NEWS VIDEO, ARTICLE & FOLLOW UP
UPDATE:
ITV LINK as at 4 May 2024 now has Parental Control warning on: Cost of Living Crisis – Reports that water companies planning 40% bill hike:
STRUGGLING ‘MOTHER’ NARRATIVE
Mika Minio-Paluello
Climate & Industry Lead at TUC / Economist with Transition Economics
AS AT 4 MAY 2024
MIKA MINIO-PALUELLO RESPONSE
NEWS ARTICLE
‘A man having a baby suck his nipple is not breastfeeding’: Gender-critical campaigners slam trans woman activist for using a child as an ‘identity prop’ after she posted image of her breastfeeding on a bus
MAIL ONLINE REPORTER – 4 JULY 2023 – DAILY MAIL
Gender critical campaigners today criticised a trans woman activist after she posted an image of her breastfeeding on a bus.
Mika Minio-Paluello – a former Labour special adviser – was seen during Wednesday night’s News At Ten programme doing the washing up while she spoke of how the soaring water bills were ‘tough if you’re a mum’.
Afterwards, Ms Minio-Paluello, who was born male, complained about viewers ‘obsessing’ over a breast pump that could be seen in the footage and said it belonged to a housemate. She added that ‘trans women can breastfeed’ before sharing a photo of herself doing so on a bus.
Gender critical campaigner Maya Forstater responded to the post today by writing: ‘A man is not a woman. A man is not a mother. A man having a baby suck his nipple is not breastfeeding.’
Meanwhile, author Helen Joyce added: ‘I’m not sharing a pic of the bloke on a bus breastfeeding a baby because it’s also a pic of a baby being used non-consensually as a man’s identity prop.’
Mika Minio-Paluello said in the caption to this photo: ‘Here’s me on the bus to hospital for the 1st chemo round, feeding my child for the last time’
Gender critical feminists Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce commenting today
Trans women can make themselves lactate by taking a combination of medicines that tricks the body into making milk. In 2018, a 30-year-old transgender woman became the first officially recorded to breastfeed her baby and was able to produce 227 grams of milk a day.
As she shared the image, Ms Minio-Paluello wrote: ‘In the end, I only breastfed my child for a few weeks. I then had to stop because I had a cancer relapse and didn’t want to poison my child.
‘Here’s me on the bus to hospital for the 1st chemo round, feeding my child for the last time.’
This prompted further debate, with critics replying to the photo by saying it was not possible for someone with male sexual organs to breastfeed.
Trans women can make themselves lactate by taking a combination of medicines called the Newman-Goldfarb protocol. It was originally developed for biological women who adopted or had a child via surrogacy and wanted to breastfeed.
The method involves taking hormone boosting medications, including the pill. Other drugs that are used include anti-sickness medicine metoclopramide, heart medication digitalis and anti-psychotic chlorpromazine and sedative medications which are known to increase prolactin, the hormone responsible for milk production.
Domperidone, an anti-nausea drug, is the preferred option for the protocol as it has fewer potentially dangerous side effects.
However, the regimen is not completely risk free. The drug can pass into breast milk in small amounts and can sometimes give babies an irregular heartbeat as a result.
The drug regime is used in conjunction with a breast pump to mimic the changes a women’s body undergoes during the late stages of pregnancy and shortly after the birth of a child.
Experts have urged caution about transwomen using the Newman-Goldfarb protocol to lactate. They have warned that long-term health implications from using the treatment, for both adult and baby, are unknown.
There have been separate rare cases of biological men undergoing lactation in the past without deliberately setting out to do so. These are usually the result of a rare medication side effect influencing hormone production, or from a hormone-disorder.
It is unclear how many other trans women have been able to breastfeed since the first recorded case in 2018.
There are also very few studies and no scientific consensus about the nutritional quality of the breastmilk produced.
However, one this year, published in the Journal of Human Lactation found it contained similar levels of lactose, proteins and electrolytes.
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After a feminist campaigner responded to the row by mentioning that Ms Minio-Paluello had been ‘simulating breastfeeding’, she hit back by saying that ‘trans women can breastfeed’
The ITV news segment featuring Ms Minio-Paluello appeared as the second item on News At Ten and was presented by ITV News consumer editor Chris Choi.
It introduced Ms Minio Paluello – believed to be in her early 40s – as a ‘Thames Water customer’ and failed to mention her Labour credentials…
FURTHER DETAILS – FROM PUBLIC POSTS BY MIKA MINIO-PALUELLO
READ THREAD FOR MORE DETAILS OF INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT @gooseberryorca
COMMENTARY – THIS INSTANCE & WIDER IMPLICATIONS
MEN ARE NOT MOTHERS
THE VALUE OF DISGUST
