Moob Juice is Child Abuse – protesting men who ‘breastfeed’ for kicks

In May 2023, Children of Transitioners wrote to University Hospital Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, expressing concerns about their ‘Perinatal Care for Trans and Non-binary people’ policy.

Attention was also drawn to the policy by @ripx4nutmeg, who linked to a discussion on mumsnet. York & Scarborough NHS Trusts, among others, appeared to be using the same policy.

Those attempting to access the Trust’s document via that link will find it has now been removed. However, the internet never forgets, and a copy is archived here.

The policy is, predictably, an absolute clusterfuck of of ‘My Language’ preference sheets, hand-made pronoun stickers, ‘front holes’ and ‘genital openings’. 

Uaseful advice for adult human females includes: “Breast/chestfeeding or expressing may still be possible after top surgery, as long as the nipples have not been permanently removed… parents who have not had top surgery may wish to bind their chest during times they are not actively feeding or expressing. Binding may increase the chances of mastitis…”

As for testosterone, “Whilst there are possible risks to the infant, there is no clear evidence of harm…”

so that’s alright then.

But the section that caused the most consternation was section 5.5.7 on page 22.:

The content of Children of Transitioners’ letter to the Trust can be viewed here. Among other concerns expressed in their letter, the group expressed this:

“Sadly many of us have experienced abuse, both domestic and sexual, from a parent (usually our dads)… We are writing to you as the body responsible for NHS Safeguarding nationally to raise a substantial safeguarding concern about the sexual and emotional abuse of babies and children of transitioners that needs urgent action to protect children from further abuse… We have seen evidence that some hospital Trusts are making children of transitioners suck their father’s nipples- an act of sexual assault and grooming that deeply shocks us as NHS staff should be protecting COT infants not enabling their abuse.

“The policy gives no consideration to the wellbeing, safeguarding and protection of children/babies of transitioners from our fathers and other parents, including those who wish to feed babies drug induced bodily secretions as part of a sexual fetish.”

In August 2023, the Trust replied to Children of Transitioners (COT) apologising for its tardy response.

The policy “did generate a considerable amount of attention,” it acknowledged, blah blah ‘inclusivity fairness and equal treatement for all’... blah blah… “different viewpoints… open discussion…” blah blah…  “framework of tolerance and respect…”  etc etc

The Trust was very, very sorry that COT felt this way and would address COT’s concerns, but first it wanted to clarify something.

“In my letter the term ‘human milk’ is used instead of ‘bodily secretions’ which is used in your email. Staff further clarify that the term ‘human milk’ is meant to be neutral and is not gender-biased.”

The letter was signed by the Medical Director of the Trust, Consultant Cardiologist Dr Rachael James, on behalf of Chief Executive Dr George Findlay, a man with an excellent record in improving trust ratings and a canny awareness of when to keep his own hands clean.

Human milk- neutral and not gender-biased

Dr James’ practice ‘includes the specialist area of cardiac disease in pregnancy’ so we can presume she knows what a woman is, despite her inclination to come over all woowoo with this weird ‘human milk’ business.

She also runs a clinic for adolescents. What, I muse, could possibly compell an intelligent and compassionate woman, who works with the young and the pregnant, to sign her name to a letter containing such a phrase as ‘human milk’, or to infer that studies done on breastmilk could somehow be blindly applied to the artificially and chemically induced secretions of men??

“We don’t call cow milk ‘bovine milk, do we?” scoffed Iris.

Let’s imagine that we did. Let’s go a step further. The dairy industry informs the UK consumer that there is exciting news! The latest scientific advances mean they can artificially induce lactation in bulls using a cocktail of hormones and chemicals! It’s great! This ‘bovine milk’ is put on the market and sold to the public as the real thing, kosher, bona fide, JUST AS GOOD. Would the public buy it?

Of course not. Putting aside the fact that dairy cows, unlike human women, are already pumped full of hormones to keep them lactating, nobody would want to drink bull ‘milk’ because it’s so blindingly obvious that it is both wrong and unnecessary. As for being ‘just as good’, I just don’t buy it. And neither would you.

Incidentally, ‘milking the bull’ is an old-fashioned saying which uses the metaphor to indicate “an activity or enterprise that has no chance of succeeding; to do something pointless and futile.”

 

 

At the end of the letter, Dr James linked to five ‘papers’, ostensibly to support her claims about ‘human milk’, and we shall come back to these later.

