Language matters - breastfeeding is something that only females can do.

[JellySaurus]

Male so-called 'lactation'.

It is not lactation. Lactation is what female mammals do in response to the hormonal changes resulting from giving birth. It is supported and maintained by the physical action of infant suckling or, to a lesser extent, manual pumping. It adapts to the needs of the growing infant, without any conscious actions from the mother. It fully supports the needs of the infant.

When a male secretes a milk-like substance from his nipples it is not lactation. When deliberately induced it is not a natural response to hormonal changes, but a side-effect of medications. When it happens spontaneously, without drug teatment, it requires medical investigation because it is indicative of a medical condition such as a pituitary tumour. There is a medical term for this: galactorrhoea.

Talking about 'male lactation' is like using 'gender-affirming pronouns' or incorrect grammar such as 'transwomen' - the slippery slope to equivalence with what it is absolutely not, the slippery slope towards female erasure.

Galactorhoea.

I didn't know there was a name for it! Personally, I'd be concerned about the gender-affirming hormones I was taking going into the milk and harming the baby if lactation were possible for a TW.

I wonder whether TIMs trying to induce galactorrhoea have to stop taking exogenous oestrogen while doing so. Not an issue, I expect, for men who like their masculinity, but just want some 'extras'.

Do you actually realise how few trans women induce lactation to feed babies? It is a miniscule number within a tiny population, and all are supervised by health visitors.

Trans men and nonbinary people are the focus of inclusive language around breast/chestfeeding, because natural milk is best for babies.

Inclusive language encourages trans men & nb people to access breast/chestfeeding support. Given the very impactful dysphoria trans men suffer during pregnancy, they really need that support, and to feel able to access help.

Respect for trans guys who have kids costs cis women precisely nothing.

It's a total non-issue. We have so many pressures and face constant harassment. I don't know a single woman who hasn't suffered a serious sexual assault, our reproductive rights are under attack, rape culture is destroying young lives - as if this is in any way important.

Few? There should be NONE. None whatsoever.

It is disgusting that while pregnant women are warned off drinking a glass of wine, babies are forced to ingest some appalling substance so that delusional males can pretend to breastfeed. It is nothing short of child abuse.

Oh look, a derailer. Quelle surprise.

This is nothing to do with so-called inclusive language. This is nothing to do with trans-identified females. This is EVERYTHING to do with selfish men of whatever identity, and the people who enable them. Because, get this, not all trans-identified men are fetishists, and many non-trans men are fetishists.

Males who pretend to be female by dressing up and taking a cocktail of drugs are dangerous and should not be anywhere near babies or children.

Females are the only producers of milk after birth. Chest feeding, don’t be so silly with your made up nonsensical phrases, it is not possible. Males are born male and the mutilation of their genitals and consumption of synthetic hormones does not transform them into a woman as they have and will always have xy chromosomes because it is impossible to change sex.

Here you are - a self identified male "lactation consultant" mansplaining why certain men want to 'breast feed" a baby and disrupt the critical mother baby dyad and the establishment of breastfeeding between the mother and her baby.

"As to the question of why they would want to, it seems reasonable to believe that cis men want to lactate for the same reasons as anyone else. Which is to say, usually to feed and bond with their baby and to a lesser extent for curiosity, fun, or sexual gratification.”

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5570719-5570719-lactation-support-conference-in-ireland-the-quiet-part-out-loud

Just shows what a broken society we live in that anyone can defend men abusing babies like this.

Do you actually realise how few trans women induce lactation to feed babies? It is a miniscule number within a tiny population... It's a total non-issue.

How many would be an issue?

Here comes TPA with the usual plop and scolding.

Just one man attempting/wanting/desiring to have a baby suck his chest/breast/nipple is one too many. It is totally unnecessary for the baby. But that's not the point is it?
How can anyone defend this? How can women defend it? It is absolutely vile.

The podcast with Jacob E and the woman nodding along could only watch a snippet) is just horrible.

@TransParentlyAnnoyed “ around breast/chestfeeding,”

The human race didn’t survive by ‘chestfeeding’

Humans survived through BREASTFEEDING which only WOMEN can do!!

Thank you very much for that link. I breastfed both my children for over a year. I am very glad I was able to do it. I did it for them and to a lesser extent for myself, as I understood there were some health benefits for mothers. What I can confidently say is that at no point did I or any woman I knew do it for 'curiosity, fun, or sexual gratification'. I find that an absolutely repellent statement. The mask slipped there, didn't it?

I'm talking about the difference between female lactation and male galactorrhoea, about recognising that secretion from female breast tissue is different to secretion from male breast tissue. That deliberately causing a symptom of ill-health is fundamentally unhealthy.

Our current MRA derailer leaps in and tries to make it all about their trans-identifying female child. No. It's not about them. Not everything is about them.

(Hmmm...I suspect Main Character Syndrome is a feature of transgenderism.)

Can we try and ignore the derailment?

