Statement regarding the removal of LLL Leader accreditation from five LLLGB trustees

[IwantToRetire]

On 11th October, five of the trustees of La Leche League GB (LLLGB) were informed that their accreditation as LLL breastfeeding counsellors (known as Leaders) had been removed by the LLL International (LLLI) Board, for actions that had been taken in their capacity as trustees.

There is no concern around the breastfeeding support offered by any of these women. When the LLLGB Council of Directors was consulted by the LLLI Board, the Council made it clear they opposed the removal of accreditation as LLL Leaders of the five trustees. This removal affects their ability to offer breastfeeding support to hundreds of mothers across the country, despite the capabilities of the five never having been in question as breastfeeding counsellors.

The removal of accreditation is the result of an ongoing dispute arising from the conflict between LLLI policy and LLLGB’s charitable objects. All five of those affected remain trustees of the charity with the full support of the LLLGB Council.

https://laleche.org.uk/statement-regarding-the-removal-of-leader-accreditation-from-five-lllgb-trustees/

I cant find the thread(s) that had background on the split. Sorry. And searching didn't bring up anything useful.

Thanks @Healthyrain - I had thought posting the link to the earlier thread would explain it. But good to have it spelt out here.

Why do transwomen need to use the service?

And

Why aren't transwomen banned from providing the service under the exemptions under the Equality Act?

Transwomen can not have experience of breastfeeding themselves. This strikes me as an important prerequisite to being involved in the service.

Males who want to be involved have a red flag following them.

LLL are appalling for failing to recognise this post ERCC.

I think we will see more of this with US-based organisations as their principles diverge more and more from the mainstream in the rest of the world. Interestingly, US corporates know how to navigate this. I work for a US-based multinational which is full on TWAW, DEI etc in the US, however they are not so stupid to not realise that what is acceptable in the US may not be acceptable in other territories in which they operate. Our Riyadh office does not celebrate Pride Month for example, and in the UK our anti-discrimination training makes it clear that sex is a protected characteristic, not gender.

Good point @WhosPink it appear the majority of the LLLI board are not particularly international but are based in the US or are US citizens living abroad or are neither of those but are connected to LLLUSA which clearly shows where it wants to go by their mission statement shared by a pp
https://lllusa.org/about-us/

So are Leaders in other parts of the world trying to battle this? Not just those in LLLGB? Wouldn’t it be great to have at least one breastfeeding and birth related organisation that actually knows what a woman is, especially a supposedly international breastfeeding and birth organisation which knows what a woman is!

Feminists and LGB people are almost having to reinvent the wheel in terms of going back to brass tacks and starting things up again in the original manner of the 60s and 70s.

The self-interested corporatised and bureaucratic organisations that informal support and campaigning groups (for women and LGB people) eventually morphed into in the 80s and 90s are no longer a source of guaranteed support and impartiality for their core constituents.

So it’s back to meetings at kitchen tables and in pubs (when allowed by overly zealous bar staff) and back to building things up from the ground all over again.

I'm not sure this is even negative.

Something I mentioned in the thread about Kathleen Stock'sarticle was about funding for the Assisted suicide organization in Canada being largely from the government.

This has become more and more the case with many organizations. Large large numbers of charities are getting their funding from states, in a lot of countries.

I used to take a more left wing, state involvement approach on that, but in the last few years I have largely changed my mind. I think now that this not only threatened their independence, it has the effect of bamboozling the public.They believe a charity does well because it has lots of grass roots support, and people donating their money to what they believe in. But that is not going on at all,instead some of these organizations get little from individual donors, it mainly comes from the state and sometimes large corporate donors.The public may not support them nearly as much as we are led to believe.

The impression of public support and being "on the right side of history" is powerful in itself, even if it is partly a bit of a mirage.

I agree with you that it's not a negative thing to see grass roots groups setting up again, lots of sectors have been siloed off to have one big fish in the pond (e.g. Stonewall or NSPCC) that government and the public sector will listen to above any other contender.

Here in Ireland, we've developed an entirely new, unelected and undemocratic, layer of organisation that has 'evolved' to fit (or act as a filter and sometimes barrier) between the government and the people.