But wait, I hear you say, before all that, haven’t there been cases of men lactating naturally? Well, seeing as you ask…

 

In 2002, IOL published a short article about Sri Lankan widower B Wijeratne, who claimed he was able to breastfeed his 18 month-old daughter after her mother died in childbirth. The article is often misreported as clamining he was able to exclusively feed the newborn, or both children.

An archive of the original article is saved here. It reveals that the newborn baby was formula fed, and the older child was initially given her father’s nipple to soothe her after her mother died.This is when he claimed to realise he could produce ‘milk’.

A local doctor observed “Men with a hyperactive prolactine hormone can produce breast milk.”

Charles Darwin was a believer in male lactation, writing in ‘The Descent of Man:

“It is well known that in the males of all mammals, including man, rudimentary mammae exist. These in several instances have become well developed, and have yielded a copious supply of milk.”

Sixteenth century missionaries in Brazil evidently told tale of “a whole Indian nation whose women had small and withered breasts, and whose children owed their nourishment entirely from the males.” So that sounds legit.

In a 2007 article titled ‘Strange but True: Males Can Lactate’, Nikhil Swaminathan points to examples both in fiction and in real life where men have ostensibly fed babies from their chests.

Citing the case of the Sri Lankan widow above, Swaminathan makes the claim that Wijeratne “nursed his two daughters through their infancy” which is notably different to the original report. And in this way are born the tales of withered-breasted women whose menfolk nurture the babes with manmilk.

There’s a bit in Anna Karenina where an Englishman ‘chestfeeds’ a baby, which clearly made no impression on me when I read it, because I couldn’t recall it at all. It continued to bug me until I sought the passage out, and I shall share it with you here.

In the seventies, anthropologist Dana Raphael claimed that stimulation alone could induce lactation in men. Modern physicians say that this is more likely to have been caused by the presence of benign pituitary tumors, which are surprisingly common and can provoke a condition called galactorrhea. Autopsy studies indicate that 25 percent of the U.S. population have these small pituitary tumors.

“Unless you are an Indonesian fruit bat,” Swaminathan lightheartedly warns his fellow men, “it (lactation) probably won’t happen naturally.”

Ah yes, the fruit bat. Of course, like the sex-changing clownfish, mother nature has chucked out a few curve balls. The Dyak fruit bat and the Bismarck masked flying fox have both been observed to lactate.

As usual though, scratch the surface and it’s not quite as it seems. Male bats notoriously do not assist females in ‘childcare’ and I could find no direct reference to breastfeeding males.

Evidently the male bats that were observed to lactate had swollen breasts when they were captured, which “produced milk upon being gently squeezed” by humans.There was nothing to suggest this ‘milk’ was being used to feed their young.

In fact, many scientists believe this ‘lactation’ in certain male bats may be caused by malnutrition or stress. And it’s not bloody surprising with humans going round trying to milk them.

But people only hear what they want to hear, and now rare fruit bats and a few self-reported instances of trans-identified men consuming enough drugs that they produce something means that – hurrah! – men have been able to breastfeed all along and OMG get with the program, bigot.

But is it tho?

Is this ‘milk’ the same as the milk of a lactating mother? It seems highly unlikely to me, but I’m no expert.

Post-doctoral researcher in Stem Cell biology and Human Nutrition, Dr Foteini Haassiotou, who has conducted research into the physiology of breastfeeding and breastmilk stem cells, probably could be called an expert.

Foteini’s research looks at the properties of the maternal stem cells that are present in breastmilk and their biological role, and the role mammary stem cells play in health and disease. “She aims at understanding the role of these cells for the breastfed infant…”

She has this to say.

But hey, never mind all that! Men can breastfeed now, right? Even those who aren’t claiming to be women!

Colerado Surrogacy has been feeling pretty positive about it all for a while now. After all, there’s money to be made and identities to affirm!

In 2019 Colerado Surrogacy (CS) ran an article filed under ‘LGBTQ’ on their blog, called “Inducing Lactation: Men can breastfeed too!’

Citing the two articles I mention above (which have now taken on the status of ‘anthropological evidence’) the piece adds blithely, “modern day doctors tend to suggest a combo of hormone therapy or medication and nipple stimulation to induce lactation in men and women becoming mothers.”

