La Leche League ignores biology
La Leche League is an organisation that works in over 80 countries, and exists to help mothers to breastfeed. It even has status at the U.N. But no longer is it just mothers who can breastfeed, according to La Leche League. They have become super woke, sadly. Just like some other groups in NZ, who should all know better.
TRANSCRIPT:
I’m sure that you’ve heard of La Leche League. It’s an organisation that works in over 80 countries, and exists to help mothers to breastfeed. It even has status at the U.N. But no longer is it just mothers who can breastfeed, according to La Leche League. They have become super woke, sadly. Just like some other groups in NZ who should know better.
According to a report on Substack by Graham Linehan, a comedian and the creator of the tv programme “Father Ted” but now a social commentator on the attack on women’s rights,
over the last few years as gender identity ideology has become big, pressure has been placed on La Leche League and volunteer breastfeeding counsellors to change their language, to avoid saying the words “woman” and “mother” when they are talking about breastfeeding.
A lot of volunteer breastfeeding counsellors in the U.S. have wanted the organisation to stop using the words “woman” and ‘”mother” altogether, whereas breastfeeding counsellors in other parts of the world where gender identity ideology is not relevant have wanted to keep using the language they have always used.
Recently the organisation decided that all communications from La Leche League International, including social media and their educational articles and magazines would use a mix of language including “mother” and language that was de-sexed and talked about breastfeeding parents, chestfeeding and human milk feeding.
Breastfeeding counsellors all over the world have been really upset about this as this mix of terms can be factually incorrect or confusing for people, especially when English is not their first language. Breastfeeding counsellors are concerned that even though La Leche League International are saying that “mother” will continue to be used they might eventually remove “mother” altogether as La Leche League USA pretty much has done. In addition, La Leche League USA no longer provides mother-to-mother support, just parent-to-parent support for breastfeeding, chestfeeding and human milk feeding.
On La Leche League online forums mothers from around the world are being shamed for talking about mothers and breastfeeding and told they have to change their words. Under the current policy, if breastfeeding counsellors from outside of the U.S. want to publish an article in the La Leche League International magazine they have to change their words or the organisation will not publish their work.
More than two hundred and fifty breastfeeding counsellors wrote to the La Leche League International Board recently, saying that forcing these changes on them is cultural imperialism and colonialist. Some of the breastfeeding counsellors who signed the letter have been volunteering their time to help mothers to breastfeed for decades, they love the organisation and the work that it does but they are upset that an American idea is being enforced on the rest of the world and that mothers are disappearing, because their ability to make mothers visible in language is being taken away.
Well, the ideology has certainly come to the NZ branch.
Here’s an ad for an upcoming meeting of the Wellington branch of La Leche league
“Breast feeders, chest feeders, human milk feeders, pregnant parents..”
Are cows and goats invited also?
In Australia, people who “chestfeed” are the target of a new transgender-inclusive guide from the Australian Breastfeeding Association. The booklet, fruit of a two-year $20,000 project with the LGBTQ+ group Rainbow Families, also details how biological males who identify as female can chemically induce “human milk feeding”.
Conflict within the ABA has sharpened as a group of activists among the 1100-plus breastfeeding counsellors has met resistance from women who insist the organisation must not be diverted from its mother-centred mission.
Oxfam have also gone down the woke slope
Have you ever heard of a midwife? Yeah I know – dumb question – we all have. It was the midwife supporting my wife through the births of my 3 children while I was passed out on the floor. But now – in NZ – the midwifery council wants to cancel women. Yep – don’t mention the word women.
The Midwifery Council of NZ has revised its midwifery scope of practice guidelines to entirely remove the words “woman” and “mother”. On its website, the Midwifery Council says revising the wording used in the guidelines has been in the making for at least two years in response to “strong signals about the need for a radical transformation of the health system, including midwifery”.
Well – radical is correct. Biologically tone deaf would be another word. Woke stupidity would be the other adjective I would use.
