https://www.llli.org/about/philosophy/

INCLUSIVITY STATEMENT
We at La Leche League International have all nursed our babies. If you want to do the same, whoever you are, whatever your story is, we’re here to help. 

LLLI is committed to serving everyone inclusive of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, physical or mental ability, socio-economic status, political views, gender identity, sexual orientation, family structure, or other protected status.

LLLI seeks the equitable accreditation of a diverse body of Leaders.


Hi all - I keep referring to y'all in the hope to engage more people :-) 


Karleen wrote: 
The topic itself is challenging and one where people are frightened to speak for fear of saying something that will hurt others or result in them being abused or just because it is confusing and they don’t feel confident to speak. 

-----------Jup. I am enduring this abuse right now, in this very moment, by an orchestrated attack from people who agree with you. And that is fine. I am a big girl. But it is concerning. Another factor I would like to bring in: people are afraid to speak up, because they feel the inbalance in power for speaking up against a moderator. And yes, you might see that as 'personal', but it is what it is. 

Karleen wrote:
Regarding La Leche League, you had some question as to the accuracy of what we wrote in our paper. You quoted from where we wrote about a letter signed by La Leche League leaders asking the LLLI Board to reconsider their language policy. The letter itself (and other correspondence) is here https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/la-leche-league-has-fallen?s=r. You stated that LLLI does not require people to change their language and query how we accessed an internal LLLI policy.

----------------No, I did not wonder how you accessed internal *policies*. LLLI does not have internal policies, they are all publically displayed on the website. I wondered how you accessed an internal *letter*, from leaders to the board. Now you have given me the link to this Graham Linehan-website: I understand where you found it. 

Karleen wrote:
The inclusivity policy that describes a requirement to ‘use a variety of terms’ was public in the ordinary way at the time the paper was written. It is no longer public on the LLLI website but you can find it in the internet wayback https://web.archive.org/web/20210912101204/https://www.llli.org/psr-cultural-sensitivity-in-publications/


-----------------The inclusivity *statement* is still publically on the website:
https://www.llli.org/about/philosophy/

INCLUSIVITY STATEMENT
We at La Leche League International have all nursed our babies. If you want to do the same, whoever you are, whatever your story is, we’re here to help. 

LLLI is committed to serving everyone inclusive of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, physical or mental ability, socio-economic status, political views, gender identity, sexual orientation, family structure, or other protected status.

LLLI seeks the equitable accreditation of a diverse body of Leaders.


The inclusivity *policy* you refer to (with the webarchive-link) on the use of language and cultural sensitivity are publically accessible, as I said yesterday. The text is the same as in the webarchive link you sent. 
https://www.llli.org/about/policies-standing-rules/psr-language-in-llli-in-publications/ 
https://www.llli.org/about/policies-standing-rules/psr-accessibility-and-cultural-sensitivity/

Karleen wrote:
On the requirement to change language. I know with absolute certainty that this is occurring from multiple sources. It is alluded to in the letter from the LLLLs (above). I have also been told by Leaders about their experiences of being told to change language- I have no reason to doubt them. And, finally I have personal experience. In early 2021 I was asked to write an article for LLLI’s publication Breastfeeding Today on the importance of mothers and infants to one another in the COVID-19 pandemic. I agreed to do so and wrote this article especially for LLLI. However, after it had been finalised, I was told that I needed to change the language. I was unwilling to do so and as a result, it was not published in Breastfeeding Today (if anyone else wants to publish it, I would be happy for it to be used). This was a most unprecedented experience. I am not a member of LLL, I wrote the article to support LLL and to help mothers, I was quite shocked to be told I could not used sexed language throughout the article and even that an inclusivity statement was not sufficient. To be honest, I thought it was very rude. 

----------------What comes into stake here which seems to be the point where things get complicated: the requirement? duty? to use 'a variety of terms' has *LLLI* placed upon *itself*. LLLI being the part of the organisation which is 'board and management', the legal thing so to say. LLL Japan or LLL Australia or LLL France - or their ówn entities with their ówn editorial rules on their ówn website.  
You were asked to write an article for Breastfeeding Today, which is an *LLLI*-publication, placed on the *LLLI*-website. It is logical LLLI uses its own rules for its own website. Were you asked to write an article for Borstvoeding Vandaag (the Dutch magazin) than the editorial rules of the Dutch entity would apply. Were you asked to write an article for whatever magazine or article published on whatever website of whatever LLL-entity around the world, than *their* editorial rules would apply. 

Everybody writing for LLLI is asked to use a *variety of terms*. If you don't want to abide to that, that's okay. It won't be published. It works the other way around too. If somebody writes an articles with genderneutral language, they are álso asked to use a *variety of terms*. If they don't, that's okay. It won't be published on the *LLLI*-website. I know this has happened to Leaders and I have no reason to doubt them. 

Karleen:
On LLLI as an international organisation, LLLI has suffered from many of the same problems that other breastfeeding orgs (like ILCA and IBLCE) have had as a result of being based in the US. My experience has been that in many respects it does not do a very good job of being an international organisation (from my own perception and that of people from within the org that have spoken to me).  Being truly international is very hard and especially so if the org is based in the US (see ICDC and WABA as comparators doing much better jobs). On this particularly issue, the force of US/Western culture is very apparent. There can be no denying that the desexing of the language of maternity began in the US. Had it begun and become culturally salient in say, Japan or Zimbabwe, there is no way that it would have been taken up within LLLI or IBLCE or ILCA at all. And the letter from the LLLLs cited speaks quite powerfully to that. This circles back again to the concept of cultural imperialism.

---------------I cannot speak to this. I am not an American. I am not involved with ILCA, IBLCE, ICDC or WABA. I ám able to identify my own frustrations from being around in LLL for quite some time - which indeed have a lot to do with what I would lable as 'American cultural things'. The LLLI policy to use of 'a variety of terms' is not one of them. 

And again: I would like to stress on the fact LLL-Leaders (hey, a genderneutral word!) are all volunteers (hey, a genderneutral word!). The administrative ánd board levels of the organisation are open to everybody. All leaders are equal, there are no honorairy titles or leaders being 'in high places'. 
The power to create policies are in the hands of the board (all leaders, democratically elected), that's true. However, they are assisted by dozens and dozens of leaders from around the world in all kinds of 'review'-style panels etc. 

There are, but that won't be different in any organisation, volunteers who open their mouth and speak up. Non-Americans also :-) There are also volunteers who prefer to work anonomously. That's okay, to a certain extent :-) 
For the people reading the archives and re-framing my words: this is a sort of tongue-in-cheek joke. A sort of sarcasm. I know humour is a difficult concept that is why I explain. 

Lydia de Raad
Volunteer counsellor La Leche League (LLL) Netherlands (Europe)
All opinions expressed in this email are my own

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome