DEI
Founder of breastfeeding advocacy group resigns after transgender ideology takeover
From LifeSiteNews
In 1956, Marian Tompson and six other women founded the La Leche League in Illinois to promote breastfeeding over bottle feeding formula. Now 94, Tompson has resigned following the ‘trans’ takeover of her once woman-oriented mission.
In 1956, Marian Tompson and six other women founded the La Leche League in Illinois. Their goal was to create an organization in which mothers could assist other mothers with breastfeeding at a time when most babies in the United States were bottle-fed with formula. The organization was, at the time, counter-cultural. It soon spread around the world. In recent years, however, the League is anything but—and Marian Tompson, now 94 years old and one of the last surviving founders, has published a letter announcing her resignation from La Leche League entirely:
Dear Leaders of La Leche League,
I want to share some important news.
On November 6, 2024, I resigned from the LLLI Board of Directors and from LLL itself, an organization that has become a travesty of my original intent.
From an organization with the specific Mission of supporting biological women who want to give their babies the best start in life by breastfeeding them, LLL’s focus has subtly shifted to include men who, for whatever reason, want to have the experience of breastfeeding despite no careful long-term research on male lactation and how that may affect the baby.
This shift from following the norms of Nature, which is the core of mothering through breastfeeding, to indulging the fantasies of adults, is destroying our organization.
Despite my efforts these past two years as a Board member, it has become clear that there is nothing I can do to change this trajectory by staying involved.
Still, I leave the door open to come back when La Leche League returns to its original Mission and Purpose.
I thank each of you for your years of making this world a healthier and happier place by being there for all mothers needing help with breastfeeding their babies.
With much love,
Marian Tompson
Founder of La Leche League
Tompson’s resignation is, I suspect, a long time coming. La Leche League has been slowly taken over by trans activists for some time, and the international board recently directed its affiliates in the UK to permit trans-identifying males to attend meetings once restricted exclusively to mothers. Miriam Main, a Scottish breastfeeding advocate, also announced that she is leaving La Leche League this week for similar reasons. Main noted, in her resignation letter, that she has tried to get leaders to listen to her concerns, but that she has been entirely ignored:
In LLL publications and materials I noticed ‘mother’ being replaced with ‘parent’, ‘breastfeed’ being replaced with ‘chestfeed’, and women constantly being referred to as ‘breastfeeding families’. But these language changes very quickly evolved into a complete departure from LLL’s philosophy and mission, led by a group of zealots from within the organization. Leaders who expressed concerns about clarity of language – for example for women for whom English is not their first language – were ridiculed and abused.
We began to be told that as an inclusive organization we would have to welcome trans identifying men who wished to breastfeed to our meetings. Leaders then began to raise legitimate concerns about safeguarding issues. For example, the physical safety of a baby being breastfed by a man; the social and physiological safety of a mother separated from her baby so a man can breastfeed; the psychological safety of women in the room where a man is present; the need for privacy for women with certain religious beliefs. In raising such concerns, we were told we were transphobic, and we were compared to racists and Nazis – by other Leaders!
LLL’s leaders, Main wrote, have “shown that theoretical male lactation trumps the needs of real women living in the U.K.,” adding that the “grief I feel at losing LLL from my life is huge.” Neither Tompson nor Main have thus far responded to media requests outlining their positions further, but a survey of LLL websites highlights how far the rot of gender ideology has spread within the organization.
LLL International’s site has an entire section on “transgender and non-binary parents” that provides step-by-step instructions for how males might be able to produce milk. This is despite the fact that there is no medical evidence that this is safe for the child—but LLL, like so many other hijacked institutions, is placing the desires of gender dysphoric men over the needs of children. La Leche League Canada has a section featuring a giant rainbow flag and the question “What is Chestfeeding?” in which they explain:
Chestfeeding is a term used by some parents who identify as transmasculine and non-binary to describe how they feed and nurture their children from their bodies. A person who uses the term chestfeeding may, or may not, have had any surgery on their breast tissue. Other words that may be used are: ‘nursing’, ‘feeding’, ‘breastfeeding.’
