Evan Urquhart

There's a clever little trick behind the outrage over "chestfeeding" as a suggested alternative (not replacement) to breastfeeding, and the reason it works is, once again, say it with me: TRANSMASCULINE INVISIBILITY.

The trick is simple, once you understand how it works. First, people hate & fear trans women, because they're ignorant. Second, they never think about trans men. So, when they hear "X hospital suggests chestfeeding as an alternative to breastfeeding" what do they picture?

They do NOT picture a muscular hairy trans man with a deep voice carrying, giving birth to, and feeding a child, and the incongruity of him having breasts. Of course they don't, bc trans men don't exist in their minds.

Instead, they picture an evil trans woman- likely a broad caricature of "man in a dress" coming in to a pregnant woman's bedside and demanding her breasts no longer be called breasts out of pure villainy.

This trick only works because trans men are so invisible as to be outside the picture frame of ordinary somewhat transphobic but not that informed people's minds. If you picture a trans man giving birth, him saying "chestfeeding" might be a little awkward, but it's not scary.

But if you're unable to conjure the imagine of a trans man to your mind, because of transmasc invisibility, you make trans women the culprits (as always) and ascribe some sort of evil motives of jealousy and hatred of cis women to them.

But they are breasts? There's no logic to changing the word. It's appeasement to someone who couldn't explain why they need it and will want something else tomorrow. They are breasts and it hurts no one to say so. You can't take femaleness out of breastfeeding.

Hmm. Interesting. Let's test this. Would there be any logic to using the word for breasts in the native language of a non-English speaking patient? And, would using that word hurt English speakers in any way?