Breastfeeding support organisations were created for a simple purpose: to support mothers and babies.
For decades, women gathered in these spaces to discuss pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, maternal health, and the challenges of caring for newborn children. They were built on shared female experience and a common focus on infant wellbeing.
Increasingly, however, many of these organisations have found themselves drawn into disputes over gender identity, language, and the inclusion of biological males in spaces originally created for mothers. As these debates have intensified, some women have begun asking a difficult question: when mothers and babies are no longer at the centre, what becomes of the original mission?
Child Safeguarding Must Come First
Recent tribunal proceedings in Queensland involving a trans-identified male and a breastfeeding counsellor (Buckley v Sussex) have brought these questions into sharper public focus. While the legal case itself concerns allegations of vilification, the broader issues raised extend beyond any single proceeding. They include child safeguarding, the state of the scientific evidence, freedom of expression, and the ongoing purpose of women’s breastfeeding support networks.
Every organisation that works with women and children has a responsibility to maintain appropriate boundaries. Breastfeeding support groups are no exception. These spaces often involve vulnerable mothers, newborn infants, intimate discussions about the female body, and peer-to-peer support during one of the most physically and emotionally demanding periods of life.
When infants are involved, safeguarding must come before ideology, politics, or adult identity claims.
What Does the Science Actually Tell Us?
One of the most striking aspects of the debate surrounding induced lactation in trans-identified males is the limited evidence regarding infant outcomes.
The medical literature remains extremely small. Published studies largely consist of individual case reports documenting whether biological males can produce milk following hormone treatments, medications, and intensive pumping regimens.
The most frequently cited case report, Reisman & Goldstein (2018), described a trans-identified male producing sufficient milk to feed an infant after taking domperidone, estradiol, progesterone, and undertaking frequent pumping. The authors noted “modest but functional lactation” was achieved. Subsequent reports have described similar protocols and varying levels of milk production.
However, these studies focus primarily on whether milk can be produced. Far less attention has been given to questions directly affecting child welfare. Researchers have not established long-term developmental outcomes for infants fed induced male lactation secretions. There is limited evidence regarding immune factors, microbiome development, endocrine exposure, medication transfer, and long-term health outcomes.
The central safeguarding question is not whether milk can be produced. The question is whether sufficient evidence exists to conclude that these practices are safe for babies. At present, that evidence remains limited.
Where uncertainty exists, caution should prevail. Infants cannot provide informed consent, and their welfare should never be secondary to adult desires, identities, or experiences.
Safeguarding Boundaries in Maternal Support Spaces
Organisations that support mothers and infants have a responsibility to maintain clear boundaries. These spaces often involve vulnerable women, newborn babies, and discussions of a highly intimate and physical nature.
Experienced volunteers in maternal support networks have for many years reported the need to remain alert to individuals who may approach such groups with motivations unrelated to the wellbeing of mothers and babies. Safeguarding frameworks exist precisely because organisations working with vulnerable women and children must maintain appropriate boundaries and keep the focus on those they were established to support.
When the primary purpose of a breastfeeding organisation shifts away from mothers and infants, maintaining those boundaries can become more difficult. Clear sex-based and safeguarding parameters help protect both the women seeking support and the babies at the centre of the work.
The Trevor MacDonald Effect and the Shift in Breastfeeding Advocacy
One of the earliest and most influential examples was Trevor MacDonald, a trans-identified female who became active in breastfeeding and birth advocacy in Canada during the early 2010s.
MacDonald’s advocacy played a significant role in promoting language changes such as “chestfeeding” and greater inclusion of transgender identities within breastfeeding support networks.
Supporters viewed these changes as inclusive.
Critics argued that they shifted attention away from women’s sex-based experiences of pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation.
For many women, the issue was not simply terminology. It was the gradual transformation of organisations originally created to support mothers into spaces increasingly focused on accommodating adult identity claims.
International Parallels: La Leche League
Similar controversies have emerged within La Leche League International, the world’s oldest and most influential breastfeeding support organisation.
Founded in 1956 to support mothers and babies, La Leche League became the subject of internal disputes over transgender inclusion and language policies.
In 2024, co-founder Marian Tompson resigned from the organisation she helped establish nearly seventy years earlier. Other senior figures within the movement also stepped away amid concerns about the organisation’s changing direction.
Tompson publicly expressed concern that the needs of biological mothers were being displaced by efforts to accommodate males seeking participation in breastfeeding support spaces.
Many long-serving volunteers reported similar concerns, arguing that women-only support groups exist for a reason: they provide a space where women can discuss experiences unique to the female body without self-censorship or discomfort.
Returning Mothers and Babies to the Centre
The fundamental question facing breastfeeding organisations is not whether individuals should be treated with dignity and respect. It is whether organisations created to support mothers and babies can continue fulfilling that mission when sex-based boundaries are removed and adult identity concerns become central to their operation.
Women seek breastfeeding support because they are navigating experiences unique to female biology — pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, menstruation, maternal recovery, and infant care. These are not abstract political issues. They are realities of women’s lives.
The debate highlighted by recent tribunal proceedings is ultimately about more than any single case. It is about safeguarding, scientific evidence, and whether women can continue to organise around shared biological experiences. It is about whether the needs of mothers and babies remain at the centre of organisations established to support them.
Women Speak Australia supports evidence-based policy, child safeguarding, and the preservation of women-centred support services. Where evidence remains limited, further research should be encouraged. Where professionals raise concerns about infant welfare, those concerns should be heard rather than dismissed. And where women seek spaces built around the realities of female biology and motherhood, their right to create and maintain those spaces should be respected.
The welfare of children and the needs of mothers must come first.