Galactorrhoea is easy enough to say (ga-lac-toe-ree-ah) but a difficult word to spell. Can we try to use it in reference to male breast secretions? Make it clearer that males do not lactate, that there is no equivalence to women lactating

We also get into the mess of confusion where women identifying as men have babies (why???) and then biology makes them lactate, and sometimes this is regarded as male lactation

1. I don't care how tiny the numbers of trans-identified males trying to induce lactation. They should be nil. If necessary, it should be banned by law. There is no benefit to the baby whatsoever, if the mother is trying to establish breastfeeding it will interfere with that, and the father or other male trying to do this is doing it entirely out of selfishness. If a baby can't be breastfed formula milk is a pretty good substitute.
2. At a time when the NHS is really struggling no resources whatsoever should be diverted to this totally unnecessary and harmful activity. Health visitors are needed to support families, not validate the fetishes of males who put their wants above a newborn's needs.
3. 'Natural milk is best for babies.' Indeed it is, where the mother can breastfeed without undue stress and difficulty. I would not consider natural milk to be either secretions from males who can only produce them by taking a cocktail of drugs or breastmilk from women who have taken unnaturally large amounts of testosterone.
4. Sadly, some trans-identified women are going to be unable even to attempt to breastfeed because they have had a double mastectomy in an attempt to look more masculine. Not much support for these women to provide natural milk for their babies, is there?
5. As ever, most sane people are going to marvel at the idea that a woman who is so dysphoric about being female that she wants people to treat her as if she is actually male, or at any rate not female, would then go ahead and do the most female thing possible, i.e. become pregnant and give birth.
6. Allied to that, I would also worry that a woman in such a fragile state of mental health is surely going to find being a parent very hard going, given that most people of both sexes find it just about the hardest job we've ever done. I can't feel it's going to get the baby's life off to a good start.

No such thing as 'trans women' they are men.
Men can't breast-feed.
So the correct number should be ZERO - as others have said, there are safeguarding flags around anyone else who even tries.

No such thing as 'trans men' they are women. Women can breast-feed, so there is no need to rename it for them.

There is no such thing as non-binary, you are either man or woman, whatever your mental health might lead you to think. If a woman you can breast feed, if a man you can not.

It is not inclusive language - it is incorrect language. Telling lies does not make something inclusive.

If a 'trans man' (woman) is pregnant, then that is the natural outcome of a woman having sex. If they believe somehow that they are a man, then perhaps they shouldn't get pregnant?

Respect for individuals should be inherent - respect for lies and delusion not so.

no such thing as cis women - just women - born female, remain female, have never been male.

It is a total issue - it disguises the sexual abnormality of a man wanting to suckle a child - if it is wrong for a man to do this (and it would lead to safeguarding accusations, so society knows it is wrong), then just claiming to be a woman doesn't make the act right for the child - a) the claim is inaccurate, b) the activity is the same c) it is still a safeguarding issue.

If you have that level of concern for oppression against women, why do you keep posting on here supporting philosophies which are all about threatening women...?

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I can’t understand point 5 either!

If these women think they shouldn’t have been born in a body that is capable of pregnancy and birth, why would you then want to do it?

Why does a woman who thinks she is a man want to do the most female thing going: have a baby? That's weird and smacks of cake and eat it. And it's not inclusive language, it excludes 99% of mothers who are or want to breastfeed.
And if only one entitled TiM tries to breastfeed that is one baby and its mother damaged, their relationship damaged and possible consequences for the baby from being fed some chemically induced liquid from its presumed father (how is he a woman if he has fathered a child?).

Do you know for a fact that this substance exuded by men is not harmful in any way to the babies it is administered to? For how many years has this practice been being observed and data taken?

Since transmen and non-binary women who have given birth are female, the problem about the secretions they produce being potentially poisonous to an infant doesn't arise, does it. And what they do is not "male lactation": it is simply lactation.

If the substance males are enabled by drug treatment to exude turns out on further examination to cause harm to the child in ten or fifteen years' time, one baby malnourished in this way is one baby too many. What is wrong with giving them formula, if you intend to deny them breast milk?

Do you realise how few?

Always the same, isn’t it?

Do you realise how few trans identifying men:

• try to lactate and feed a baby?
• have taken a women’s sports place or prize?
• have hurt women in a women’s sports event?
• have been sent to a women’s prison?
• have raped/sexually assaulted women in a women’s prison?
• have raped/sexually assaulted women in a women’s space?
• are paedophiles?
• have made death threats to women?

Some of these categories have a few. Some have many. The acceptance of just one category being “a few” has enabled the others to have many.

As Maray1967 put it well:

Few? There should be NONE. None whatsoever.

When a male secretes a milk-like substance from his nipples it is not lactation. When deliberately induced it is not a natural response to hormonal changes, but a side-effect of medications. When it happens spontaneously, without drug teatment, it requires medical investigation because it is indicative of a medical condition such as a pituitary tumour. There is a medical term for this: galactorrhoea.

In short, it is pus. When a whitish substance oozes from a lesion, the common word for that is pus.

No one, let alone babies, should be consuming that.

But also, we're all focused on the substance itself. Even if nothing came out it'd be unacceptable what these men are doing to these babies.

It is not puss. It does not ooze from a lesion. It is manufactured by male breast tissue and secreted/extracted from the male nipple. But it is not lactation. It is galactorrhoea.

Lactation is a natural, healthy, appropriate and involuntary response to natural changes in the female body. Galactorrhoea is a morbid condition, inappropriate, un-natural and unhealthy in any body, female or male.

Why would a man want to ‘feed’ a baby?

Seriously?

Galactorrhea is a type of pus. It does ooze from a lesion. Google what a lesion is - it is any deformed, diseased or malfunctioning bodily tissue. That includes male nipples that are oozing, because healthy male nipples do not ooze.

I think you and I are actually agreeing, op - when you say galactorhea is a morbid condition, that is the same as saying the substance is coming from a lesion rather than fully healthy tissue