La leche league trustee resigns because of trans inclusive policy

[Lovelyview]

https://www.thetimes.com/article/012cb489-a63d-4dd1-9761-43bf0c3f9e85?shareToken=afe5bd2849d21256c715ea2af617063f

A trustee and PR director of Britain’s oldest breastfeeding charity has resigned after it introduced an inclusivity policy that allowed men to attend support groups.

https://millihill.substack.com/p/founder-of-la-leche-league-resigns

I certainly understand your point and I agree wholeheartedly with you.

Sadly, those in support of this activity insist that it is 'milk..'

What a shock to read that it's all about them 🙄

Absolutely great point. It isn’t milk. Those in support want it to be and it isn’t. Poor example but it’s like an ‘fur baby’. Yes you love your dog, yes it’s part of the family but it really isn’t the same as an human baby. You might want it to be but it isn’t. (Always reminds me of that part in Children I’d Men). And from what I have read is dangerous to think otherwise.

It's artificial nipple secretion and has less in common with breastmilk than vodka does.

Didn't that bloke who insisted he was breastfeeding his baby say something like yes, don't judge me, but it's better than anything partner could ever do to you.

Ffs.

Good to hear that there are loads of people in the LLL who disagree with it, though. It's the sort of unequivocally female only place that will be relentlessly targeted by these men.

Just get the bloody milk tested, and given they are pioneers of breastfeeding as a health issue for babies, say it's not healthy.

Job done

edited to say, I know it's probably not that easy, but this pussyfooting around because people are too worried to call it out for a fetish, is one of one of the reasons Trump got in.

Isn't part of the problem in the UK that our shamefully trans captured NHS have been allowing some of their flat earther medics to write in favour of male secretions being similar to breast milk?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5010993-trans-women-feeding-chemical-ridden-milk-to-babies-approved-by-nhs

I don't think it's so much a case of males with a 'female identity' taking hormones and actually BF (TBH I am convinced that most of those claiming to do this, including the ones who have taken photographs of themselves doing so and posted them online, are pretending. They're playing make believe for an audience. Which seems to go with the territory, doesn't it).

But as has been said, the lactating fetish is a well known thing. What we're talking about here are men who want to be present when women are BF because being there when it's happening is sexually exciting. So being there in a room when multiple women are doing it, and being able to see/hear/smell etc - fetishist's wet dream. I once knew a general practice nurse who said that behind many women utterly knackered from extended BF was a husband making sure it continued.

At some point there has been a social shift. These things used to be taboo and we were allowed to refuse to pander to them for that reason. Now we're told it's taboo to point out that they're disgusting.

I also think that this push to make people believe that these men are really lactating is to justify what they're doing and shame women for denying men equality. Because if they're not really lactating, all that remains is that the emperor is naked and we can all see his erection.

With regards to the drug induced secretions that TW can produce, is there any difference between that and what is produced by women who have had to take drugs in order to BF?

I'm thinking of a friend of mine who gave birth at 23 weeks to had to induce lactation
And a lesbian couple I follow on SM. One of them gave birth, the other induced lactation so she could also bf.

We've got to start telling it like it is - it's a male inclusive policy. The problem is including male people, not women who claim a special identity.
Let the genderists try and explain how that is transphobic.

But 'they' are not outliers unfortunately. They are on the board of directors and are in charge of changing language within LLL (& policing language) 😡

We don't know because no-one has been allowed to test the male secretions. The male endocrine system is different to the female, the particular male did not give birth and therefore the secretions cannot be tailored to the child. Mammary glands will not have matured at puberty, etc, etc. From the little we know, amounts are tiny as well. So my guess is that it is nothing like mother's milk and far inferior to formula, which is at least nutritious and known to be safe, if not bespoke.

A woman who is given drugs to aid lactation is taking versions of natural female hormones and only has to use them to start her off. Whether the baby is hers or not, everything is in place because she is female. Like the non-birthing mum of the lesbian couple you mention.

The liquid secreted from a man's nipples exposes the child to unquantified risks. This does not benefit the child.
A man who wants to feed his child can cradle it in his arms and feed it with a bottle of formula or his female partner's expressed milk.
The difference between that man and the male who wants to breastfeed is that the second man wants a child to suck on his nipples. I don't see how that benefits the child, either.

Thank you. That's what I thought, but men trying to BF didn't come up in my training 17 years ago!

Do you offer no women only sessions? If not it seems a shame that women struggling with breastfeeding are compelled to do so in front of random men - it must exclude so many?

It almost makes me laugh. There's someone on another thread calling us deranged.

These are people who are supporting a man's fetishistic desire to breastfeed a baby, and they are calling us deranged. We really have gone through the looking-glass.

I attended a couple of LLL meetings hosted by Miriam a few years ago and she was so helpful and supportive. It is sad that she is pushed out of what should be a powerful female support space.

The right to privacy is more important than a desire to have a male partner present. How selfish it is of any participant to put their personal wants before other women's rights.

Breastfeeding needs SO much more support for people to achieve. Steps to make people who don't feel 'womanly' or identify as women feel more included and still supported to breastfeed are so important.

I was thinking the same thing about women attending men's groups. However, even if they were doing it as a protest, most women would be grossed out by being around a bunch of men talking about their dicks.
The perverts in the group would get off on it as well, so it would only punish the men in the group who are not perverts.

Absolutely.

But what's that got to do with letting men into BF groups?

Probably saying it's not the "trans inclusive" it's the "letting men in" that's the issue.
Women, whatever they claim to be, aren't the problem.

@HaddyAbrams lots of chat on this thread bemoaning chest feeding/ removing 'womanly' from the breastfeeding book title etc.

The issues of non-birthing people attempting to breastfeed, and "non- conventional" birthing people feeding their babies are being conflated.

It doesn't matter how birthing people identify - and anything that breaks down barriers to support them feeding their babies should be supported - regardless of whether it pisses off those that say everyone who breastfeeds is a woman.

"Birthing people" is dehumanising language pandering to the idea that anyone but women and girls give birth, though. It's right there with "vagina owners" and the like. The delusional minority shouldn't be able to change the language and recognition of reality. They can deny all they like that they're women, but the very fact of pregnancy disproves their claims.