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 organisation. 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 organisation 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.