Once again, we see that when trans activists talk about “inclusion,” in practice their demands mean precisely the opposite. By including men in female-only spaces, women who no longer feel safe are excluded. By including an entirely new set of organizational premises, the organization excludes the original founders and champions of that organization who cannot support the new vision. LLL is not the first organization to fall to trans activists, and it won’t be the last—but I believe that the pushback by women like Tompson and Main is truly making a difference in this debate.
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Race- (and other-) based admissions will inevitably pave the way to race- (and other-) based medical practices, which will only further the divisions that exist in society. You can’t fight discrimination with more discrimination.
Perhaps it should be expected that a so-obviously ‘woke’ institution as the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) would toss aside such antiquated concepts as academic merit as it prepares to open its new medical school in the fall of 2025.
After all, until recently, TMU was more widely known as Ryerson University. But it underwent a rapid period of self-flagellation, statue-tipping and, ultimately, a name change when its namesake, Edgerton Ryerson, was linked (however indirectly) to Canada’s residential school system.
Now that it has sufficiently cleansed itself of any association with past intolerance, it is going forward with a more modern form of intolerance and institutional bias by mandating a huge 80% diversity quota for its inaugural cohort of medical students.
TMU plans to fill 75 of its 94 available seats via three pathways for “equity-deserving groups” in an effort to counter systemic bias and eliminate barriers to success for certain groups. Consequently, there are distinct admission pathways for “Indigenous, Black and Equity-Deserving” groups.
What exactly is an equity-deserving group? It’s almost any identity group you can imagine – that is, except those who identify as white, straight, cisgender, straight-A, middle- and/or upper-class males.
To further facilitate this grand plan, TMU has eliminated the need to write the traditional MCAT exam (often used to assess aptitude, but apparently TMU views it as a barrier to accessing medical education). Further, it has set the minimum grade point average at a rather average 3.3 and, “in order to attract a diverse range of applicants,” it is accepting students with a four-year undergrad degree from any field.
It’s difficult to imagine how such a heterogenous group can begin learning medicine at the same level. Someone with an advanced degree in physiology or anatomy will be light years ahead of a classmate who gained a degree by dissecting Dostoyevsky.
Finally, it should be noted that in “exceptional circumstances” any of these requirements can be reconsidered for, you guessed it, black, indigenous or other equity-deserving groups.
As for the curriculum itself, it promises to be “rooted in community-driven care and cultural respect and safety, with ECA, decolonization and reconciliation woven throughout” which will “help students become a new kind of physician.”
Whether or not this “new kind of physician” will be perceived as fully credible, however, is yet to be seen. Because of its ‘woke’ application process, all TMU medical graduates will be judged differently no matter how skilled they may be and even when physicians are in short supply. Life and death decisions are literally in their hands, and in such cases, one would think that medical expertise is far more important than sharing the same pronouns.
Frankly, if students need a falsely inclusive environment where all minds think alike to feel safe and a part of society, then maybe they aren’t cut out to become doctors who will treat all people equally. After all, race- (and other-) based admissions will inevitably pave the way to race- (and other-) based medical practices, which will only further the divisions that exist in society. You can’t fight discrimination with more discrimination.
It’s ridiculous to use medical school enrollments as a means of resolving issues of social injustice. However, from a broader perspective, this social experiment echoes what is already happening in universities across Canada. The academic merit of individuals is increasingly being pushed aside to fulfill quotas based on gender or even race.
One year ago, the University of Victoria made headlines when it posted a position for an assistant professor in the music department. The catch is that the selection process was limited to black people. Education professor Dr. Patrick Keeney points out that diversity, equity and inclusion policies are reshaping core operations at universities. Grants and prestigious research chair positions are increasingly available only to visible minorities or other identity groups.
Non-academic considerations are given priority, and funding is contingent on meeting minority quotas.
