Oh good lord. I don't know where to begin with how nauseating this whole concept is to me, as a mom who breastfeeds both a 7 month old and a toddler right now. Whatever is coming from these men isn't milk, it's a side effect of pharmaceuticals that are rich in seed oils and solvents. That's not even close to the glorious substance my body builds for the babies that grew in my womb.
That’s just the thing. I am tandem nursing right now too and to think a male with a fetish both
A. thinks he can even begin to relate to this experience and also thinks he DESERVES TO and
B. Can go out into the world and get sincere support from women who claim to be protectors of breastfeeding....it is like a true nightmarish hellscape of lunacy to me.
I'm also just...there is no word for how DIRTY it feels to know people are jusr happy to EXPERIMENT ON THEIR SWEET BABIES by "feeding " them a hormonal symptom full of God knows what. It's dirty. Those poor babies.
Emily, you are a star. The wokerati of LLL have all but erased women and mothers, in preference to using "a variety of terms" to describe us "gestators" who go onto become "lactators". To those of us who have complained to the LLLI Board about the mixing causes and mission creep (in the Olden Days, it was just assumed that supporting "everybody" to breastfeed meant every woman) that following a misogynistic ideology demands, we are just gaslit and told that this is not happening. When the new book "The Art of Breastfeeding" becomes the training manual for new Leaders, those not living in countries where 'everything goes' on the sex and relationship spectrum is legal will have to carefully consider their welfare if they choose to remain affiliated with LLL: https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/what-is-a-duty-of-care
Refusing to disrupt the mother/baby dyad so that some dude can get his rocks off "affirming" his femininity is neither transphobic, nor bigoted, it is merely doing what is physiologically normal for a mammalian species. Who cares if males "can" lactate or not? Why is any effort at all going into such a damaging practice? Who does it benefit and who does it harm? https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/girls-can-do-anything-but-sorry-boys
I could go on and on (well I have actually), but kudos to you for directly pointing out what is happening. I would like to note however, that when LLL entities or LLLI is putting out public calls for donations from the general public, they manage to rediscover "moms" and lose all the "chestfeeding" jargon. So clearly someone in charge realizes that society at large is not nearly as "inclusive" as LLL is. I suspect that Our Lady of La Leche would agree with us about the status of women in relation to their babies.
Thank you Lucy! I am going to have to read your piece on Duty of Care now, because what an apt point. We forget that our western viewpoint is so skewed from so many other parts of the world who haven’t overly intellectualized certain basic aspects of nature.
I completely agree with you on the point about not caring if men can technically lactate under the correct specific artificial circumstances. So many people who like to argue on this topic bring that fact up, and I find myself consistently just flabbergasted by this. Truly a case of “just because you can doesn’t mean you should”! It should be completely irrelevant and how it isn’t to so many is so concerning to me.
Also what a good point on their fundraising efforts. I actually noticed that while looking through their social media before I wrote this. Their posts for “Giving Tuesday” were awfully sentimental (in the way they should be-I just wish it was actually representative of their actual policies and actions).
I suspect the same about Our Lady, hopefully she knows there are women like you who have found the courage to stand in your integrity!
Another sad aspect of this whole mess is the general loss of support for women who need breastfeeding help. In other forums I have read about some people no longer suggesting LLL as a source of breastfeeding support, despite the fact that "on the ground" in our dealings with mothers it's pretty much business as usual (with the notable exception of LLLUSA, where I've seen mothers actually chastised for not using "inclusive" language when they approach for personal breastfeeding help). I wrote about them here: https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/la-leche-league-eliminates-mothers But on the whole most Leaders are doing what we've always done, which is to encourage and support every mother as she is, without judgement or criticism of her values or choices.
Leaders do not need any re-education on how to treat women with respect or inclusivity and we don't need to apologize for stating that our 'scope of practice' is mothers. Other people can find the support they are looking for elsewhere.
I absolutely see what you mean here, which is why when I posted about this on instagram, I was careful to mention that my criticisms are not of members and leaders themselves, but the board and the organization as a whole. I still recommend local LLL meetings to the women I work with because I know some of the leaders and know they do not subscribe to all of this nonsense, and also because I know the work they do and the support they provide is invaluable. You are absolutely right-women don't need trainings on how to interact with one another, and the fact that organizations like LLL and IBCLE (also things like DONA, etc) are pushing this sort of thing is just the epitome of condescension.
Thank you for writing this. I have a couple of things to add.
1) I feel like my generation is losing a sense of the difference between wanting to be, fetishizing something, and being. For instance I am not someone who fetishist having a vagina or breasts, I just have them, and honoring your own body is always a different experience than coveting another person's body. I have heard many men compare their desire to nurse or have vaginal sex with my desire to do these things, and I think it speaks to an acceptance of artificially in our culture... an erasure of what it means to BE.