Let’s look at the changes
Here’s the original –
And I’ve circled all the mentions of the word “women” – women and her family, and also “breastfeeding” – not chestfeeding or some other woke term.
Here’s the new woke version
Women and Mother has been cancelled
for whānau who are planning a pregnancy, pregnant, birthing, and postnatal.
So it’s the whanau that are pregnant and giving birth now.
Promoting whanau health
Consults with whanau
Whanau feedback
Varied health needs of whanau
So the focus is no longer on the pregnant woman – because remember – and this will possibly get this mcblog episode removed from facebook or Linkedin – only women can get pregnant. Radical eh.
Women has been cancelled. It’s now “whanau”.
Remember – the midwifery council is not the first woke government department playing fast and furious with biological terms.
Up until the 5th of April last year, the Ministry of Health understood biology. Only women give birth.
But that all changed on the 6th April 2022.
No longer is it pregnant women giving birth and needing immunisation. It’s pregnant people
These are both from the 6th April. So 5th April is pregnant women. 6th April the ministry of health goes woke.
Yep – biology has effectively left the room of the Ministry of Health. It’s left the Midwifery Council. And it’s now left the La Leche League.
But it’s a worldwide media push which has actually been going on for years
Here’s Time Magazine
My Brother’s Pregnancy and the Making of a New American Family
Yep – Time Magazine has been campaigning on this since 2016!
The Atlantic
What It’s Like to Chestfeed. The article starts:
When Trevor MacDonald started chestfeeding about five years ago, he didn’t know anyone who had attempted it, nor had any of his doctors ever encountered someone who had. In fact, he was shocked that his body could even produce milk. As a trans man—someone who was assigned female at birth but has transitioned to identifying as male—he was born with the mammary glands and milk ducts required for lactation, but he’d had his breasts removed. Once he had his baby, his care providers supported his desire to nurse, but it was up to him figure out how.
Dear Trevor. Women can breastfeed. It’s not breaking news.
But here’s the interesting bit, as reported by The Federalist
MacDonald proudly became a leader for the Le Leche League, an international nonprofit that supports breastfeeding. LLL changed their policy to include “men” with lactating breasts:
We recognize that any breastfeeding parent, regardless of whether they self-identify as a mother or father, should be – and is now – welcome to investigate LLL Leadership. There are other prerequisites that a potential Leader needs to satisfy, but being a woman isn’t one of them.
The possibilities are endless when you just start making stuff up. This news is super for MacDonald and her journey of self-discovery, but consider the anxious new mothers she will serve. Dealing with the rough seas of postpartum hormones and fragile body confidence issues, they must watch their instructor attach her child to her man chest as she eagerly instructs them in how to nurse.
All of her comforting “Don’t worry, ladies, I’m pretty much just like you!” assurances will do little to ease the awkwardness she’s forcing upon them. These ladies can neither complain nor demonstrate their discomfort. They certainly couldn’t roll their eyes and proclaim, “This is absurd!” Such feelings and behavior will be judged and denounced as raw bigotry and trans-hatred. These nursing mothers will have to be punished.
Does this matter? Of course it does. It’s what I call linguistic gymnastics. It demeans women. It demeans mothers. It cancels mums. It denies nature and biology. To say pregnant people and to deny mothers giving birth is to perpetuate a dangerous lie and deny biological reality in order to appease a radical sexual and gender ideology. A cultural Marxist ideology intent on destroying the natural family.
But the truth doesn’t change – only women can give birth. Women are mothers. Men are fathers. Radical eh. Biology tells a story – but the state seems dead-set to distort that story, and we should be concerned at that direction being taken. These issues matter because they concern our understanding of fundamental human nature, who each of us are as male and female.
Here’s some breaking news for La Leche League.
Only women can get pregnant.
Only women can breastfeed
That’s Biology 101.
Let’s not cancel mothers. Let’s just ignore the stupidity and wokeness of the midwifery council, the ministry of health, and La Leche League.
For the sake of our awesome mums.
