Trans Women's Milk Just as good as mothers breast milk - threadbans in OP

I didn't say they don't exist. Why do you have to make stuff up? I said they aren't relevant to the trans discussion. They are an anomaly (in biological terms) and it the fact that some are assigned a sex at birth doesn't mean that all humans are. For the vast vast majority of humans, sex at birth is observed, not "assigned". The fact that some people feel like they should be the opposite sex is nothing to do with intersex conditions

I know someone who was born with 6 fingers on each hand. That doesn't mean humans don't normally have 5 digits per limb. And when parents count the fingers on their new-born, it's not because they don't know how many fingers it is meant to have.

The 6th one is an anomaly, not "normal variation within the expected range of numbers of fingers from 1 to 10".

And yet the only time we see this prefix its in conjunction with these threads.

Hardly in danger of being sent to the gulags for not using the prefix in your everyday life.

"An adult male is known as a bull"

Droll.

https://www.britannica.com/animal/cow

This is the word of the law according to blanch 😁

They may not be synonymous as far as you’re concerned, but for many people they are synonymous, and used interchangeably to refer to the same concepts. Your declaration for example relies on your being recognised as the arbiter of rights and wrongs, and you hardly need it pointed out the futility of that idea in a liberal democratic society where individual freedoms are a thing?

Neither science nor biology makes any declarations one way or another about the nature of human existence, that’s an entirely philosophical concept, and within that framework individuals perception of themselves and others carries far greater weight than being told who and what they are, or indeed aren’t, or how they should classify themselves or what rights they may or may not possess by virtue of being members of any given society.

That’s why declaring that the example in the opening post is unscientific or not based in reality is somewhat redundant - it is reality, and using science and biology is only one of the ways in which the phenomenon is investigated and evaluated. It’s also why for example much of the science in the field of human biology related to these areas is based upon ideas from the ‘50s, so while referring to ‘hermaphroditism’ and ‘transsexualism’ are still commonly used terms today in medicine, they’re slowly falling out of favour as the language used to convey these ideas and understand these concepts is changing:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5808814/

For those people who are relying on the idea that ‘science says this’ or ‘biology says that’, they’re going to be left with an awful conundrum when neither science nor biology say what they believe to be true any longer, which is likely to happen in a few generations as both science and technology give us an even greater insight into the complexity of human biology, as opposed to the idea of suggesting millions of years of evolution makes a blind bit of difference to anyone who doesn’t particularly care one way or the other for what anyone else believes about the nature of reality.

As far as they’re concerned, their feelings take precedence over the feelings of others who believe that they should conform to that person’s standard or beliefs or world view. Same goes for your declarations of who’s right and wrong - in reality the promotion of your ideas as either right or wrong are predicated on other people’s agreement with your ideas.

To add to the above, i wonder how many people would be happy to drink milk from a male bovine if it had undergone chemical alterations to enable it to produce milk?

I'd imagine not too many.

I cannot help but think you are now on a bit of a pisstake here tbh because even by the usual trans dogma standard some of your replies are completely out there 😅. Well played.

I drank unpasteurised milk many times as a younger man as my granny had a cow she milked daily. Not particularly sanitary but it didn't do me any harm. I would however take umbrage if she told me she had milked the bullock and wanted to use the milk for my porridge.😆

Is there a movement to outlaw and ostracize intersex people (or trans people for that matter)? Intersex conditions are scientifically measurable and are nothing to do with identity. Stop trying to conflate the 2

I think the default for most people (when not thinking about it) is that standards are applied to the food they consume, and that it's generally safe to consume. People can take risks then with the likes of raw fish, meat, milk etc when in full knowledge of that.

I thought that was a good analogy because infants aren't in a position to consent to whatever they are fed with, and giving an adult a glass of "bull milk" with chemicals in it that we'd never allow in cows milk, does raise all manner of similar questions about safety and consent.

Oh come on, you live in the US where there are campaigns to introduce laws which have the effect of ostracising both intersex and transgender individuals in order to uphold predominant ideas about sex and gender -

While doctors have operated on intersex minors to assign them “male” or “female” sexes for decades, human rights organizations have long condemned the surgeries on kids as cosmetic, unnecessary and inhumane. That’s because many procedures are done on kids in infancy, without their knowledge or consent. 

https://19thnews.org/2023/03/bills-gender-affirming-care-trans-intersex-youth/

The two different concepts are interlinked, precisely because of the attempts made to separate them and treat one as a physiological phenomenon and the other as a psychological phenomenon, when that’s just not how the vast majority of human beings operate. Science, biology, psychology nor medicine doesn’t operate that way either.

- Declassification of gender dysphoria as a mental illness

- Social contagion of same once that was done

- Add in an element of one upmanship to the insanity - trans female/male gets trumped by gender fluid gets trumped by non binary. Extra sprinkles if you have ridiculous pronouns to ascribe yourself.

- End up here

Who is saying they don't exist?

But they are in a totally different and definable category to a trans person.

They have nothing to do with the transmovement.

It's the transmovement that need to be more aware of these peoples feelings before suggesting that biological males should lactate, share bathrooms with females or take part in females sports.and the effects these have on intersex people and other men and women.

As a general point (rather than just this topic/thread) it's an increasing problem to be honest.

Before smartphones made the Internet accessible to everyone, and before the likes of Twitter gave them access to a potentially global (or at least Western) audience we were first exposed to this "everyone is a special flower and/or victim" idea through.... Satellite TV!

That's right.. As well as the latest movies and TV shows, we got these navel gazing talk shows allowing anyone that American producers thought might be a ratings draw on the air to talk about their problems and feelings. An entire generation of people grew up being told that nothing bad is your fault, that your feelings on everything are justified and real, and that you deserve not just to be recognised but validated for it.