(Note that at Colerado Surrogacy female baby buyers are ‘women becoming mothers’ but pregnant woman are ‘gestational carriers’. But that’s a whole other piece.)

Not so ‘naturally’ then, but hey, it all sounds so easy. The author of the CS piece tells the reader she has a pituitary tumor which has caused her to produce milk since she was ten, and she now produces enough to feed 3-4 babies every day! Milk everywhere! So that’s nice. Perhaps it’s catching.

The CS piece ends with a perky “I hope to see more research being done in the future and more talk of men inducing lactation!”

While CS makes it sound easy, almost whimsical, more realistically, Mayoclinic suggests that a woman adopting a newborn may be able to induce lactation by pumping for months in advance, eventually for periods of up to 20 minutes every 3-4 hours. “Even if you’re able to successfully induce lactation,” Mayo warns, “supplemental feedings with formula or pasteurized donor human milk might be needed”.

Some new mothers are unable to breastfeed their babies for various reasons. It isn’t always plain sailing. And of course, I don’t have to remind you that a woman is not at all the same thing as a man.

In short, there are no properly medically controlled or documented studies concerning ‘moob juice’, although there is enough anecdotal evidence, and a few rather patchy records and reports that suggest that it can contain sustenance in some form or another.

“It validated my womanhood as much as any surgery ever could”

Dana Fried, quoted above, is an American who ‘breastfed’ his child. But it seems to becoming more popular on both side of the pond. Or at least, men are becoming more brazen about it.

Let us look at a recent case in England which grabbed public attention, that of Mika Minio-Paluello. Paluello is a TUC member who apeared in an ITV feature in July 2023, doing the washing up, loading the laundry and observing that times are “tough if you’re a mum like me”. A strange choice for several reasons. Firstly, Mika held a well-paid Climate & Industry role at the TUC at the time, so was unlikely to be finding times especially tough. Secondly, he is a man, albeit one who believes himself to be a woman, yet he was chosen to speak on behalf of ‘mums’ everywhere.

This did not go down brilliantly with the public.

‘I am sure this is a lovely, intelligent and decent human being. This was an important piece. This is not however a struggling ‘mother’, observed MP Rosie Duffield, tactfully.

Others were not so gracious, furious that once again a man had been chosen to speak on behalf of women, and that he would dare call himself a mother.

Attention was also drawn to a breast pump in the background of the video, which Paluello claimed was his housemate’s.

Shortly afterwards, Paluello responded to the hooha by tweeting a photograph of himself looking remarkably smug while ‘breastfeeding’ a baby  (I’ve cropped the baby out of the photo below)  accompanied by tweets appropriating the experience of lesbian mothers by pretending he thought people were disturbed by the idea of ‘two mums’ rather than by the pantomime of a man using a baby as a prop.

“Trans women can breastfeed, and I did breastfeed my child,” he declared.

Twitter went apopleptic. The papers stepped in. The Daily Mail quoted Maya Forstater: 

“A man is not a woman. A man is not a mother. A man having a baby suck his nipple is not breastfeeding,”

and Helen Joyce:

“I’m not sharing a pic of the bloke on a bus breastfeeding a baby because it’s also a pic of a baby being used non-consensually as a man’s identity prop.”

“But what of the studies in the letter?” I hear you cry.

Ah yes. Well, they aren’t actual studies, remember, because that would suggest controlled situations, data collection and peer review, not just the odd solitary bloke turning up with moobs, calling himself a mum. To be fair, Dr James (she of the letter) is not brazen enough to attempt to pass these reports off as studies, rather sher refers to them as ‘papers’.

Let’s have a look at the links in the letter…

The first link is a page on the World Health Organisation website. It tells us that less than half of human babies are exclusively breastfed for at least six months. Those that are, ‘perform better on intelligence tests, are less likely to be overweight or obese and less prone to diabetes later in life’ while ‘women who breastfeed also have a reduced risk of breast and ovarian cancers’.

This is very interesting but has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with enabling men to produce nipple secretions, via a cocktail of drugs and hormones, so they can pretend they are breast-feeding mothers. If that doesn’t come under the umbrella of the ‘inappropriate marketing of breast milk substitutes’ that the WHO professes to be concerned about, then I don’t know what does.

The next link is to a la leche article which tells us, “Breastfeeding is a close, intimate, physical and emotional relationship between two or more people who love each other. When both parents are breastfeeding, they share the caregiving role.… breastfeeding is possible no matter how much or little milk is produced—even if it is none at all!”

