Duke Researchers: Experimental Hormone Treatment Allows Transgender 50-Year-Old to "Breastfeed" Grandchild
Fifth published case of lactation in transgender "woman" finds the patient experienced "female gender affirmation" by "breastfeeding" a four-month-old infant
Researchers at Duke released an academic article last week detailing a "case report" of a 50-year-old transgender "woman" who was given an experimental treatment to "breastfeed" his infant grandchild in 2022.
In this case, the patient reportedly achieved this goal, as well as the "unanticipated benefit" of "female gender affirmation".
According to the report, this is only the fifth published case of lactation in a transgender "woman". The "novel" treatment protocol in this case used metoclopramide to induce lactation, as the drug used in the previous four published cases (domperidone) has not been approved by the FDA.
The report focuses entirely on the "benefits" for the grandfather who wished to "bond" with his grandchild in a manner he did not with his own children. The report does not discuss any benefit-risk analysis from the perspective of the four-month-old infant, or any steps taken to ensure that the "milk" secreted and fed to the infant was nutritious and non-toxic.
Case Details
The report, titled "Novel Lactation Induction Protocol for a Transgender Woman Wishing to Breastfeed: A Case Report", was published online on March 27, 2024 in the Breastfeeding Medicine.
The anonymous patient at the subject of the report (who we will henceforth refer to as John Doe) began "gender affirming care" at the authors' gender clinic in fall of 2018, which included "gender-affirming hormone therapy" and a double orchiectomy (castration) that same year.
Although the name of this gender clinic is not specified, it is referred to in the report as "our gender clinic", and one of the authors describes herself as "co-Director of the Gender Medicine clinic at Duke".
At an appointment with his endocrinologist in the spring of 2022, Doe raised the desire to "breastfeed" the child his daughter was expecting. According to the report, "her [sic] primary motivation for inducing lactation was to experience the bond from breastfeeding that she [sic] had not been able to experience with her [sic] own five children."
To attempt this goal, Doe's doses of estradiol and progesterone were increased to 0.4mg per 72 hours and 300mg daily, respectively. Doe also began to take 10mg of metoclopramide three times daily, as a galactagogue (a substance to induce lactation).
Prior to embarking on this "novel" protocol, Doe was "extensively counseled on her increased risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) due to higher estrogen levels, age greater than 40 years, and her [sic] hypercoagulable disorder". The report contains no mention of discussion of risks or informed consent with the parent of the infant, who was an unwitting participant in this experiment.
In addition to the hormone regime, Doe began "manual pumping and nipple stimulation three to four times per day in five-minute increments".
Case Results
According to the report, three weeks after the introduction of the metoclopramide, Doe "started to see a few drops of white, watery milk per day".
Doe was able to pump a maximum of 1.3 ounces of fluid, and was able to "nurse" his four-month-old grandchild "on multiple occasions" over a period of two weeks. (Even if non-toxic and nutritionally equivalent to a mother's milk, this is significantly less than what a four-month-old infant would ordinarily consume).
Although Doe reverted to his original hormone protocol after only five weeks, he "tearfully reported this was a significant and emotional experience for her [sic] that felt very different from formula feeding her [sic] other children", and that he was "grateful" for the "special bond" this experience created.
In addition to accomplishing the goal of "bonding", Doe also reported the "unforeseen benefits" of "female gender affirmation", and "full breast maturation".
In regards to these "benefits", both targeted and "unanticipated", the authors concluded that it was "in line with existing literature identifying unique considerations for lactation in this patient population, including stigma reduction, social support, and gender dysphoria/affirmation counseling".
The authors also suggested that "the subject’s anecdotal reflections raise questions about when and how lactation counseling should be initiated by providers, what education interventions are necessary for informed patient decision making, and whether lactation induction may confer benefits to transgender women who are not planning on breastfeeding".
Authors
The six authors on the report are all associated with Duke:
Esme D. Trahair, medical student, Duke University
Sarah Kokosa; Clinical Pharmacist, Duke Endocrinology and Bone Densitometry Clinic
Andy Weinhold; Research Program Leader, Duke Global Health Institute (Center for Health Policy & Inequalities Research)
Heather Parnell; Research Project Manager, Duke Global Heath Institute (Center for Health Policy & Inequalities Research)
Andrea B. Dotson; Assistant Professor in Family Medicine and Community Health, Duke University
Carly E. Kelley; Associate Professor of Medicine in the School of Medicine, Duke University; Endocrinologist, Duke Endocrinology; Co-Director, Duke Gender Medicine Clinic
Response
If you have made it this far in the article, you're likely among those who have some reaction of disgust or abhorrence when presented with the facts of this case.
