a function of said anatomy.

If being a woman isn't connected to having breasts to breastfeed your baby, then any man can claim to be one.

I believe that women who identify as men are used to push the concept.

That's not to say some of them won't have dysphoria around their breasts, but I don't believe they are the force behind it.

Partly because who the fuck listens to women? Especially such a tiny amount.

I mean, dad joke pushing it as a concept that we should all accept, should tell everyone what they need to know.

It certainly won't be for the benefit of women. Even those who don't identify as such.

I don't understand the issue with the word breast for trans men and non binary females. I mean, men can get breast cancer so the whole thing makes no sense.

Well yes, @Datun . It's so noticeable that the areas where transactivists seem most eager is anything that erodes the rights and language of women, but much less often anything to the detriment of men.

You could ask if it includes adult baby feeding as your husband is an infantilist

But what about people who identify as wardrobes?

I would either ask for it to be called breast/chest feeding room or ask them to send an anonymous survey to each staff member to ask them what they want it to be called and go with the majority

Your argument is that accomodating trans men's preferred terminology doesn't benefit women? You think trans men are women, so that doesn't make any sense at all, even in your own terms. You don't have to "accept it as a concept." It's not for you. Women who breastfeed are included. Trans men who chestfeed are included - and you want to exclude them. I can only guess that you have no friends who are trans men or AFAB non-binary, or there wouldn't be such as lack of compassion.

How on earth is it exclusionary? If they'd just said chest feeders, you might have a point but they said breast as well, you've been included, you just don't want anyone else to be.

Is it it exclusionary to exclude people who want to exclude others now?

Oh dear. I thought when I saw ‘chest feeding’ that it was a place where people fed their chests….rather like the Luggage.

Though of course, I now realise that it is part of the defeminisation of motherhood, so is jolly important and must be promoted at all times.

Happy to include others - but chest-feeding could refer to transmen or women, and I am afraid where it's the latter, I do want to exclude them from single-sex spaces, reserved for women (females). More generally, I do find any language which undermines women as a discrete sex class quite exclusionary and which redefines motherhood quite exclusionary.

Ugh. The phrase "chest feeding" makes me feel queasy. I instantly and involuntarily picture someone coughing lumps of yellow phlegm into a baby's mouth 🤢

How does including a term which trans men prefer "insult you?"

You don't feed with your chest, @DadJoke , but your breasts. You know, the ones that get hypersexualized by men so much that you cannot even breastfeed in public covered up because men (and some women) go yuch. Suggesting to call breastfeeding anything else than breastfeeding is so offensive, it will never stop that sexualised image breasts have. That is why I object to this labelling.

But way to go to assume it is about transgender people. Again.