Another breastfeeding one

[MisssCackle]

Couldn’t see a thread on this.
In the latest of Breastfeeding batshittery..‘Breastfeeding and Lactation Support UK’ have today posted this.

I am so angered by it. The UK breastfeeding rates are amongst some of the lowest globally. We should be empowering women, not erasing them. Encouraging them to leave if they disagree?? They should be ashamed.

Personally I think your rules mean that you should take out the words ‘we do not discriminate’. It seems like you very much do.

It’s a Facebook group not an arm of the UN. You have the right to ask I guess, if you wanna spend your life being a power hungry weirdo who forces the beliefs of others. But then don’t claim you’re such a good, caring inclusive group you’re better than actual qualified NHS staff

I’d like to know this too.
how does one “feel” like a woman?

Well said

Cis is exclusive language, not inclusive

”We know you are here because you need support but if your views don’t match the ones I demand GTFO” is not inclusive

The vast, vast majority of online groups will have some degree of terms of reference or talk guidelines though and that will vary from group to group. From nursing support groups to hobby groups. I think as long as it's made clear to people at the outset then it's very much for them to make an informed choice as to whether its a group they want to participate in or not.

Well yes exactly. The irony of the so-called tolerant and inclusive. What they mean is “tolerant of people just like us. Nobody else”

But in this instance all that has been asked is that neutral language be used when addressing a collective. Terms that my group use themselves all the time naturally because they still clearly fit within the English language. So even if you're GC you're not being asked to say anything that isn't still completely applicable. The issue here is not the erasure of women or the right to refer to yourself however you wish, it's the demand to refer to other people using terms that make those other people uncomfortable.

Noone has been told to gtfo, they were politely encouraged to adjust their post and I think if you want to engage in fair debate then you need to be factual about what's actually been asked of women in the group. There's been a lot of conjecture in this thread that I think has created a bit of a spiral.

The focus of these groups seems less to be on supporting women who breastfeed and more on the facilitators gaining cool girl points for being so 'trans inclusive'

If someone had objected to me using word like ladies and girls when talking to fellow women who breastfeed I would have thought they were quite silly. If they had said support by the group was dependant on centering the feelings of trans identified people who have given birth and breastfeed but don't think the are female I would have known the group was a waste of time anyway.

Patronising bilge by smug idiots who really need to go and get fluffy jobs handing out rainbow lanyards and leave actual support of breastfeeding women and their babies to practitioners who don't see their role as enforcing trans theory on others.

Surely most transmen have had their breasts removed - so why would they need to be included in breastfeeding advice? Am I missing something?

What about the people offended by the neutral language?

And actually as a GC person I’d be asked to not refer to women as women. That offends me, goes against every belief I have. I wouldn’t be bowing to such a ridiculous request.

If everyone in the group is lactating then they are all women. Why can’t they be referred to as women?

Shhh stop being logical.

Not to mention that parenting is tough and if people want to make it about meeeee, everyone change their language to suit meeeee not the majority, they’re basically fucked in terms of raising children. I do feel AWFUL for these poor kids being gaslighted into being told they don’t have a mother when they do. I couldn’t imagine being so selfish

And how do trans men and non binary (biological women) get breastfeeding support then? It's one thing when you're in a group and you know all the other people in that group are women and identify as such, in which case work away and refer to them as such. But when you know someone in the group finds that offensive and distressing then I would question why it's so important to you to label them in a way that causes them upset and distress even if it's difficult for you to understand why it has that effect on them or you don't agree with it. In my mind that's just basic respect and decency. And it's already been clarified that there are non binary and trans men in the group that's been discussed. Do those members not also deserve support? Can you not see that there is a difficult balance for facilitators/moderators to then try to find a fair balance to accommodate as many biologically female people as possible who are wishing to breastfeed? I don't see a difference between enforcing trans ideology and trying to erase the existence of women and being so overtly GC that you're prepared to enforce a GC viewpoint on others and try to erase the existence and experience of trans/ non binary people. There has got to be a middle ground where people can co exist. Or if you are not prepared to go exist then you need to find an openly GC source of support which is your right.

But we do this all the time in these types of forums - we try to make allowances and be cautious in our language for people when certain terminology might cause them distress even if it's not our own experience and we don't fully understand why it might cause distress such as utilising trigger warnings for certain topics or using acronyms instead of full terms/blanking parts of words out etc.

We know that there are people who experience distress from gender dysphoria. Irregardless of what you believe around why that is, i think we can accept that there are people who find this difficult and upsetting. We also know that the adjustment around birth can be very difficult for people who fall in that category. My question is why you want to make that harder for them than it necessarily needs to be and why you'd want to isolate them because it's more important to you to be right and to see your own view point enforced and to enact your own right to call someone something even when it distresses them, than it is to see people access support in a way they can engage with it.