And there was me thinking it was about nourishing a baby. I imagine for a moment a world where all around me dads have been popping into disabled toilets to breastfeed babies as casually as put the kettle on, and everybody knew about it but me. This all seems more than a little mad. I am feeling hugely gaslit.

The next link leads to a 1977 study called ‘Breastfeeding the Adopted Baby’. I begin to read the abstract. “Sixty-five women nursed adopted babies. Eighteen of the women had never been pregnant, seven had been pregnant but had not lactated, and forty had been pregnant and lactated before…”

So we can stop right there. None of these women were men. Therefore this article is also irrelevant to the question in hand. Links c and d lead to similar articles concerning induced lactation in females. Finally, the last link concerns itself with men.

This is the 2018 case mentioned in the letter. I’m just going to put this here for you to read for yourself.

.

A trans-identified man told medics his pregnant partner didn’t want to breastfeed and that he hoped to do so himself after the birth of her baby, which, it seems, he had adopted. An ‘intact’ man, who had taken hormones to grow breasts, had aquired a baby and planned to suckle it, and was enlisting a medical team to help him do that.

And the NHS thinks this is great.

A video on YouTube tells us how he was prescribed “experimental drugs and hormones, including an anti-nausea medication banned in the USA”.

The abstract tells us he was on domperidrome, estradiol, and progesterone. We also know that this patient was taking clonazepam and zolpidem for stress and insomnia.

After 3 months he was apparently producing 8oz of ‘milk’ a day. He used this to feed the baby.

In the YouTube video, Dr Funk explains how this person increased his dosages of oestrogen and progesterone, and added a drug called domperidome, an anti-sickness medication which helps release prolactin and increased his chances of producing manmilk.

 The NHS in England advises, ‘If your doctor or health visitor says your baby is healthy, you can take domperidone while breastfeeding but it’s best to only take it for a short time’.

The FDA in the USA has banned the drug altogether, stating, “Although domperidone is approved in several countries outside the U.S. to treat certain gastric disorders, it is not approved in any country, including the U.S., for enhancing breast milk production in lactating women and is also not approved in the U.S. for any indication.”

More on this later.

So many questions

It just all seems a bit weird and unlikely, mostly because so many questions are left unanswered.  For example, a newborn baby drinks roughly 2-3oz every 2-3 hours. That’s a heck of a lot more than the 8oz mentioned at the start. How do we deal with this inconsistency?

What about the colostrum, so important to the first few days of a breastfed baby’s life? What about the changing consistency of breastmilk that is so essential to a breastfed newborn’s development? 

Even if moob juice can provide nutritional content, how can it be measured with just one – or two, or three- assessments? Can moob juice offer parental immunities and benefits? And if this cocktail is so effective, easy and harmless a treatment, why is it not being offered to more women who have problems breastfeeding?

The 2021 case cited by the letter was the only one for which I was able to access full details.  It dealt with a trans-identified man who ‘took over’ the feeding of his 14-month-old son when his partner went back to work.

One of his three given reasons for wanting to ‘breastfeed’ was ‘to further her (sic) breast development’.

It is possible that there are women who decide to breastfeed a toddler for this purpose, but I have to say I’ve never come across one, either IRL or anecdotally. Yet it’s mentioned several times by men wanting to develop their ‘moobs’.

The screenshot above contains information taken from follow up clinics. Note that the liquid produced ‘was not enough to meet the nutritional needs of her (sic) child’. Yet this man continued to ‘suckle’ the child for at least six months, even when he was producing just a teaspoon a day. And BTW yes, his moobs got bigger.

The 2023 ‘study’ cited in the letter, that of a trans-identified man who had a pregant partner ‘not interested in breastfeeding’ was titled ‘Experience of Induced Lactation in a Transgender Woman: Analysis of Human Milk and a Suggested Protocol’ can be read in brief here.

All three men were taking spironolactone, estradiol and progesterone and added Domperidome to the cocktail. Two of the the men claim to have fed the baby ‘exclusively’ for six weeks.

In 2023 the Daily Mail referred to a case where a trans-identified man “co-fed a baby for four months after using domperidone and a breast pump to stimulate milk production”.

A ‘report’ on this man claimed that his milk contained “similar levels of lactose, proteins and electrolytes as normal breast milk.”

