Australians Who Criticized Male ‘Breastfeeding’ Told They Broke the Law

Last week, Twitter notified two Australian users that they had violated Australian law with tweets criticizing a biological male who identifies as transgender who was shown “breastfeeding” a baby. As a result, the offending posts would be restricted for Australian users in order to adhere to that country’s law.

“In the interest of transparency, we are writing to inform you that Twitter has received official correspondence regarding your Twitter account,” the social media platform informed Jasmine Sussex and Standing For Women Queensland (SFWQ).

We have not taken any action on the reported content as a result of this request. Please note, we may be obligated to take action regarding the content identified in this complaint in the future.

As Twitter strongly believes in defending and respecting the voice of our users, it is our policy to notify our users if we receive a legal request from an authorized entity (such as law enforcement or a government agency) to remove content from their account. We provide notice whether or not the user lives in the country where the request originated. This page provides more information:
https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/defending-and-respecting-our-users-voice

A second email was sent to the users, notifying them that the content would be withheld in Australia, but that it would remain “available elsewhere.”

According to a report from Reduxx, Sussex had one of her tweets withheld, and SFWQ had a total of five tweets censored, all of which revolved around the Australian male who last year publicly announced that he had supposedly induced lactation and was breastfeeding his biological son because he wanted to “experience what it was like to be a mum and breastfeed.”

Did you know that lactation could be induced in biological males? I had no idea, and after my initial horror at this revelation, I did some research and was horrified again to find that it is theoretically possible with hormone injections because, technically, men do have the necessary equipment. But, there are significant side effects—obviously—and there is no definitive evidence that the “milk” a man could potentially produce would have the same health benefits as real breast milk.

“Men who covet female physiology in this way are, in my opinion, either suffering from a serious delusion or sexually motivated by the idea of themselves as lactating women,” Sussex explains. “There is no evidence that drug-induced secretions from a male nipple are in any way equivalent to mother’s milk. It is more likely the secretions are akin to galactorea, which occurs when abnormal levels of prolactin are released from the pituitary gland in females who aren’t pregnant or males with disease.”

This is Buckley’s delusional queer theory take on his experience “breastfeeding”. Silver lining of this awful start to life for baby Auden is that he was almost exclusively formula fed thanks to his mum. https://t.co/h7RVikCKm4

— jazzmo (@jazzmoi3) May 13, 2023

“I was appalled that it was claimed to be in violation of Australian law to criticize what I and most Australians consider to be a cruel and medically dangerous experiment on newborn babies,” Sussex told Reduxx.

Sussex is a longtime advocate of breastfeeding mothers, and had been a volunteer breastfeeding counselor before she was fired in 2021 after resisting the implementation of “gender-neutral” language in breastfeeding care. A year later, she was kicked out of the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) after having been a member for 18 years. Attempts to reinstate her membership have been unsuccessful so far.

Leah Whiston, an SFWQ member who operates the group’s official Twitter account, was similarly “taken aback” by the notice from Twitter.

“I see that women are silenced all the time now for speaking out about the wrongs of child abuse. Child abuse seems to have been totally normalized these days,” Whiston said.

“Being a new mother myself, I understand the importance of the breastfeeding bond between mother and baby in a way I didn’t before I embarked on it myself… I’m still in disbelief about what’s occurred with Buckley and his baby and how this has been allowed to happen,” she added.

Whiston says she has lost faith in institutions like the Australia Breastfeeding Association. “It makes me wonder how on earth I can trust the people who are meant to provide ethical care and safeguards to mothers and babies, if they advocate for men to use babies as props for men’s sexual fetishes, and silence the women who speak out about how wrong this all is.”