Transgender woman is first to be able to breastfeed her baby
A 30-year-old transgender woman has become the first officially recorded to breastfeed her baby. An experimental three-and-a-half-month treatment regimen, which included hormones, a nausea drug and breast stimulation, enabled the woman to produce 227 grams of milk a day.
"This is a very big deal," says Joshua Safer of Boston Medical Center, who was not involved with the treatment. "Many transgender women are looking to have as many of the experiences of non-transgender women as they can, so I can see this will be extremely popular."
The transgender woman had been receiving feminising hormonal treatments for several years before she started the lactation treatment. These included spironolactone, which is thought to block the effects of testosterone, and progesterone and a type of oestrogen. This regimen enabled her to develop breasts that looked fully grown, according to a medical scale that assesses breast development based on appearance. She had not had any breast augmentation surgery.
When her partner was five-and-a-half-months pregnant, the woman sought medical treatment from Tamar Reisman and Zil Goldstein at Mount Sinai's Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York City. Her partner had no interest in breastfeeding, she explained, so she would like to take on that role instead.
The milk produced was supplemented by formula because a baby typically needs 500 grams of milk per day at 5 days old.
Related: President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine Says Transgender Women Could Give Birth
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:29PM (6 children)
Careful, if you don't approve this story 100% some conservative brains may implode.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @12:30AM (5 children)
I really don't understand this, by what measure are TERFs (for example) conservatives?
Most of the public rejects the transgender agenda and it's not because they're bigoted, prejudiced or even hostile towards transgender individuals. It's because accepting the genetic differences of our sexually dimorphic species implies rejecting the fake narrative that men and women are interchangeable. [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @01:42AM (3 children)
Because Azuma is usually quite vocal about such issues, so to hear any form of critique might indeed make some heads explode.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @02:01AM (2 children)
Oh sure but my point was that I don't think she's voicing any opinion here that people on the far left don't also hold. I don't understand how people automatically presume the transgender thing is some partisan left or right issue. Almost nobody thinks it's a great idea for a biological male to be showering with young girls at the municipal pool.
And I agree with Azuma, why? Given the effects of the drugs involved, can we be certain of the childs long term health and that we're not risking some Thalidomide level travesty?
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:27AM
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=24139&page=1&cid=639539#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
https://www.drugs.com/breastfeeding/estradiol.html [drugs.com]
https://www.drugs.com/breastfeeding/spironolactone.html [drugs.com]
https://www.drugs.com/breastfeeding/progesterone.html [drugs.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @06:58AM
Don't analyze the joke too much, ruins it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday February 18 2018, @05:37AM
I'm not a TERF. I actually have over half a dozen trans* friends, though more of them are FtM (talk about invisible...) than MtF.
TERFs are idiots anyway; they're living examples of the Horseshoe Effect, and a corollary to it that the more virulently hateful two disparate groups at ostensibly opposite sides of the spectrum are, the more closely they'll horseshoe-up when they come to a common enemy. I seriously cannot tell most TERF arguments from most hardcore Evangelical Christian arguments, aside from less tendency to cite the Bible.
There are differences between the sexes. There is a biological basis for *some* of gender and gender roles, but I'd argue a good deal of it is performative. The very existence of trans* people supports that hypothesis, incidentally; the "transgenders think gender is entirely made up" narrative is precisely counter to that, because if gender were really "just a social construct" (another term of abuse) there would be no driving need for people to change it, I would think.
I also remember reading somewhere that there's a correlation between dissociative or depersonalization/derealization episodes and gender dysphoria, which would seem to support that there's something physical underpinning it. It's not something I can understand firsthand, but seeing Aaron and Kevin (previously Paige and Katherine) so much happier and more normal-feeling post-transition than before is enough to get me to accept them for who they are.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...