Todos podemos dar leche

Hermoso artículo sobre maternidades trans en Milk Junkies. Este será un tema a tratar en el libro de las Maternidades Subversivas… Quedan sólo 5 días para que acabe la campaña de crowdfunding y vamos a por el docu.

Trans women, individuals who were assigned male at birth but identify and live as women, CAN breastfeed. It is possible, and totally awesome! Health care providers, volunteer breastfeeding counsellors, and trans women themselves need to learn this important, empowering fact.

Over the last few weeks, I spoke a couple of times with a trans woman and mother, who we’ll call Sarah, to better understand how she became a parent and successfully induced lactation. Sarah’s baby is now more than a year old and they still enjoy a wonderful breastfeeding relationship. I’ll give a bit of background here on conception and then launch into our lactation interview.

Sarah and her wife are both genetic parents to their baby. Sarah explained to me that many doctors, endocrinologists and trans women erroneously believe that after taking antiandrogens and hormone replacement therapy for a relatively short period of time (depending on who you’re talking to, they may say something between six months and two years), a trans woman will be permanently infertile, despite not having had ‘bottom surgery’. This is to say that even if she halts her hormone therapy, it is claimed that she will not be able to produce viable gametes. Sarah believes this claim is based not on science, but on a widespread lack of understanding of trans women’s bodies and many healthcare professionals’ lack of interest in helping them preserve their fertility.