An NHS Trust that spread ‘misinformation’ by claiming transgender women could breastfeed as effectively as new mothers has performed a U-turn after outrage from campaigners.
A leaked letter this year from the medical director of University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust had suggested that milk produced by trans women – who are born male – with the help of powerful drugs was ‘comparable to that produced [by women] following the birth of a baby’.
But amid mounting pressure to review the controversial policies, the Trust now insists its guidance was never intended to encourage trans women to ‘chestfeed’.
But last night Helen Joyce, of the campaign group Sex Matters, said it was ‘disturbing’ that it had taken the Trust so long ‘to reveal that staff at UH Sussex do, in fact, know that men can’t breastfeed’.
Emma Thomas, founder of Children of Transitioners, which supports people whose parents change gender and which initially complained about the guidance, said: ‘We have no idea how many CoT babies worldwide have been harmed as a result [of this].’