2. When I was pregnant my partner had kind of a freak out and looked into male lactation because it was hard for him to accept that he would have to trust me so much, that so much of the baby's life and development would be up to me. Ultimately he worked through that and appreciates my larger role in our child's life. (While wrong headed I think this is the most sympathetic reason why a man would want to lactate when the baby's mother is perfectly capable.) He reached out to a trans identified "doula" who told him that there were no concerns to his health and he could take estrogen and progesterone for several monghs and then stop taking them to induce lactation and that when he wanted to stop lactating he would return to normal with no breasts. To my knowledge breast tissue does not disappear and would need to be surgically removed.... I was appalled that some self styled expert would give such dangerous advice to a 20 year old boy having a meltdown. Given that we were together and I was capable and planning to breastfeed, what justification was there for him to alter himself and plan on going through a wild hormonal shift when **I** was postpartum? Ultimately his mother talked to him and pointed out that his role would need to be supporting me, not messing with his hormones and pmsimg, after I had our child.
This was a situation where an older person needed to say something practical, wise and uncool to a younger person and luckily she did and he received it. That some adult (I do not know if they were male or female) calling themselves a doula spoke to him in such a vulnerable moment of weakness, and reccomended that he start taking women's birth control?!? Horrifies me.
Your first point is so completely spot on. I think I get into this sometimes with people who want to argue with me about any of my more “terfy” opinions. They always have this talking point that goes something like “wow you are so insecure in your womanhood and so threatened, if you weren’t you would understand there is room for everyone in womanhood” or something equally insane. My response is always the same-things that simply ARE cannot be threatened, and things that simply ARE cannot inspire insecurity. How can a female feel that her female-ness is threatened? She can’t! I feel that your insight here on BEING is similar. In being female, every single experience we have-no matter what it is-is a female experience. Vice versa for the male. Those that pervert those things and mix them up with those fetishes and desires have no real understanding of existence in my opinion.
As for your other point-wow. I feel the need to say sorry for that experience because I feel like that sounds potentially controlling and also that his motivations were built on distrust of your body. Maybe your perceive it differently and if so no sorry is needed, and if that is the case I apologize and either way hope his desire turned into meaningful support for you as you began breastfeeding. Even more significant is that a doula was literally practicing medicine with that advice. It blows my mind that there are people in that role running around giving such harmful (in many more ways than one) advice out to people. Especially in this situation. Sometimes we really do just need an adult in the room to say no-glad his mother was there to be that voice!
Many men find themselves in an uncomfortable position when you put a baby in the mix and are surprised at themselves for feeling jealous of the intimate relationship between a mother and her baby. The mature ones get over themselves and come into their own a bit later, when those toddlers "choose" them over their mothers. There are so many ways that men can build relationships with their babies that don't involve feeding. I'm glad your man saw the light in time.
"Quit using literal babies as props to affirm your delusions." Yes, there may well be consequences someday for these babies that people have yet to consider. Also permitting biological men (even if they may think they're women) to attend LLL meetings sets a precedent for men to enter spaces that are intended to be exclusively for women - it 'normalizes' it, if you will. I can think of many instances in which this is not a good thing. I've noticed lately a sign at our local library: "Breastfeeding and Chestfeeding Welcome Here...see staff for questions" I have questions, and lots of them. Thanks for writing about this. A mom of 8 who breastfed all of her babies.
To your point on the babies-yes! No one seems to want to talk about the infants caught in the middle of all of this. Also yes, women just simply need our own spaces, this is why sex-based rights are so important.
Thanks for writing this!!! I've nursed 6 babies, and still nursing the 6th. Yes, I believe I have an exclusive biological woman's right to lactation. I mean it's not even something I overtly choose. When my babies exit my body into the world, my body automatically starts to produce milk if left to its own devices.
Thank you for writing this. I’m about to give birth to our eighth living child. I’ve breastfed them all, some with more success than others. I’ve always appreciated the guidance and support of lactation nurses, but I’ve never directly used LLL. I knew LLL had turned, so to speak, but this is truly tragic. Looks like it’s time for a new grassroots organization dedicated to supporting actual biological women while they seek to provide for their babies in this amazing way. Women need other women in this endeavor.
I went to one LLL meeting in search of a local support group not just because I was concerned about my milk supply but was looking for genuine connection as a new mom. They brought up how they were removing the word womanly from the title to “keep up with the times.” I never went back. Thanks for writing this. Women need a space to be surrounded by other women and it be women ONLY!
