"What It's Like To Chestfeed?"

facepalm

The real issue is rather straightforward: can a woman who has had her breasts largely removed and reshaped to look like a man's chest, and who has undergone treatment with male hormones, still breastfeed?
   The answer is, apparently: sometimes.
   The tactical ambiguity at the core of "trans" theory tries to make it sound as if men breastfeeding is what's in question. But it isn't. The only thing that's really up here is an insistence that we all misuse certain familiar words, e.g. 'woman' and 'man.'
   Here are some particularly cringeworthy passages:

    So what can be done? Kribbe feels that one of the most important points of this research is urging care providers to be especially attentive to the terms they use. Part of that, she says, starts with the kind of education that obstetricians, midwives, and lactation counselors receive, but another part involves providers being willing to educate themselves about terminology that is gender neutral, as opposed to the gendered-female language that currently dominates lactation support. Even acknowledging that the need for change exists in the first place is an important step, the researchers contend.
    In response to whether or not there were any questions about providing lactation support to transmasculine or non-binary individuals on the exam to become an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Sara Blair Lake, the executive director of the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners, offered a content outline, which shows that the gendered language “maternal” and “mother” is still common, as opposed to the neutral terminology like “parent.” Meanwhile, Melissa Cole, an Oregon-based International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, said in an email that, to her knowledge, there aren’t educational requirements for IBCLCs about how to support transmasculine folks who want to nurse their babies, and that she has received no such training. Cole, who has not yet provided lactation support to a trans person in her practice, wishes she could receive more formal education around inclusive language so she can provide better care.

Painfully cringe-filled as that all is, it's actually kinda right: there's really little at issue here that isn't about words. The neologism "tans man" denotes a certain kind of woman. Female parents are mothers. Some few people might want to be called 'parent' instead of 'mother'--but that isn't substantial. It's mere preference--and a verbal one at that--and nothing more. A linguistic preference, however, based in a denial of plain fact. There seems to be exactly one actual, non-verbal question here, and that's the one described above ("The real issue...).  Aside from that, there's nothing here other than a bunch of language-policing aimed at hectoring people into speaking in silly, politically correct, and less-accurate ways. Really, this all comes down to little more than: we demand that you speak as we want you to speak.