We know that the baby’s mother was co-breastfeeding, which raises the important question of whether the ‘milk’ sample analysed was procured under control conditions, or did this guy just roll up with a sample which could have belonged to anyone?

Oh, what was that baby’s mum thinking?

And was anybody looking out for her welfare?

Professor of Midwifery Jenny Gamble told the Mail that she was “unaware of any trans women producing enough liquid by themselves to feed a baby and that they must supplement this with another source”.

If you want to know more about individual cases, La Scapligiata addresses several case studies in detail here.

Drugs for baby

After the ‘success story’ celebrations, the article goes on to draw attention to two not insignificant points concerning medication. Firstly, that Spironolactone has been reported to have tumorigenic potential in rats.

Secondly, that there are concerns around Domperidome, an anti-sickness medication which helps release prolactin.

While the NHS is cautious, the FDA has banned the use of Domperidome in the USA completely, amidst concerns about its association with cardiac arrhythmias, cardiac arrest, and sudden death when used intravenously. The FDA has also specifically warned against Domperidone’s off-label use as a galactogogue due to its unknown risks to breastfeeding infants.

There’s a lot to unpack here, not least that while some science may be involved from an analytical point of view, these are tales of men who visited clinics on occassions sometimes months apart and self-reported what was going on between visits.  We have only the word of the patients that the babies were exclusively breastfed, and by them. Some appear to have been sharing accommodation or feeding with the baby’s mother or other nursing mothers. One is frequently left wondering what the babies’ real mothers think about all of this.

The 2023 report concludes: ‘The opportunity to chestfeed or breastfeed an infant can be profound for many parents. Further research is needed to meet the needs of TGD individuals who wish to induce lactation as part of their parental goals’.

Note that the report does not ‘recommend’ anything concerning the infant, whose needs are forgotten in the soft flow of affirmation.

I would add that breastfeeding a baby should not be seen as an ‘opportunity’. A fortnight’s holiday in Greece on the cheap is an opportunity, or a chance to study photography, or invest in your mate’s organic beer company. But breastfeeding? Maaate.

A letter is leaked

Last week, the letter was leaked to the Times (archived here) leading other papers to follow suit, and MP Rosie Duffield to declare, “Babies can’t be used as guinea pigs for someone else’s lifestyle choice.”

The Times reported that the Trust cited ‘five scientific studies’ in its response but as we have seen, that is not quite true. The snowball had started rolling though, and it all escalated very quickly.

Not ‘just as good’ – it’s even better!

The runaway glee at this new facet of insanity increased when UCL researcher, trainee lactation consultant and ‘enby’ Kate Luxion went on BBC News under the NHS banner, and told viewers “when you look at the research that has been done specifically about transwomen, there’s a case study that was done and published last year…”

But wait, no, it wasn’t really a study, remember. There was a report. On one bloke. But carry on, Kate.

“…done and published last year where they actually found that the nutritional value was either at or above of then (sic) the nutritional value of the meta-analysis referent that it used… it was seen to be at least if not higher quality.”

This is just so blatently misleading that I’m unsure where to start. I mean I suppose the substance might have been less toxic than the milk of a woman with a transmittable disease, a history of chronic drug use and severe malnutrition. It’s been suggested elsewhere (I can’t remember where) that analysis showed the ‘moob juice’ had a higher fat content, which Luxion may have erroneously interpreted as meaning it was in some way ‘better’. Either way, it’s utter nonsense.

“If we look at the evidence and what we can see from the science of it the baseline of what would be in a transmothers’s blood is going to be about the same as what is in a cisgender woman’s blood in terms of someone who has gone under gender-affirming care and is on hormone protocol…”

Wait… what? A trans mother?  A transmother? Is a trans-mother a man on hormones? A woman on hormones? Or just some bloke with a heart full of queer joy and the urge to have his nipples sucked? What sort of ‘gender affirming care’ is she talking about? What evidence? What science?

Luxion continues with a stunning bravado, enthusing about ‘the empirical studies that have been done’ and I can only assume that she, once again, is referring to the odd bloke who’s rolled up at a clinic a couple of times with some milk and said it was his. It should be noted that the NHS has made no attempt to refute her position.

 One for the girls

The final case Dr James cites in her letter is designed to reassure the reader that testosterone in female breast milk doesn’t harm babies. Analysis “measured infant milk testosterone concentrations with a calculated infant dose of under 1%, with no observable infant side-effects and undetectable serum testosterone concentrations during the five month study period”. The report adds that “the infant had no observable side effects”.