Aghhhhh. Truly maddening. I’ve had such difficult nursing experiences with nursing all 5 of my babies -- triple feeding, oral ties, endless mastitis, the works. I’ve thought at length about becoming a lactation consultant etc... because I’d love to encourage other women, but have been so incredibly disheartened by the ongoing woke-ism in the birth world. It’s insulting and absurd. I’m all for supporting however a woman needs to feed their baby. I will champion whatever is going to be best for them, although I also heartily believe most women are set up to fail with their (lack of) breastfeeding education. But this is such a travesty to have one of the few FREE resources resort to this.
The way my stress levels rose reading this. This makes me so unbelievably angry. I’m sure most of the women who’ve breastfed know so directly and personally the difficulty and vulnerability there is when it comes to figuring out nursing. I was just looking in a local buy, sell, donate FB page and half the posts are women talking about how men with fetishes for watching women nurse/freshly nursed milk are messaging them about selling their milk and if/how they should do it. It’s like either cater to the men who have the fetish that they can breastfed themselves or to the ones who want it for themselves. Women are the emotional support for deranged men. It’s like gender roles are defined by men, that looked differently in the past and now it looks like this, with the worst women as little side kick enforcers. That said, I can’t help but think these groups are resigning themselves to failure because I don’t think most women support this and as they wade more into the politicizing/ gender world, they are leaving a big space for new groups and women to fill the space. You already see with doulas and midwives.
“Historian Victor Davis Hanson has argued that modern liberalism, especially in elite circles, sometimes fosters what he calls “moral narcissism.” He describes this as the tendency to adopt fashionable moral causes, not necessarily for practical results but to feel morally superior.”
“Much of today’s ideology… is predicated on the idea that by expressing the right concern about the right issues… one becomes morally superior.”
This behavior on the part of LLL is very much in line with the old-school objection to women breastfeeding on airplanes. It’s a twisted masculinized fetishized version of what is often the best way to feed or calm a baby and what ought to be the right of every woman.
Negating the building blocks and foundations of humanity for novelty and peer approval.
Oh good lord. I don't know where to begin with how nauseating this whole concept is to me, as a mom who breastfeeds both a 7 month old and a toddler right now. Whatever is coming from these men isn't milk, it's a side effect of pharmaceuticals that are rich in seed oils and solvents. That's not even close to the glorious substance my body builds for the babies that grew in my womb.
Thank you for taking the time to write this.
That’s just the thing. I am tandem nursing right now too and to think a male with a fetish both
A. thinks he can even begin to relate to this experience and also thinks he DESERVES TO and
B. Can go out into the world and get sincere support from women who claim to be protectors of breastfeeding....it is like a true nightmarish hellscape of lunacy to me.
I'm also just...there is no word for how DIRTY it feels to know people are jusr happy to EXPERIMENT ON THEIR SWEET BABIES by "feeding " them a hormonal symptom full of God knows what. It's dirty. Those poor babies.
Emily, you are a star. The wokerati of LLL have all but erased women and mothers, in preference to using "a variety of terms" to describe us "gestators" who go onto become "lactators". To those of us who have complained to the LLLI Board about the mixing causes and mission creep (in the Olden Days, it was just assumed that supporting "everybody" to breastfeed meant every woman) that following a misogynistic ideology demands, we are just gaslit and told that this is not happening. When the new book "The Art of Breastfeeding" becomes the training manual for new Leaders, those not living in countries where 'everything goes' on the sex and relationship spectrum is legal will have to carefully consider their welfare if they choose to remain affiliated with LLL: https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/what-is-a-duty-of-care
Refusing to disrupt the mother/baby dyad so that some dude can get his rocks off "affirming" his femininity is neither transphobic, nor bigoted, it is merely doing what is physiologically normal for a mammalian species. Who cares if males "can" lactate or not? Why is any effort at all going into such a damaging practice? Who does it benefit and who does it harm? https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/girls-can-do-anything-but-sorry-boys
I could go on and on (well I have actually), but kudos to you for directly pointing out what is happening. I would like to note however, that when LLL entities or LLLI is putting out public calls for donations from the general public, they manage to rediscover "moms" and lose all the "chestfeeding" jargon. So clearly someone in charge realizes that society at large is not nearly as "inclusive" as LLL is. I suspect that Our Lady of La Leche would agree with us about the status of women in relation to their babies.
Thank you Lucy! I am going to have to read your piece on Duty of Care now, because what an apt point. We forget that our western viewpoint is so skewed from so many other parts of the world who haven’t overly intellectualized certain basic aspects of nature.
