A vile wave
Solidarity with that man who pretends to be a woman and a nursing mother:
The most important thing for any child is love and care. And the most important thing for a mother is to have the adequate support and resources to raise her child.
Love and care are two things, so it should be “the most important things.” Support and resources are also two things, so again, “the most important things.” Also the statements are a tad obvious and banal, but whatever.
As feminists and mums, we give our wholehearted support to Mika Minio-Paluello who has faced a vile wave of personal attacks for speaking on TV while trans.
Ok what? Why would feminism and mum-hood be a reason for anyone to give wholehearted support to a man playacting being a mother? And the criticism of him wasn’t for “speaking while trans,” it was for appropriating womanhood and doing godknowswhat to his baby by having it suck on his tit. Also, doing it on a bus.
Motherhood looks different for all of us – as does family. The title of ‘mother’ is often the only thing we have in common with other women.
No it isn’t. Being women is another thing women have in common with other women. I can think of others.
Whether we parent alone or with a partner, we are mothers. Whether we have birthed, adopted or fostered, we are mothers. Whether or not we had IVF, we are mothers. Whether we bottle-fed or breastfed, we are mothers. Whether queer, straight, cis or trans, we are mothers.
Ahahahahaha no you don’t. You can’t rush it past us like that; we still see it. All those are true until the very last one – the “cis or trans.” Men are not mothers, not even if they’re trans.
No solidarity with the cuckoo in the nest.
Fathers can provide love and care, too.
I wonder how much of that “vile wave of personal attacks” was simply criticism or disagreement.
They are assuming that anyone who provides child care is a mother. I raised my daughter by myself for the whole time she was a teenager. That doesn’t make me her mother. Not one word about fathers in that article. It’s the new F word I guess.
What is the quality of breast milk from a trans woman?
The quality of “breastmilk” from a man is largely unknown, it hasn’t really been researched. However, a man is highly unlikely to reach the quantity required (around one litre per day for a baby of six months), and he will only do so if he remains on a number of medications that are hazardous to his health (domperidone is far more dangerous to males than females, but females are warned off taking it anyway… because it’s dangerous to males). There’s also the child’s birth mother to think of – if he’s “breastfeeding” (or any complimentary feeding, formula too) it is known to undermine the mother’s supply, and therefore the baby’s nutrition source. Mother and baby are a unit that works together to feed the baby and the baby’s suckling and drinking is essential to continue successfully. The mother is in turn extremely responsive in the quantity and quality of the milk produced, with breastmilk being a dynamic and constantly changing thing, in terms of protein and fat content, water, and immune factors.
Can domperidone (I guess not Dom Perignon) be passed to the baby? And if so, what are the risks?
Here’s a doctor reviewing what little we know.
https://lascapigliata.com/2023/07/03/case-study-2-experiment-of-induced-lactation-in-a-trans-identifying-male-excerpt-from-born-in-the-right-body/
One does have to wonder, if it’s perfectly fine and normal for men to breastfeed, why it hasn’t been happening for all these millions of years women have been having babies. It would certainly have been a survival advantage.
I’ll toss this into the discussion.
IIRC I read in the book Westviking by Farley Mowat a short tale about some group of Greenland Norse on some trip along the Greenland coast which was a bunch of men plus the pregnant wife of one of the men. The woman died in childbirth while the child (a boy IIRC) survived, leaving the father desperate to keep it alive. So the father cut his nipple and had his newborn son suck the blood. According to the story the fathers breast tissue started producing milk and the boy survived to adulthood.
I read the book in the 1970s not long after it was published. Take my memories of it with a grain of salt as well as another few grains for the accuracy of the Norse sagas & the transmission to a 20th century writer.