And this sounds reassuring until you read the details of the case and see it was that of a trans-identifed woman who started taking testosterone while she was still breastfeeding her 13-month-old.

A 13-month-old baby is not an ‘infant’ and anyone writing up a report using paediatric terminology should be aware of that. A child over one year is technically a toddler. The report doesn’t contain the most basic essential information. How often was the child fed breast milk? What percentage of his diet was breast milk? 5%? 100%? This information matters! Some toddlers at 13 months are exclusively breastfed, many are fully weaned, despite WHO guidelines suggesting breast feeding until 24 months. A 13-month-old male toddler in the UK weighs around 21lbs 13oz (9.9kg). A newborn baby boy weighs around 7lb 8oz (3.4kg). I don’t need a medical degree to see that a toddler is three times the weright of a newborn.

Obviously a toddler is at far lower risk from toxins than a newborn, yet this report is now being cited as a study which shows a certain level of testosterone in breast milk does no harm to babies. How shoddy is this? This isn’t science, it is misrepresentation at best, outright deception and neglect at worst. And it’s being promoted by our own National Health Service.

But back to the moob juice. Surely a man wouldn’t just suckle a baby in order to gain validation for his fantasy that he is female, would he?

Er. Sorry. Yes.

Example #2

Lulu Solomon reports on Twitter of a man who decided he wanted to chestfeed shortly after he impregnated a woman. This 52 year old, HIV+ man is obsessed with breastfeeding his young son.

He writes: “my egg cracked a year ago on December the 12th and I realised I could nurse my baby already on the way that lit a fire under me and I have gone from having lean pectoral muscle in March to full B cups now and growing fast. I am humbled by my staggering privilege in my accessibility to medical expertise. I have 5 physicians in three clinics in two world class hospitals helping me that includes the Goldfarb Clinic. Fans of induced lactation will recognise the name.”

Example #3

He is not alone in being a ‘fan’ of induced lactation. ‘Naiomi’ (allmylinks some18+) claims to have had his breast milk analysed by a lactation lab and evidently it’s great. Naiomi also likes to post pouty pictures of himself as an ‘incredibly cuddly cow’. When not posing with a breast pump or dressed as a ‘trad wife’, Naiomi has an ‘only fans’ and a fansly. Of course he does.

“Beneath the phenomenon of male breastfeeding lurks an unpalatable truth – that there is often a sexual or fetishistic element at play when men seek to emulate women’s bodily functions.

If you peer into the darker corners of the internet, you’ll find a host of pornography sites that cater to the fantasies of transwomen ‘experiencing’ menstruation, childbirth, menopause and the like.” Jo Bartosh

Example #4

In a clip shared on Twitter, a man talks about how he can’t produce any milk for the baby his partner has birthed, but intends to continue suckling it. The baby’s actual mother (who thinks she’s a man and has had her own breasts removed) looks up at him adoringly.

“The baby has been able to latch on,” the man tells the film crew, “but I’ve not been able to produce any milk. It’s okay because we’re going to supplement with formula so that my baby is still getting the nutrients that they need.”

The baby doesn’t remain the focus of the piece for long, as soon the man starts crying because the baby’s birth certificate wont list him as its mother.

“This whole birth certtificate thing is really causing me a lot of hurt,” he sobs. “Trans women can be mothers. I’m your mother!” he tells the baby, snottily.

But of course, he isn’t.

If you’d like other examples, Google is your friend. Or possibly not.

What’s to be done?

The issue is not so much ‘is it possible for men to chestfeed’ as “WTF what kind of kinky perv wants to use a baby as part of his validation process?”

Many women were understandably shocked that the NHS would put its name to a letter supporting the use of babies as ‘validation’ props in such a manner.

Worthing Hospital board members were meeting at Worthing Hospital on Thursday February 29th. Standing for Women Locals decided to arrange a protest. How could I not go along?

It was a cold and wet morning and I had to get up far earlier than I would have liked and pay far more for my ticket than I would have liked. But armed with a flask of coffee and a copy of the letter I hopped on the train, was lucky enough to get a table seat, and the journey passed quickly.

