Welcome to the Dollhouse Episode 12: Dads Don’t Breastfeed with Kit Kowalski and Edie Wyatt. This week we are joined by a special guest, Jasmine Sussex who is an advocate for mothers and babies. Jasmine explains why her tweets about male breastfeeding were withheld by twitter.
In the Genderverse - Women silenced for saying #DadsDontBreastfeed
Jasmine Sussex takes us through the background to this excellent exclusive from Reduxx Mag - https://reduxx.info/two-australian-women-told-they-broke-the-law-after-criticizing-trans-identified-male-breastfeeding-child/
Jasmine and Leah have been advised that 6 of their tweets are withheld in Australia after communication from “a government agency”.
The tweets went up on Saturday and were restricted by Tuesday. That’s 2 business days.
The Endo: Dr Naomi Achong
Dr Naomi Achong presented her work in “transgender women breastfeeding” at the 2022 AusPATH conference in Darwin. Buckley’s experience was one of the case studies.
Inducing lactation in transfemme people. Case studies showing that starting doses of domperidone and estrogen early can make it happen!
There are issues around use of hormones and treatment that have been tested for women on male bodies. For example, use of Domperidone in men can lead to increased risk of cardiac arrest. It is unclear whether Dr Achong offered her male patients an ECG to monitor their heart condition during treatment.
A note on the conduct of ‘the science’
Much of ‘the science’ is reported in case studies. That is to say, doctors reporting on individual cases. There no mass trials to determine infant welfare. The focus is exclusively on the male ability to produce a milky secretion. There is no clinical analysis of the secretion.
Daily Mail: Cancelled
This article about Jennifer Buckley in the Daily Mail has been taken down and is now only available via an archival link - https://archive.md/ekhDf
The article is very fair to Buckley, but also brings in expert voices that disagree with his narrative. Such as Dr Kakulas.
Dr Foteini Kakulas from the University of Western Australia's Medical School specialises in lactation and believes only women produce breast milk.
'While it is possible for male breast tissue to produce something, what exactly that is, how it may or may not resemble breast milk, and whether this is healthy for the individual person or for the baby, are all unknown and never been studied,' she said.
Buckley enlisted the help of Australia’s eSafety Commissioner to have the article removed.
Buckley has promoted his version of the story publicly
Unlike many people who wish to live a quiet life, Jennifer has publicly told his story and published photos of himself, his wife and their child. His purpose is to let “transgender women know that they can breast feed”. He says himself on Reddit that his breast secretion is identical to breastmilk, although this has not been tested.
Narrative in The Queer Parenting Partnership
Buckley’s first-person account of breastfeeding his baby in The Queer Parenting Partnership includes an imperative that the feeding intervention “potentially stopped our baby from becoming very sick”.
The Child or the Parent?
Is breastfeeding to nurture the child or is it to affirm the parent? Some men do breastfeed for their own gratification, as Dana Fried writes in The Stranger.
The Daily Mail article above notes:
Transgender paramedic Jennifer Buckley was warned by doctors against trying to feed her newborn son Auden but she and her wife went ahead anyway. 'To know I could breastfeed my own child and have that experience, I wanted to be a part of that,' she said
In the UK, courts have started to set limits on parents using their children for identity validation, with a ruling that the birth certificate belongs to the child not the parent and as such should be a true record.
Trans man loses UK legal battle to register as his child's father - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/16/trans-man-loses-uk-legal-battle-to-register-as-his-childs-father
Fantasy on Reddit
We can see that males who breastfeed often focus on fulfilling the role of the ‘real mom’ rather than providing infant nutrition.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MtF/comments/ur4gnb/oh_my_god_im_breastfeeding_my_daughter/
https://imgur.com/a/S7yQ3rJ
Women’s Views - Is breastfeeding for everyone?
Edie Wyatt in The Spectator - https://www.spectator.com.au/2021/05/on-chestfeeding/
Analysis of the experiment of induced lactation in a transwoman - https://lascapigliata.com/2018/03/26/analysis-of-study-of-induced-lactation-in-trans-identified-man/
4W - In Case of Breastfeeding 'Transwomen', Scientists Ignore Risks to Children - https://4w.pub/breastfeeding-transwomen-scientists-ignore/
World Nutrition Journal
The human rights imperative to understand 'mother' as an exclusively female status - https://worldnutritionjournal.org/index.php/wn/article/view/801
Relevancy and Manner - https://worldnutritionjournal.org/index.php/wn/article/view/803
“Mother” Matters: How changing language can compromise breastfeeding support - https://worldnutritionjournal.org/index.php/wn/article/view/798
Families do not breastfeed, mothers do…and we need to say so - https://worldnutritionjournal.org/index.php/wn/article/view/825
Not at the expense of women - https://worldnutritionjournal.org/index.php/wn/article/view/823
Gender "inclusive" language and breastfeeding - https://worldnutritionjournal.org/index.php/wn/article/view/802
Women’s Declaration International Article 2 reaffirms “motherhood as an exclusively female status” - https://www.womensdeclaration.com/en/declaration-womens-sex-based-rights-full-text/#article-2
Breastfeeding & the mother-baby dyad in ancient culture: the origins of the Milky Way
[Zeus] decided to let the infant Heracles suckle on his divine wife Hera's milk when she was asleep, an act which would endow the baby with godlike qualities. When Hera woke up and realized that she was breastfeeding an unknown infant, she pushed him away and the spurting milk became the Milky Way
— https://www.nddb.coop/ccnddb/milk-and-mythology
About eSafety Commissioner
Julie Inman Grant, our eSafety Commissioner, used to work at Twitter. She has criticised Elon Musk’s approach to free speech as “a total dog's breakfast”
The eSafety Commissioner website has a whole section for LGBTIQ+ issues repleate with fun videos on dealing with “online hate”
The eSafety report on Protecting LGBTIQ+ voices online uses the neologistic buzzwords cissexism, heterosexism, intersectionality and unconscious bias.
Reporting to eSafety
The threshold for investigation of content is:
It must be severely abusive online content that was sent, posted or shared with the likely intention of harming the person targeted, and the content must be menacing, harassing or offensive.
— https://www.esafety.gov.au/report/what-you-can-report-to-esafety
How is calmly, logically and factually criticising the actions of a man who publicised risky choices “abusive” or with “intention of harming”?
The Karen Davis Link
YouTube received complaints regarding Karen Davis’ content about Jennifer Buckley (whom she styles as Big Head Dad). It is presumed to be the eSafety Commissioner who has instrumented the censorship.
Karen’s channel has ultimately been taken off YouTube, but she still posts on Odysee and Substack.
Support Jasmine & Standing For Women Queensland on Twitter
Jasmine - https://twitter.com/jazzmoi3
SFW QLD - https://twitter.com/SFW_QLD
Find us elsewhere and join us next week!
Edie Wyatt: Substack, Twitter, The Spectator
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Intro song: Bad Girls by MIA
Episode 12: #Dads Don't Breastfeed