Don’t erase women, says Minister in trans breast milk row

THE Health Secretary south of the Border has hit out at the NHS hospital that said transgender women can breastfeed babies just as well as mothers.

Victoria Atkins described as ‘extraordinary’ the stance on gender taken by University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, and warned against any attempts to erase women.

Her department has waded into the row for the first time, telling The Mail on Sunday that more ‘fact-based evaluation’ is needed into claims about milk that is produced by biological males who identify as women.

It will put the trust under pressure to review its controversial policies, revealed in full by this newspaper last week.

In response to campaigners’ complaints, the trust’s medical director Dr Rachael James

‘Lactation induction in a transgender woman’

wrote in a letter: ‘The term human milk is meant to be neutral and is not gender-biased.’

Responding to the allegation there is no evidence that ‘male secretions’ are safe or beneficial for babies, she said: ‘Although formula milk provides safe and effective full nutrition for infants, there is clear and overwhelming evidence that human milk is the ideal food for infants when this can be provided.’

Citing a medical paper on ‘lactation induction in a transgender woman’, she insisted that evidence ‘demonstrates that the milk is comparable to that produced following the birth of a baby’. The trust’s policy on perinatal care for trans and nonbinary people uses the term ‘chestfeeding’.

Ms Atkins told the Telegraph: ‘I’m a mum – I find it extraordinary that a trust thought this was an appropriate use of their time. We need to be making this robust case to refuse to wipe women out of the conversation. Induced lactation is an area where further fact-based evaluation is needed.’