La Leche League banned my books

More evidence of the ideological capture of this once great organisation

As some of you reading this may know, I am a ‘cancelled’ woman, or to use the wonderful Jenny Lindsay’s term, a ‘hounded’ one. Back in 2020, I showed tiny, almost undetectable signs of questioning gender ideology. As a writer on the subject of childbirth and women’s health, and the founder of the global Positive Birth Movement, I had politely wondered about language changes in my own field, for example, ‘assigned male at birth’ and ‘birthing people’. This was enough to leave the smallest trace of blood on my tracks, and I was was hunted down by a group of otherwise presumably friendly little doulas and hypnobirthing teachers, and ripped to shreds. You can read about that here.

In the immediate aftermath, the human rights in childbirth organisation Birthrights, who I had supported in every way possible for nearly a decade, publicly made clear that they approved of my hounding via a very pointed instagram post about their ‘values’, and privately wrote to me to say they would never work with me again. At the time, I had a large profile in the world of maternity in the UK. In the way of all totalitarian regimes, the way in which this small group of birth workers made a public example of me, and the way this was endorsed by Birthrights, served as a warning to others in the field of women’s health never to question - and it worked.

As every year has gone by, I have rebuilt my life and career, and, rather than having regrets, I’ve only become more proud of myself for standing up to this threat to women’s rights and to children’s mental and physical health. Nevertheless my decision not only to speak up but also to go public with the story of my hounding, has undoubtedly caused damage to my livelihood. But how much damage? People often ask me this, and I explain it’s an impossible question to answer, because I am and have always been self-employed.

If you’re employed and you lose your job because of your views, it’s comparatively black and white, both in terms of measuring the loss to your income and in terms of legal action. But if, like me, some of your livelihood comes from speaking at events, and some comes from book sales, and some comes from the book sales that result from your being at events or on podcasts, and some comes from word of mouth, and some comes from people making social media posts about your books…and so on…then it becomes harder to discern the cost. Over the past four years, there have been repeated examples of organisations and individuals acting in ways that would probably affect my income: deplatforming me from a major conference; privately contacting people on social media to tell them to take down positive posts about my books; refusing to speak at events that held any association with me, and so on. And these are just the examples that I’ve found about. How many others have happened, or are yet to happen? And how many people have decided not to buy my book, or ask me on their podcast, or platform me at their event, or commission me to write an article, or promote my existing titles? I will never know. Nobody needs to tell me if they think about inviting me to do some paid work for them, but then change their mind because they are afraid of the possible repercussions.

Recently the spotlight has been turned on the breastfeeding organisation La Leche League (LLL), where the extent of ideological capture has apparently been so great that they have merrily thrown one of their 95 year old founders under the bus, and left others, like Miriam Main who wrote her story for my substack, and Ruth Lewis here in the Telegraph, feeling they would rather quit the board than be forced to support male lactation. As someone who attended LLL meetings when I needed breastfeeding support myself, it’s depressing to watch, and also so difficult to understand why women who were presumably originally extremely invested in helping other new mothers breastfeed, would now be so desperate to prioritise the needs of men. So keen to lick the boots - or the size 11 stilettos - of their oppressors, that they will willingly destroy their fellow women in the process. These scenarios continue to teach me lessons about women’s internalised misogyny and the vice-like grip of patriarchy that truly, I never wanted to learn.

In the early summer of this year I put in a Subject Access Request to LLLGB, having been tipped off that I ‘might find the response of interest’. What this SAR revealed was that, in January 2024, my books, which had previously been both sold in the LLL online shop, and on an ‘approved list’ of books for LLL Leaders (breastfeeding counsellors) to recommend to the women attending their group, were then banned by LLL.

A facebook post went up in the LLLGB Leaders group, asking if anyone knew why my book Give Birth like a Feminist was on both the ‘approved’ and ‘rejected’ list. Without any hesitation, the response given was:

“It was on the approved list but then it was brought to our attention that the author has recently been offensive to the transgender community, so we decided not to stock this or The Positive Birth Book in the shop. I have now removed it from the approved list.”

This same wording, that ‘the author has been offensive to the transgender community’, was also on an internal spreadsheet as the reason why my books were no longer to be stocked or recommended.

As you will see, there was also pushback from women who had my back, and I’m immensely grateful to them. They continued to point out that they felt the action of LLL was wrong, and that also it may expose them to a bad PR situation at best, and a defamation case at worst. They explained over and over again that it wasn’t the removal of my books from the LLL lists and shop that was the problem, but that they had openly stated that this was done not because of the content of my books (which had both been read by LLL and approved of) but on the basis of my views, which are ‘worthy of respect in a democratic society’. And this their open statement that this was the reason was potentially defamatory.

For brevity, I’m not sharing every single page from the SAR, but here are a few, for those who are interested in the details of how these things are discussed…

To begin with, they definitely didn’t see a problem, and even said it was the same as deciding not to stock a book written by a ‘racist author’.

Concern is raised about ‘backlash if this gets out’, and it’s pointed out that the book was previously approved and doesn’t refer to anything controversial.

It was suggested that the comments could simply be removed for the sake of PR, and the book kept off the approved list. My defenders then point out that this is shutting the door after the horse has bolted. (It’s not the first time I’ve seen this phenomenon - people are unable to see anything wrong with their defamation of a person, because they feel convinced their opinion is correct. Therefore, ‘it’s not defamation, it’s simply stating the facts’. They are completely unable to see that there is a single possibility they are wrong in their assessment!)

Again they repeat in the final sentence on this next one, ‘we can stock or not stock any book we like’. They still don’t get it…

Let’s just defame her more gently, is the next suggestion…

Here’s a useful summary of what happened…

And then they start to wonder how they have come to conclude that I’m ‘transphobic’. And realise they are not really sure what they are basing that on…

There are some whatsapp messages too, including one in which someone refers to the statement Birthrights made about me as evidence of my ‘transphobia’. (Birthrights have now quietly taken down this statement - you can read my response to it, which details some of its false claims, here)

All in all it’s a sorry mess.

I’m told that my books are now back on the ‘approved list’. But it seems they are still not stocked in the online shop.

Does this matter? Yes. These small actions have a ripple effect and slowly chip away at a person’s reputation and livelihood. Beyond this, the principle also matters. The way in which women like me can be treated, simply for stating views that most people hold, for example that we need to stop erasing women from the language of women’s health, or that we should be concerned about the medicalisation of gender non-conforming children, is not right or fair.

I would like La Leche League to apologise to me for publicly accusing me of transphobia, and for removing their approval and sale of my books on this basis.

I ask for this apology to encourage LLL to reflect on their treatment of me, and on what this says about the extent of their ideological capture, which is currently being widely reported and commented on. I also hope it helps to further set a precedent that I and other women with similar views should not be treated this way.

Do they really want to keep throwing good women under the bus? Do they genuinely believe that me, their lost trustees, their 95 year old founder Marian Tompson, and anyone else who has stood up and said that male people should not be helped to lactate and feed voiceless babies from their male nipples, are all in the wrong and not worth the time of day, and that they are definitely 100% in the right? Really??

I’m looking forward to my apology. Do I want them to reinstate my books in their shop? No. I’m sad to say I no longer wish to be associated with them.

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