Worthing is one of the less trendy seaside towns on the South coast of England. “More wheelchairs than buggies,” observed my mum, who was stuck there for a year with a screaming baby (moi) many, many moons ago. Worthing still has a vague 70s air about it and the hospital is no exception. I didn’t get to see the sea, which was a shame, because I had to be back in town by early evening.

Our numbers consisted of eight women, two men and a toddler. Out came the leaflets and stickers and a salmon pink loud hailer and we were off. You can watch the stream of the event here.

We set up about ten feet from the main entrance to the hospital, so we weren’t obscuring the doors or in the way of anyone who might want to avoid us.

One of the women in our group had put together some flyers, stickers and information sheets based on a graphic by @UBELLEND on Twitter, and these were handed out to anyone who came over and aproached us.

The livestream started and Iris was first to address the listeners.

“Hi everyone, we’re outside Worthing hospital and we are here to let the users of Worthing Hospital University Trust know that their board members endorse men feeding babies their… what would you call it?… their secretions,” announced Iris. “And the outrageous claim that men can chestfeed.”

 Iris spoke of how only women can breastfeed without the use of chemicals and of the inadequacy of evidence supporting the idea that men can lactate. She announced that some women would now talk about their own experiences as breastfeeding women.

Emily spoke next.

“I’m 32 years old and pregnant with my third child. I want to talk about pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Firstly the foods we eat play a significant role in our health, and during pregnancy, certain foods pose risks that should be avoided. As a pregnant woman I cannot eat the following:

Raw or undercooked meats, seafood, and eggs can harbor harmful bacteria such as salmonella or listeria, which can lead to serious complications for both mother and baby. Homemade mayonnaise, Caesar dressing, raw cookie dough. Unpasteurized dairy products milk, cheese. Soft cheeses like brie, camembert, feta, and blue cheese. Deli meats and cold cuts, refrigerated pâtés and meat spreads. Raw sprouts, including alfalfa sprouts, bean sprouts, and clover sprouts. High-mercury fish: shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish tuna should also be avoided, due to the potential for developmental issues in the foetus. Unwashed fruit and vegetables, coffee, alcohol.

Non-essential medications should be avoided Certain over-the-counter medications like ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) and aspirin. Herbal supplements should be used with caution, as their safety during pregnancy is often not well-established. I have also been told that all forms of antihistamines, eye drops and even nasil sprays I had to keep away from…”

Emily spoke of how her own journey into motherhood began, how she struggled to feed her own baby as they were parted while the infant was in intensive care, and how she eventually needed to use formula to do what was best for her and her child.

“Yet, amidst these personal milestones, I find myself confronted with a disturbing reality—a reality in which the very essence of motherhood is being distorted and commodified.

It’s important to clarify that men cannot breastfeed babies… I implore each and every one of you to join me in speaking out against this insanity. Let us not allow the essence of motherhood to be diluted or distorted by misguided ideologies. Together, let us uphold the dignity and respect owed to all mothers, past, present, and future. Our babies are not a commodity or accessory, nor are they there to affirm mental illness and a man’s sexual festish.”

You can hear all of Emily’s story on the stream here.

After Emily had finished speaking, a man in a hiviz came over and spoke to Iris.

“The reason we are here at this hospital is because the board members are holding a meeting over there now,” Iris told the livestream. “What we would have really liked was for them to hear us but this is the closest we can get and hopefully it will get back to them that we are here and why we are here.”

The guys in the HiViz looked a little uncertain of what to do next.

“We probably won’t be here much longer,” I told them encouragingly.

Shirley was next to speak, drawing attention to the fact that the Trust had made a ‘dishonest claim’, and how this, and the use of the phrase ‘human milk’, contribulted to undermining the public’s faith in the NHS.

“Our bodies are not ‘gender based’, we have sex-based bodies. We are male or female and only females of the species can breastfeed. Men’s anatomy is different.”

Shirley drew attention to the poster being held up by the woman next to her. The poster featured the graphic below, and a more detailed explanation of the differences between male and female ‘breast composition’ can be found here.

Shirley pointed out that when they say (in the letter) “’here is clear and overwhelming evidence that human milk is the ideal food for infants’, they are taking research that was done on female-produced milk and claiming that that also applies to milk produced by males. And I almost can’t believe I’m saying these words…”

As she was speaking of the potential  dangers of off-label drugs, a man approached and interrupted.

“I’ll just finish my sentence thank you,” continued Shirley.

“She’s making a speech,” said Iris.