In the words of two "gender-critical campaigners" quoted by the Daily Mail, where the story was first reported:
Heather Welford from With Woman, a collective of midwives and breastfeeding experts, said: ‘Most people would find the idea absolutely shocking.
‘Babies come into the world ready to continue their relationship with their mother, and breastfeeding helps with this.
‘Disrupting this with attempts at breastfeeding by anyone else is frankly disturbing.'
Maya Forstater, executive director of campaign group Sex Matter, said: ‘Babies cannot consent to being participants in a study which sets aside biological reality to define treatment protocols relating to so-called “gender medicine”.
‘Men should not be permitted, still less supported, to get between babies and their mothers, or to use babies as props to validate their beliefs that they are women.’
Source: Duke University researchers help transgender woman, 50, breastfeed her GRANDCHILD using experimental hormone drugs so she could feel what it's like to be a real mom - but critics call it 'frankly disturbing' (DailyMail.com)
The story also attracted attention on social media, including from large right-wing influencers:
Duke University researchers fed a baby dr*g infused n*pple juice. This is child abuse. pic.twitter.com/djqzG8tCha
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 29, 2024
and another:
This is evil. @DukeU is helping mentally ill men "breastfeed" babies now.
This is child abuse no matter what but in this case it wasn’t even their child!
Duke is assisting in child abuse. Alumni should immediately pull their donations! pic.twitter.com/JSGPwZ14mi
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) March 29, 2024
However, there is a vast gulf between online outrage and actual change, but one commenter may be bridging the gap. Allen Mashburn, a former GOP candidate for Lt. Gov. who finished 6th in last month's primary, provided the following statement (emphasis added):
There are so many things wrong with this— from medical researchers who we are supposed to trust, who hold medical degrees from the best institutions, and who have sworn an oath to “do no harm,”we discover the researchers accommodated a biological male who mentally believes he’s a woman, who wanted to see what it’d feel like to breastfeed a baby. Absolutely no consideration was given for the child, only for the mentally challenged male— this is an insult to the oath they swore, the people’s trust, and it appears they were acting as adolescents with no formal education in a backyard experiment. We look to them as “experts” and they acted like it was a high school experiment in a garage.
It’s shameful.
It is also very disturbing that we are seeing this in our State— something that we’ve sadly grown to expect from states like California and New York. The most innocent and vulnerable have become lab rats at Duke University.
I have reached out to my friends in the General Assembly and I’m asking them to appoint an investigative panel of this matter to see if any NC laws or statutes were broken, suspend any state funding that Duke University may receive, until a full investigation can be conducted, and to introduce a bill that would prohibit and prevent children of any age, of being test subjects in medical research of this depraved nature.
Each one I have spoken to, have been in agreement. We refuse the allow Duke University or any other entity, turn North Carolina into a hellhole like California.
Background
This isn't the first controversy Duke has been involved in over it's gender ideology; last year, Duke's Gender Clinic for children was one of the facilities highlighted in an article last year by Education First Alliance titled Transgender toddlers treated at Duke, UNC, and ECU.
The Duke Center for Child and Adolescent Gender Care was opened in 2015, and treats "transgender patients as young as 2", according to an interview with Dr. Deanna Adkins, the director of the center.
As we reported earlier this year, Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro published an internal DEI lecture from Duke, in which a surgical resident expressed his preference for treating non-white patients, and described how Duke was attempting to recruit and retain "diverse residents" by "abandoning all metrics and screens" in favor of "transitioning to a completely holistic review process."
Duke Health also held a "safe and supportive space" for colleagues after the NC legislature passed HB-808, banning "surgical gender transition procedures" for minors. (The law was ratified in August 2023 when the GOP supermajority in the General Assembly was able to override Gov. Cooper's veto of the bill).
Although Duke is a private university, and not subject to the same governmental oversite as state universities in UNC System, it has been the subject of a handful of Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights complaints over racially discriminatory programs.
Duke Health and each of the authors were reached out to for comment; none obliged.