For the BBC, sorry seems to be the hardest word

The media are currently putting babies at risk with their inability to apologise

Friday is usually my day for The Word is Woman, but this week there is a bit more to say about the story that has certainly dominated my week, if not yours - that of ‘trans breastfeeding’.

And of course, this story directly relates to our purposes on The Word is Woman - because, at least in part, it’s about the consequences of changing the meanings of words. Terms like ‘human milk’ and calling people ‘women’ when they are male, can sew confusion on an epic scale, and even bamboozle those who are paid to analyse, question and think.

On Tuesday I wrote a post that has since had 20 thousand views and caused a bit of a storm. The post was a response to a BBC News item on Monday night in which the presenter Rajini Vaidyanathan claimed that, according to the NHS, the World Health Organisation (WHO), and numerous studies, ‘transgender women’s milk is just as good for babies as breastmilk’. Vaidyanathan’s guest, a woman completely unqualified in the area of breastfeeding, Kate Luxion, not only supported this claim but built on it, stating that male ‘milk’ was not just equivalent to, but potentially of ‘higher quality’, than women’s.