“What?” he scoffed, unaware of the livestream, “Who to? There’s no-one here. You’re disrupting patient care and saying things that are quite inaccurate.”

“Do you think men can breastfeed?” demanded one of the women.

Well, we haven’t done so far, at this Trust,” he smirked. “I can’t help but think you may be taking headlines at face value.“

This piece of mansplaining did not go down well. It was pointed out to him that all the information was accurate and in the letter. Except the bit about moob juice being ‘better than’ breastmilk wasn’t actually in the letter- although it was said under the NHS banner, on national television, and therefore had a far wider reach than if it had been included.

Mr I-work-for-the-communications-team was not particularly personable. He waved his arms around a bit and wandered off talking into a radio.

Iris read out the infamous quote from Dana Fried:

“These men have a fetish, which they want to use on babies – on infants! To validate their fetish. It’s not about feeding the baby, it’s about feeding the fetish.”

Iris and Shirley talked for a little longer, before the women decided they had said all they had to say for the time being.

As Iris lowered the megaphone, one of the women came back round the corner saying she’d been talking to two passers by and armed them with stickers. We decided it was time to pack up and head to the nearby Waitrose cafe for coffee.

“For this hospital Trust to say that men can breastfed,” concluded Iris, “It’s a lie. which is what it’s all about, lying to validate their fetish. It’s abusive to women and it’s a disgrace!”

“Moob juice is child abuse!” we chanted loudly as we left the hospital and walked up towards the main road. “Moob Juice is child abuse! Moob juice is child abuse!”

“It’s not feeding a baby, it’s feeding a fetish.”

I asked the women involved to give me some of their reasons for coming along, and this is what they told me.

“I was simply dumbfounded by the fact that I’m paying for a health care system and everyone who works in it through my taxes, only for women to be humiliated in this manner and for children to be endangered so viciously. It’s based on nothing but fantasies.” wrote Tina. “I was too infuriated to not do anything when the opportunity presented itself. I will always ‘sadly open my mouth’ until my last breath, to fight this deeply rooted sickness- for a better world for the children I would like to bear one day.”

“The midwives and health visitor took a keen interest in my diet when I was pregnant and breastfeeding my babies,” pointed out Caroline. “I had to avoid ordinary everyday foods and drinks… basic foods! If I had a headache, I’d avoid pain relief such as paracetamol, but in 2024 a trans-identified man can produce toxic waste and call it breast milk. It’s not breastfeeding a baby, it’s feeding a fetish and the NHS are promoting it.”

Andi told me, “My anger and disgust at the normalisation of a male sexual fetish taking precedence over the safety and future wellbeing of suckling babies was my reason for taking part. The majority of the public are mostly unaware of the details because the language being used is deceptive.”

“Apart from the risk to babies and the insult to women,” observed Shirley, “I see this protest as calling the Trust to account for undermining public confidence by making a claim about the equivalence of milk produced by men on such poor evidence and ignoring the health risk to babies. I believe that the Trust’s medical standards have not been applied objectively.”

“For me, it was voicing my visceral disgust watching a man force his fetish to the point where they have a National Health Trust supporting his obvious abuse of a baby, knowing what I know about these men and that particular fetish.” Iris told me. “It’s unbelievable that they, the NHS, can abandon their ‘Do No Harm’ policy to validate these fetishists.”

 

Afterword

It’s a week since the protest and it’s taken me the best part of that week to research and write this piece. As usual, the deep dive was deeper and divey-er than I ever expected.  It’s astonishing that our National Health Service is supporting such an idea, almost unthinkable, but remember this is the same NHS whose Birmingham Trust tells employees their first course of action should be to search unconscious patients for clues to their gender identity to ensure no misgendering takes place.

The capture of our National Health Service is as insane as it is destructive.

How to finish such a piece as this?

“What do you think about it all?” I asked Julia Long. “Can you give me a quote?” And she kindly did.

‘That an NHS Trust can endorse men acting out their fetishes on vulnerable, helpless infants beggars belief. The idea of forcing babies to ingest some kind of noxious secretion from the grotesque parody that is a male Franken-breast flies in the face of any society’s primary duty of care: the duty to nourish, nurture and protect its young. This is a child safeguarding issue of the utmost urgency, and it is a sad indictment of the times we live in that something so flagrantly obvious needs to be pointed out.”

I think that sums it up nicely.

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