Trans men and “non binary” breastfeeders are women so they go to the same places women go for support.
Duh

What does it mean to identify as a woman?? I’d love to know. I “identify” as a woman because I AM a biological woman but apparently that’s the wrong and bigoted view and it’s something to do with wearing pink or lipstick or something.

Also why would you do the some of the most womanly things possible - be pregnant and give birth and breastfeed - and then say you don’t identify with being a woman?! Why should we pander to these bonkers people and then let them pretend they have nowhere to go for support

Sorry, it's "offensive and distressing" to refer to women and mothers as ladies and mamas?

I find your comments about women deeply regressive and oppressive. Women have a right to exist and it's not enforcing a GC viewpoint to say that. Least of all in the context of a breastfeeding support group.

If some women cannot cope with the reality that they are women, then they deserve compassion and mental health support - but they do not have the right to bully, shame and silence other women, or to deny breastfeeding support to those women.

You might.
i don’t.

I won’t be gaslit into thinking using the term “woman” for women causes so much distress that it’s ME who needs to change.

Being told to change my language to pander to men triggers ME.

My question is why you want to make that harder for them than it necessarily needs to be and why you'd want to isolate them because it's more important to you to be right and to see your own view point enforced and to enact your own right to call someone something even when it distresses them, than it is to see people access support in a way they can engage with it.

Because I don’t tell lies. I won’t call women men, and I won’t call men women. I won’t be bullied by the #BeKind crowd into changing the language of fact. Of that distressed people it’s for them to deal with, not me.

It's so exclusionary and authoritarian.

People are free to use their own language, what they can't do is police everyone else's. Absolutely INSANE that they think it's ok to try and police a completely normal casual form of address!

This group will quickly become irrelevant and only a hanging out place for fetishists. Because they're excluding most women.

It must be SO odd to be offended at being referred to as a female, and then go be pregnant, give birth and breastfeed. How do these women square those feelings?!

Much like I don’t tell an anorexic person that they are fat like they think, I don’t lie to someone with gender dysphoria. Those people need support, not lies.

It's important to be able to assume people are mums in a breastfeeding support group because these groups are designed for mutual emotional and practical support, fostering a shared experience of motherhood and breastfeeding challenges.

I think it’s shortsightedness not to see the damage of banning ‘hi mums’. Yes, this may be just one of many bf groups and people can choose to leave but imagine if they all made you feel like you don’t belong and it’s not a safe space, exclusive to mothers?! Where is this going? How many people are suddenly feeling less distressed, having given a birth as transmen, from these talk bans, while so many women are being undermined and denied an exclusive, safe space for mums.

I'm not sure why this is causing such a heated debate.

If I was in such a breastfeeding group, I would just leave.

I don't agree with the de-feminising of language around such very female experiences, BUT it's not my Facebook group and the admins are within their rights to moderate it as they see fit.

It's Facebook, the number of groups around is pretty large. Surely there is enough room for all kinds of breastfeeding support groups, even ones that use dubious language.

Yes exactly

Being a new and/or breastfeeding mum is SUCH an emotional and difficult time. I remember it as just a total brain fog 24/7. The last thing new mums need is to mind their language and not refer to women as women in case it jaspers one random person who has mental health issues. I couldn’t think of anything less supportive.

I mean it’s their FB group, they can Stasi it all they want, but don’t complain and moan when you’re criticised and people are outraged by outrageous actions.

This is my thinking exactly. Its not something that's come up as an issue in my group and if it did there would need to be discussion amongst the facilitators as to how best to approach it but ultimately its then up to women whether or not they continue to engage as with anything else in life. I know women who wouldn't engage with groups that aren't inclusive as that's their viewpoint and that's what they look for from forums they engage with. People should be able to choose provided the information is laid out clearly at the very start which is has been so no surprises for anybody as to what to expect from the group.

Indeed.
Good to see so many women speaking up against the intolerant who police the language of others and do so much to dehumanise women.

There's a particular cruelty in demanding that woman stop using the language of women and motherhood - especially at a time when women are exhausted and vulnerable post birth and are then confronted with self important "experts" claiming that their newly acquired status of being a mother, mummy, mum, mom, mama is somehow phobic and exclusionary.

Apologies if this has already been linked but just in case it hasn't , there's a new women centred breast feeding support group set up by women who left the La Leche League after it started centring men with a fetish. It doesn't police women's language and is unashamedly women centred as opposed to political activist centred:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5343994-moma-breastfeeding