An international non-profit organization that promotes breastfeeding has recently been receiving transgender men volunteering as lactation coaches.
The La Leche non-profit organization provides information about breastfeeding and support for mothers in more than 85 countries. Back in 2014, it changed its policy to allow transgender men to work as breastfeeding counselors.
The group referenced the expansion of the cultural understanding of gender, to insinuate that some men can breastfeed.
Several people have joined the group’s volunteer ranks, the National Catholic Register reports. One of its first initiates was Trevor MacDonald, a gay transgender man who was initially turned away by La Leche League Canada.
However, La Leche’s changed policy allowed him to volunteer, and MacDonald describes the group as welcoming. MacDonald is currently among the most prominent spokespeople for transgender people who breastfeed.
This niche of parenting has grabbed the attention of La Leche, MacDonald, and other activists and groups.
A renowned online resource run by two birth and breastfeeding experts, Sweet Pea Breastfeeding, focuses especially on supporting exceptional families that historically have not received the help and support they need and deserve, this includes transgender parents.
Such issues get very complicated, Sweet Pea Breastfeeding profiled a trans man who gave birth to a child raising the baby with his female partner, who had struggled to get pregnant.
In its Breastfeeding Outside the Box podcast, Sweet Pea Breastfeeding said that Amy did not expect infertility or having any difficulty making enough milk when inducing lactation for the baby Chris carried.
Sweet Pea Breastfeeding also offers classes for breastfeeding parents, regardless of gender. But including transgender men who breastfeed in such training events can be a controversial idea.
An article on ‘the troubling erasure of trans parents who breastfeed,” pointed out that a transgender man accepted that part of having his gender recognized is by being excluded from women-only spaces, such as nursing classes.
Sources: https://heatst.com/culture-wars/trans-men-are-now-breastfeeding-and-teaching-lactation-courses/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-establishment/the-troubling-erasure-of-_b_8673664.html