Consequently, Keeney states that the quality of education is falling and universities that were once committed to academic excellence are now perceived as institutions to pursue social justice.
Diversity is a legitimate goal, but it cannot – and should not — be achieved by subjugating academic merit to social experimentation.
Susan Martinuk is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and author of Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health-care Crisis.
Canadians have no absolute right to equal treatment under the law.
Monitoring the intersection between equality and equity
Let me explain that. Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was, from the perspective of the Charter’s creators, an exceedingly difficult needle to thread. The tension between its two subsections carries the potential for confusion and even abuse. Here’s the text itself:
(1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
(2) Section (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
15(1) guaranteed the equal treatment of all individuals. That’s something I can’t imagine any reasonable-minded person opposing. The problem was that, at the same time, the authors also wanted to leave room for unfair treatment for select groups through affirmative action programs. That’s the purpose of 15(2).
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If 15(2) didn’t exist, challenges to, say, hiring practices targeting historically disadvantaged racial groups could be launched based on the rights found in 15(1). Imagine people who didn’t technically qualify as disadvantaged but who might be better suited for and in greater immediate need of an advertised job. If the “affirmative action” candidate was nevertheless hired, couldn’t the others argue that they’d just suffered Charter-level discrimination? 15(2) is designed to ensure such challenges don’t happen.
Such state-imposed inequality may or may not be justifiable. That’s a debate that doesn’t interest me right now. Instead, my primary focus is on how the principle could be widely abused.
I should clarify that these rules only apply to government programs and agencies. While private companies might be bound by other areas of related law, the Charter was only written for government operations. But it’s nevertheless worth remembering that 4.4 million Canadians work for one level or another of government (when you include hospitals and public schools). That’s around 21 percent of all Canadian workers. And many more of us interact with governments regularly.
What kinds of abuse are possible? Well, consider how so many equality-related decisions are highly subjective and rely on the good faith and clarity of mind of the policy makers and public officials in positions of power. In that context:
- How can we know that factors like “ameliorative”, “disproportionate”, or “disadvantaged” are accurately and appropriately defined?
- How can we know that favoring one group won’t cause deep and irreparable harm to others?
- How can we know that even good-faith decisions aren’t made based on outdated assumptions or inaccurate stereotypes?
Easy-to-imagine practical examples of abuse could include:
- Provincial scholarship programs that target low-income students from only certain ethnic groups while excluding members of other groups who might currently experience even greater financial hardship.
- Seats in highly competitive university programs that are restricted to only candidates expressing specified identities without objective evidence that such individuals are currently meaningfully underrepresented in those programs or professional fields.
- Government-funded employment programs that subtly target communities likely to share particular political beliefs.
- Internal career advancement policies that prioritize identity and ethnicity over competence that lead to reduced organizational capacity.
- Social disruption due to arbitrary official favoritism for some ethnicities and identities over others.
Of course, misuse of 15(2) can always be tested in court. Programs are, after all, expected to pass the Oakes Test (for objectives that are pressing and substantial) and the Kapp Test (for goals that are truly ameliorative and appropriately targeted).
But that requires someone who notices the problem and has the considerable means necessary to launch a court challenge. There aren’t many people like that running around.
A government that felt that misuse of the law was causing significant damage to society could choose to by-pass 15(2) altogether by invoking the Notwithstanding Clause or by amending the constitution itself. But…well, good luck surviving either attempt.
More realistically, the government could write new legislation that guides the interpretation or application of 15(2). That could mean carefully defining what constitutes an “ameliorative program” or setting clear eligibility criteria for such programs. There would be no need to change the constitution, simply to properly define it.
Alternatively, governments could govern by example. This might mean tailoring their own policies and programs to reflect a more constrained interpretation of 15(2). They could actively participate in court cases to advocate for particular interpretations and present compelling arguments to influence how courts understand and apply the provision.
Finally, of course, they could appoint judges to the Supreme Court and federal courts who are more aligned with values associated with absolute equality under the law.
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