Now in some cases this did have some positive influences by generating much needed social conversations where society moved forward accordingly, but then you had the other extreme where people who needed help not validation were likewise given free reign to spread their message.

The Internet and social media generally has made this even easier and so began echo chambers of self congratulation and validation, and because perspective is lost in such environments, suddenly it's seen as mainstream.

Add to this the parallel advent of 24/7 news channels and websites. Now with endless hours and virtual columns to fill, "journalists" trawl these social media outlets for ideas and stories and.... Voila! Now these notions are legitimised via previously respected outlets like the BBC.

Then we have the politicians and the increasingly weak populist, headline chasing types (3 senior ministers I can think of immediately) who see all this and mistake it for majority or popular opinion, annnnnd.....

.... Here we are!

But in the real world outside of the confines of the TV or Twitter feed, reality is very much different, hence why these ideas and feelings and beliefs never come off well when put up against said reality.

Indeed. Here is a piece burrowing into the obfuscation that started this and which resulted in misinformation/disinformation being spread by...ideologically captured institutions.

'So the story originated with a letter that was written by Dr

Rachael James, then Medical Director of the Sussex NHS Foundation Trust

in August 2023. Dr James was responding to a letter from a campaign group, Children of Transitioners (COT), who had questioned the trust on their, ‘perinatal care policy for trans and non binary people’.

In the letter (which you can read in full here)

Dr James sets out her stall by stating that she will be referring to

any and all liquids produced by lactation as ‘human milk’. She does so

in an attempt to be even handed - and in response to COT, who, rightly

or wrongly, refer to men’s milk as ‘bodily secretions’. James says she

will use ‘human milk’ because the term is, ‘meant to be neutral and is not gender-biased’.

This is important because it’s the

precise moment confusion started to take hold. Because Dr James sets out

to treat all milk, from either males or females, as ‘equal’, she is

then able to interchange the evidence she presents between evidence that supports female milk and male milk. And then so did the press.'

It goes directly to the question ceadaoin asked though?

Is there evidence that the milk produced by a male person is equivalent to a mother's milk? Does it adapt to the child's needs in the same way? Do they produce colostrum which is amazing for a newborn babies health and immune system and is triggered by giving birth? I don't think there is evidence of any of that.

I take it this is what you’re referring to:

"There's no evidence to suggest that colostrum between cisgender women and other breastfeeding/chestfeeding parents would be different," says Dr. Chandani DeZure, a neonatal and pediatric hospitalist at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital/Stanford University and member of BabyCenter's Medical Advisory Board.

That suggests what it says on the tin, if you’ll pardon the expression - there is no evidence to suggest that the quality of milk produced, regardless of how it is produced, is any different. The quantity however, would vary significantly depending upon how it’s produced, which isn’t really all that surprising, nor is it something which women wouldn’t deal with fairly regularly in providing nourishment and nutrition for their infant children.

The terminology used is fairly simple, no need to overcomplicate things by attempting to distinguish between biological organisms on the basis of one’s own arbitrary standards; that is, if you’d prefer to use biological terminology when referring to women. I wouldn’t though, because outside of that very specific context it comes off as trying too hard, or just the kind of language incels use when referring to ‘females’… 😒

I think an example of what you might be referring to though is that of Freddy McConnell, lost their case in the UK Court of Appeal in 2020 to be named on their child’s birth certificate as their child’s father:

Reports suggest that English common lawrequires those that give birth to be described as mother on the child's birth certificate, despite McConnell's possession of a gender recognition certificate under the Gender Recognition Act of 2004. The President of the Family Division of the Administrative Court also denied a declaration of parentage filed by McConnell. The president declared that McConnell was legally the child's mother and thus possessed parental responsibility of the child accordingly. Because of this decision, McConnell could not be listed as the child's father on the birth certificate. This decision was later upheld at the Court of Appeal in April 2020.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddy_McConnell

Yep, that’s a thing alright:

https://massivesci.com/articles/trans-masculine-breastfeeding-chestfeeding/

Personally, I don’t get too hung up on the language people use, I’ll still have a fair idea what they’re referring to, especially when it’s in terms of the provision of healthcare, employment, family law and so on, y’know, the kind of stuff that I consider to be of greater importance than whether the person I’m speaking to is either XX, XY or something else entirely.

What about the males though ?

What about them? The point is that the hormones responsible for the production of milk in humans has the same effect on the production of milk regardless of the individuals sex - the same effect can be reproduced by introducing synthetic hormones into their endocrine system. Obviously the cases of males lactating are few and far between, limiting the number of cases which can be studied, but in males which do produce milk, albeit given that it’s considered a medical condition which requires treatment, the composition and quality of milk produced isn’t any different -

It has been previously reported that men with cand without known disease can produce milk, but no studies to date have demonstrated that their secretion contains milk constituents produced specifically by the breast. The present study shows the presence of lactose, α-lactalbumin, and lactoferrin in the breast secretion of a 27-yr-old male who had galactorrhea associated with hyperprolactinaemia. The concentrations of lactose,proteins, and electrolytes in the breast secretion of this man are within the range of colostrum and milk obtained from normal lactating women.

https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article-abstract/52/3/581/2677795

Relying on a single case reported over 40 years ago though is obviously just as problematic and wouldn’t constitute scientific evidence under normal circumstances. Evidence enough for a medical professional with a vested interest in supporting the idea that there is no evidence of any difference? In the absence of evidence to the contrary it’s difficult to refute it.