by Joan Smith, UnHerd
Medicine is rooted in science. Doctors, nurses and midwives train for years, learning about the human body and how it operates. One thing that’s absolutely clear is that only women can breastfeed. Yet the NHS has been accused of allowing midwives to be “trained” by a trans organisation which promotes male breastfeeding.
An outfit called the Queer Birth Club offers “LGBTQ+” lactation classes, promoted via the slogan “birthing people ain’t all women”. According to a report in the Telegraph, it has provided training sessions for NHS England and several NHS trusts. Its founder AJ Silver identifies as non-binary and has spoken at conferences organised by the Royal College of Midwives, claiming to have trained more than 600 “birth professionals”. The paper added that a nurse who raised concerns about the training is now facing disciplinary action.
Two weeks ago, the club held one of its regular “LGBTQ+ competency in lactation workshops”, covering such subjects as “inducing lactation, feeding after top surgery, hormones, and co-nursing”. Translated into normal language, this means using powerful drugs to induce a simulacrum of breast milk in men who claim to be women. It also means inducing lactation in women who have had their breasts amputated.
How could the NHS be so gullible? How could midwives, of all people, fall for this nonsense? Their prime responsibility is to women and children, yet it’s striking that infants barely feature on the club’s pastel-themed website, which claims to be “amplifying the voices of the often overlooked and invisible minorities in the birthing world”. The most invisible minority in its pitch, however, is babies.