I completely agree with you on the point about not caring if men can technically lactate under the correct specific artificial circumstances. So many people who like to argue on this topic bring that fact up, and I find myself consistently just flabbergasted by this. Truly a case of “just because you can doesn’t mean you should”! It should be completely irrelevant and how it isn’t to so many is so concerning to me.
Also what a good point on their fundraising efforts. I actually noticed that while looking through their social media before I wrote this. Their posts for “Giving Tuesday” were awfully sentimental (in the way they should be-I just wish it was actually representative of their actual policies and actions).
I suspect the same about Our Lady, hopefully she knows there are women like you who have found the courage to stand in your integrity!
Another sad aspect of this whole mess is the general loss of support for women who need breastfeeding help. In other forums I have read about some people no longer suggesting LLL as a source of breastfeeding support, despite the fact that "on the ground" in our dealings with mothers it's pretty much business as usual (with the notable exception of LLLUSA, where I've seen mothers actually chastised for not using "inclusive" language when they approach for personal breastfeeding help). I wrote about them here: https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/la-leche-league-eliminates-mothers But on the whole most Leaders are doing what we've always done, which is to encourage and support every mother as she is, without judgement or criticism of her values or choices.
Leaders do not need any re-education on how to treat women with respect or inclusivity and we don't need to apologize for stating that our 'scope of practice' is mothers. Other people can find the support they are looking for elsewhere.
I absolutely see what you mean here, which is why when I posted about this on instagram, I was careful to mention that my criticisms are not of members and leaders themselves, but the board and the organization as a whole. I still recommend local LLL meetings to the women I work with because I know some of the leaders and know they do not subscribe to all of this nonsense, and also because I know the work they do and the support they provide is invaluable. You are absolutely right-women don't need trainings on how to interact with one another, and the fact that organizations like LLL and IBCLE (also things like DONA, etc) are pushing this sort of thing is just the epitome of condescension.
Thank you for writing this. I have a couple of things to add.
1) I feel like my generation is losing a sense of the difference between wanting to be, fetishizing something, and being. For instance I am not someone who fetishist having a vagina or breasts, I just have them, and honoring your own body is always a different experience than coveting another person's body. I have heard many men compare their desire to nurse or have vaginal sex with my desire to do these things, and I think it speaks to an acceptance of artificially in our culture... an erasure of what it means to BE.
2. When I was pregnant my partner had kind of a freak out and looked into male lactation because it was hard for him to accept that he would have to trust me so much, that so much of the baby's life and development would be up to me. Ultimately he worked through that and appreciates my larger role in our child's life. (While wrong headed I think this is the most sympathetic reason why a man would want to lactate when the baby's mother is perfectly capable.) He reached out to a trans identified "doula" who told him that there were no concerns to his health and he could take estrogen and progesterone for several monghs and then stop taking them to induce lactation and that when he wanted to stop lactating he would return to normal with no breasts. To my knowledge breast tissue does not disappear and would need to be surgically removed.... I was appalled that some self styled expert would give such dangerous advice to a 20 year old boy having a meltdown. Given that we were together and I was capable and planning to breastfeed, what justification was there for him to alter himself and plan on going through a wild hormonal shift when **I** was postpartum? Ultimately his mother talked to him and pointed out that his role would need to be supporting me, not messing with his hormones and pmsimg, after I had our child.
This was a situation where an older person needed to say something practical, wise and uncool to a younger person and luckily she did and he received it. That some adult (I do not know if they were male or female) calling themselves a doula spoke to him in such a vulnerable moment of weakness, and reccomended that he start taking women's birth control?!? Horrifies me.
Your first point is so completely spot on. I think I get into this sometimes with people who want to argue with me about any of my more “terfy” opinions. They always have this talking point that goes something like “wow you are so insecure in your womanhood and so threatened, if you weren’t you would understand there is room for everyone in womanhood” or something equally insane. My response is always the same-things that simply ARE cannot be threatened, and things that simply ARE cannot inspire insecurity. How can a female feel that her female-ness is threatened? She can’t! I feel that your insight here on BEING is similar. In being female, every single experience we have-no matter what it is-is a female experience. Vice versa for the male. Those that pervert those things and mix them up with those fetishes and desires have no real understanding of existence in my opinion.
As for your other point-wow. I feel the need to say sorry for that experience because I feel like that sounds potentially controlling and also that his motivations were built on distrust of your body. Maybe your perceive it differently and if so no sorry is needed, and if that is the case I apologize and either way hope his desire turned into meaningful support for you as you began breastfeeding. Even more significant is that a doula was literally practicing medicine with that advice. It blows my mind that there are people in that role running around giving such harmful (in many more ways than one) advice out to people. Especially in this situation. Sometimes we really do just need an adult in the room to say no-glad his mother was there to be that voice!