We have NGOs that are entirely, or almost entirely, government funded and thus they have no incentive to lobby for and promote things other than government policy/ interests. This new layer of a public-private sector hybrid functions as a pseudo-democratic way for governments to insincerely go through the motions when it comes to public engagement and consent for legislation and policy. So many public consultations on proposed legislation are weighted heavily in favour of the responses given by NGOs.

And now an entire class of people is employed for life by networking and moving from one position in one NGO to another position in another NGO. And when it comes to the peace process in N Ireland, we've seen so many jobs for the boys to keep them happy (and to rehabilitate their public image) once they get out of prison for terrorism offences. We have community leaders that are not always faithfully reporting what the people in the community want. There's no useful direct line from the populace to their TDs or MPs or MLAs and so voter share is dropping and people are taking to protest voting which makes the politicians etc circle the wagons even more.

It's almost a quangocracy and it often has no genuine legitimacy in terms of democratic consent or involvement. It's one of the reasons that governments and civil servants have no bloody clue what the voters want because they think the NGOs are supposed to keep them abreast of that stuff and the NGOs don't have a clue either because they have their own priorities and..urgh..plebs, who wants to interact with them...

This post was brought to you by an increasingly cynical and frustrated viper.

It's almost a quangocracy and it often has no genuine legitimacy in terms of democratic consent or involvement. It's one of the reasons that governments and civil servants have no bloody clue what the voters want because they think the NGOs are supposed to keep them abreast of that stuff and the NGOs don't have a clue either because they have their own priorities and..urgh..plebs, who wants to interact with them...

This has been the situation in what Blair turned into the "Third Sector" some decades ago now.

The "representative" groups actually function in exactly the opposite way to the reason they say they exist, ie to give a voice to those at the grass roots. Whereas what they do is tell the grass roots what the Government or funders want them to do. It also means Governments and funders cut their costs because they no longer bother to interact directly with groups, and just use the facade of the representative group to say they have consulted.

And quite honestly I doubt the care what people actually think. They just fish around to find a group that will say what suits their agenda.

The funding of women's groups when it first started seemed like a positive step, but it was amazing how quickly the idea that funders really wanted to hear what front line groups were doing, reversed to the position of funderds telling groups what they should do. Partly this was through co-opting the Lottery which originally (was it John Major) was to be about giving relatively small amounts to groups who were catering for some local areas ie recognising priorities could vary.

But in no time at all, the "professionals" stepped in a created their own agenda of what was a priority. And as some did say, help fund services that should have been funded by government.

Its so depressing.

And the worst part is how easily so many are quite happy to play the part of being THE representative.

The Women's Resource Centre is an artificial creation of Government, and not something that hardly any, if any, women's groups wanted.

Is it any wonder so many groups have been overtaken by mission drift.

Once you have paid employees applying for funding, for what is effectively securing their future salary, its not hard to see how priorities may change, and founding principles of an organisation silently slip away.

From what I can tell LLLGB doesn’t get any funding from the UK government or from LLLI in the USA.

While this is great in theory, if you want to provide actual services to the public you do need to think about training, insurance, safeguarding, DBS checks etc. All of which require some sort of organisation, paperwork and funding. Most people don't have the time to do this from the ground up and it can be virtually impossible for example to get Enhanced DBS checks (needed for working with children) unless you are a properly accredited organisation.

Well it looks like the ones who want to support men to feed have set up a new group:
Facebook - talk about erasing mothers!

'LLL Collective is a new branch of La Leche League based in Great Britain. We support all families in their human milk feeding goals.'

Is it just me or does "human milk feeding goals" sound a bit creepy?

A local LLL group was a lifeline for me as a young single mother over 30 years ago. It affirmed my mothering choices and gave me the opportunity to make friends with similar ideas/approaches. It was brilliant.

No it's not just you. It's grim - and so naive - inviting every male fetishist onboard with zero concern for the safety of women and babies.

Sounds a bit soylent green, 'it's made of people'. Grim.

Is it just me or does "human milk feeding goals" sound a bit creepy?

Its hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

Have they no basic understanding of how this sounds?

Are they so lost in a cult that they can no longer recognised the sheer hideousness of not just their aims, but the use of language.

But I suppose if the goal is to erase the reality of there being biological women, it probably isn't surprising they gatecrash through everything.