The La Leche League – a global breastfeeding support group – has lost two leaders over the group’s decision to allow males to participate in formerly mothers-only meetings.
One of those who resigned was a La Leche League founder.
The La Leche League international board recently directed all British affiliates to admit men who identify as women.
Men can feed babies
LGBT advocates say men identifying as women can, with the help of synthetic hormones, breastfeed.
The hormones induce lactation via nipple stimulation.
Founder resigns
Founded in 1956 in the US, the La Leche League aimed to offer mother-to-mother breastfeeding support.
The group’s popularity spread, first in the US and then beyond.
Foundation member Marian Tompson, 94 (pictured), announced her resignation from the group’s board of directors. The La Leche League has become “a travesty of my original intent” she said.
The group’s aim was to “support biological women who want to give their babies the best start in life by breastfeeding them”.
Now the focus has shifted “to include men who, for whatever reason, want to have the experience of breastfeeding” she pointed out.
She also noted that there has been “no careful long-term research on male lactation and how that may affect the baby”.
“This shift from following the norms of nature, which is the core of mothering through breastfeeding, to indulging the fantasies of adults is destroying our organisation” Tompson wrote.
She says she has left “the door open to come back when La Leche League returns to its original mission and purpose”.
Resignations begin
Another La Leche League stalwart also resigned this week over the group’s new transgender rules.
Scottish breastfeeding advocate Miriam Main has served for several years as a lactation counsellor and as well on the council of directors of the League’s Great Britain affiliate.
She says she became concerned about the League’s future when she noticed changes being made to official group literature. The term “mother” was replaced with “parent” and “breastfeed” replaced with “chestfeed”.
A “group of zealots from within the organisation” propelled further changes, she said.
She ordered the La Leche League to accept into support groups “men who wished to breastfeed”.
She said critics were told they were transphobic.
‘We were compared to racists and Nazis” by organisation leaders.
A petition to the La Leche League International Board eventually led to an order for all affiliates in Great Britain to offer breastfeeding support “to all nursing parents, regardless of their gender identity or sex”.
The organisation’s leaders have “shown that theoretical male lactation trumps the needs of real women living in the UK” Main says.
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