Many men find themselves in an uncomfortable position when you put a baby in the mix and are surprised at themselves for feeling jealous of the intimate relationship between a mother and her baby. The mature ones get over themselves and come into their own a bit later, when those toddlers "choose" them over their mothers. There are so many ways that men can build relationships with their babies that don't involve feeding. I'm glad your man saw the light in time.
Thanks for the offer of help guys, but we've got this: https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/all-that-glitters-is-not-gold
This is quite the ride. Thank you for writing it.
Thank you for receiving it and being aware♥️
"Quit using literal babies as props to affirm your delusions." Yes, there may well be consequences someday for these babies that people have yet to consider. Also permitting biological men (even if they may think they're women) to attend LLL meetings sets a precedent for men to enter spaces that are intended to be exclusively for women - it 'normalizes' it, if you will. I can think of many instances in which this is not a good thing. I've noticed lately a sign at our local library: "Breastfeeding and Chestfeeding Welcome Here...see staff for questions" I have questions, and lots of them. Thanks for writing about this. A mom of 8 who breastfed all of her babies.
To your point on the babies-yes! No one seems to want to talk about the infants caught in the middle of all of this. Also yes, women just simply need our own spaces, this is why sex-based rights are so important.
Thanks for writing this!!! I've nursed 6 babies, and still nursing the 6th. Yes, I believe I have an exclusive biological woman's right to lactation. I mean it's not even something I overtly choose. When my babies exit my body into the world, my body automatically starts to produce milk if left to its own devices.
Of course. I feel the same. It is a part of our most basic physiology and at the same time, it is a birthright for both mothers and babies!
Thank you for writing this. I’m about to give birth to our eighth living child. I’ve breastfed them all, some with more success than others. I’ve always appreciated the guidance and support of lactation nurses, but I’ve never directly used LLL. I knew LLL had turned, so to speak, but this is truly tragic. Looks like it’s time for a new grassroots organization dedicated to supporting actual biological women while they seek to provide for their babies in this amazing way. Women need other women in this endeavor.
I went to one LLL meeting in search of a local support group not just because I was concerned about my milk supply but was looking for genuine connection as a new mom. They brought up how they were removing the word womanly from the title to “keep up with the times.” I never went back. Thanks for writing this. Women need a space to be surrounded by other women and it be women ONLY!
Aghhhhh. Truly maddening. I’ve had such difficult nursing experiences with nursing all 5 of my babies -- triple feeding, oral ties, endless mastitis, the works. I’ve thought at length about becoming a lactation consultant etc... because I’d love to encourage other women, but have been so incredibly disheartened by the ongoing woke-ism in the birth world. It’s insulting and absurd. I’m all for supporting however a woman needs to feed their baby. I will champion whatever is going to be best for them, although I also heartily believe most women are set up to fail with their (lack of) breastfeeding education. But this is such a travesty to have one of the few FREE resources resort to this.
The way my stress levels rose reading this. This makes me so unbelievably angry. I’m sure most of the women who’ve breastfed know so directly and personally the difficulty and vulnerability there is when it comes to figuring out nursing. I was just looking in a local buy, sell, donate FB page and half the posts are women talking about how men with fetishes for watching women nurse/freshly nursed milk are messaging them about selling their milk and if/how they should do it. It’s like either cater to the men who have the fetish that they can breastfed themselves or to the ones who want it for themselves. Women are the emotional support for deranged men. It’s like gender roles are defined by men, that looked differently in the past and now it looks like this, with the worst women as little side kick enforcers. That said, I can’t help but think these groups are resigning themselves to failure because I don’t think most women support this and as they wade more into the politicizing/ gender world, they are leaving a big space for new groups and women to fill the space. You already see with doulas and midwives.
“Historian Victor Davis Hanson has argued that modern liberalism, especially in elite circles, sometimes fosters what he calls “moral narcissism.” He describes this as the tendency to adopt fashionable moral causes, not necessarily for practical results but to feel morally superior.”
“Much of today’s ideology… is predicated on the idea that by expressing the right concern about the right issues… one becomes morally superior.”
— Victor Davis Hanson.
This behavior on the part of LLL is very much in line with the old-school objection to women breastfeeding on airplanes. It’s a twisted masculinized fetishized version of what is often the best way to feed or calm a baby and what ought to be the right of every woman.
Negating the building blocks and foundations of humanity for novelty and peer approval.
Nursing is a continuation of pregnancy. Accommodations can be made in various circumstances, but that is ideal. This subverts that message.