Six trustees of a nationwide breastfeeding support group have been suspended for demanding that biological men be excluded from their services, amidst claims that gender identity activism within the charity has created a culture of “censorship, harassment and bullying”.
Late last year the trustees from La Leche League GB (LLLGB), the British wing of La Leche League (LLL), which has more than 70 groups across the UK and gives mother-to-mother support to those finding it hard to breastfeed, wrote to the US-led board of the charity, LLLI, questioning its shift to gender ideology, and asking to remain single-sex.
At present, LLLGB’s meetings are female-only, and directors have been resisting attempts to permit males.
In February, LLLI responded to the trustees’ demands, telling them: “We focus on providing breastfeeding support and understand the importance of making our spaces welcoming to all those who want to breastfeed or give their babies human milk.
“We don’t argue with parents or other leaders about how they identify; we accept them with respect, just as they say they are, and do not refer to them with words that conflict with their identity.”
The US-led board then suspended the six trustees, who represent the majority of LLLGB’s board of directors, claiming: “The continued promotion of LLL as an organisation that excludes people is damaging LLL’s credibility.”
It remains unclear why, if that is the case, LLLI continues to allow groups in countries which do not accept trans rights, including many Muslim ones, to exclude biological men.
The suspended trustees have now sent a serious incident report to the Charity Commission, saying the charity’s demand that trans women were admitted was against UK law because single-sex places are protected.
The report, which has been seen by the Mail, warns that if the charity’s international parent body forces the policy on them and trans women were able to attend meetings, it would exclude “a significant number of our beneficiaries, i.e., mothers… who will not breastfeed around men, whether for religious reasons, modesty, previous (or current) experience of male violence of ‘just’ discomfort.
“We consider that insistence on opening meetings to males and supporting males to lactate will prompt many Leaders [i.e., volunteer mothers experienced in the normal course of breastfeeding] to leave,” the report adds.
Reacting to news of LLLI’s heavy-handed approach to staff who dare to stand up for women’s sex-based rights, a spokeswoman for LLLGB said: “Pressure to abandon mother-only breastfeeding services has been building internationally at LLL for several years as gender identity activism has gathered force. We are now at the point that group leaders around the world are being told they must support ‘male lactation’.
“As a group of current trustees of LLLGB, we have exhausted every process available to us to defend sex-based services. LLL International and a small number of fellow trustees at LLLGB have undermined our efforts and left us with no choice but to alert the Charity Commission.
Speaking anonymously to the Telegraph, another LLLGB Leader said she was “utterly disheartened by the way our charity has become obsessed and sidetracked by sex and gender issues”.
“We had already been told that the term ‘mother’ could be a ‘roadblock’,” she added, “[and] any attempt to question or debate these positions is hounded down as ‘harmful’.”
A Charity Commission spokeswoman said: “We have received correspondence from groups of trustees, alerting us to a disagreement among the charity’s board about the way in which the charity delivers its services. We are assessing the information to determine whether this is a matter for the Commission as regulator to become involved in.”
