Banned from breastfeeding group for objecting to males breastfeeding

[snickerdoodle1990]

Hi everyone,

I gave birth a few months ago and had some breastfeeding difficulties, so joined a local breastfeeding support group in my city. It’s basically a place to go for support with feeding, plus meet other mums/have a cuppa and biscuit etc. They also have a FB group. It’s become a nice, friendly place to go once every couple of weeks.

Recently, a trans-woman (male) has joined the group asking for support because their wife has not long had a baby and the trans-woman is wishing to breastfeed too, apparently through use of hormones and domperidone (?) to stimulate supply (I did not realise this was possible at all)

I really really object to this person being present in a group of women who are seeking breastfeeding support, trying to come together in their breastfeeding experience and also revealing themselves intimately

I told the group leader my concerns and she basically told me to shove it - said that the group is a safe space for everyone and they support all who wish to breastfeed and that I shouldn’t come back because I am a bigot

I am horrified as are the other women, where do we all stand and what would you do?

Agree,

It’s also not really fair to expect breast support group leaders to have helpful knowledge and understanding for transwomen hoping to breastfeed. Almost none of what is typical or worrying for a postpartum breastfeeding mother is going to apply. To give an example - how long should a baby be spending on a feed? I would expect a breastfeeding support leader to know the answer to that question and to know when there might be a problem that indicates a new mother should be getting her baby weighed regularly or taking them to the GP or back to the maternity unit of the hospital. None of that knowledge is going to apply to a transwomen trying to breastfeed and it’s not fair to expect a support leader who is quite probably a volunteer to have any of that very niche knowledge.

Or to expect all the rest of the group to sit listening to that. It could create all sorts of problems esp if the leader won’t actively differentiate advice for fear of being accused of bigotry

This is a forum where anyone can voice their opinions / comments / concerns, a lot more discussions need to be had before issues like this are sorted out and things are set in place where everyone is happy and comfortable, there is no point in trying to sweep issues under the carpet and hope they go away

I still see the current situation with regards to trans issues as work in progress,

What a pointless comment with careless assumptions

I really don’t think you have an utter clue what you are talking about?!?

And the focus of the group would end up being on the TW rather than on the women who could actually benefit in a material, tangible way from the group

These men take over and dominate the women’s groups they infiltrate.

Men can produce breast milk there's a doctor in my neighbourhood that specialises in it

There are different types of breast milk. Keep up - that comment was referring specifically to colostrum

They might secrete something, but it isn't breastmilk...

Good point. Male chest secretions is the proper title until we know better. Females produce breast milk.

ETA Breast feeding was scratched out of NHS policies so TRAs don’t get to use that term now.

I really hope you reply and say, but you are discriminating against me, a new mother, feeling hormonal and vulnerable, wanting guidance in how to feed her baby. You have made me feel unwelcome and as if the desires of someone who is not breast feeding their child are more important than my right. Why? Why is a transwoman more important to you than a breastfeeding mother?

Of course not, because they're intertwined. Very tricky.

But that's all still because it's hardwired in. You wouldn't be doing it that hard because, oh I don't know, it makes your hair look nice, or gives you a better figure, or 10 grand You're doing it for your child, and that's what made you feel like you had no choice.

The fact that your child was fine without it, is great, but you're still firing off all the hard wiring that you can't do anything about.

It wasn't for for you, it was for your child via you.

Honestly, the human race would be fucking nowhere without that instinct.

Ah, I see. They have tied their own hands with ignorance.

Can we stop calling it male secretions? The proper name is galactorrhoea. Such as caused by a pituitary tumour or as a side effect of some medications. Generally, in men, it's quite a worrying symptom.

Yeah, refusing men entery to women spaces isn't discriminatory against them. As the Supreme Court was very specific in saying.

No it couldn't. They advertised has being for women. Very specifically mentioned in the Supreme Court judgement. If it's for women, no men allowed

No. I won’t.

I consider the term galactorrhoea to be an unintended side effect of an illness or medicine. While I understand that it is the same, that side effect is not destined to be ingested by infants typically.

The male people who do this deliberately wish to feed the secretions they produce to infants who simply cannot consent. I will continue to describe it as male people, men, feeding infants the secretions from their nipples.

Untested drug/hormone interaction, not adaptive like a mothers, and too often associated with a sexual fetish.

Galactorrhoea is an abnormal discharge from the nipple. I certainly wouldn't want to see it being fed to a baby!

Males can produce a substance that they secrete from their nipples. The drug interactions and hormone interactions have not been robustly tested in this substance.

The question is, who exactly benefits from this medical procedure? I cannot see the infant benefitting from this. Only the male seeking to do so.

Me either.

You’re not quite getting it though, are you

They advertised has being for women.

What on earth are you talking about!

I think we've all wasted enough time on Blueskies, who is either not in the UK and unable to grasp that we are and we are all quite clued up about our laws, or is in the UK and is unable to grasp that Stonewall law is not the real law and nobody else has to abide by it.

Last one before bedtime - @Blueskies25 you don't seem to be aware that the trans lobby in the UK has removed the term "breast feeding" from every NHS policy in the UK on the basis that it was NOT inclusive. So that means it is a group advertised for women. Keep up!