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A simple question about breastfeeding law requires a highly paid commissioner and a taxpayer-funded consultant.

The Australian Senate has been told that bosses in this country are compelled by law to provide breaks for male employees who want to breastfeed their babies.

No, this is not satire.

But hold your laughter. We haven’t even reached the punchline.

Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Anna Cody, was asked last night about the breastfeeding rights of transwomen.

When Breastfeeding Law Applies to Men

Of course, there’s no such thing as a transwoman. It’s a term deliberately used to smuggle a proposition into the public mind: that dudes who think of themselves as women are in fact a subset of women.

They’re not.

But I digress.

Back to the Senate Estimates hearing, where reality was about to be given a stern talking-to.

Liberal senator Leah Blyth posed this riddle to Australia’s highly paid Sex Discrimination Commissioner …

“Section 7AA of the Sex Discrimination Act, specifically refers to discrimination against a woman on the grounds of breastfeeding.

“Does the commission interpret section 7AA as providing breastfeeding discrimination protections to a biological male who identifies as a woman and induces lactation?”

You following?

The law says a boss cannot discriminate against a woman who needs to breastfeed at work. Does that apply to blokes in dresses who want to stick a bub on the boob?

It’s not exactly a question that requires a panel of Nobel laureates.

Unless, of course, you’ve spent so long trying to abolish the distinction between men and women that you can no longer tell which laws apply to whom.

And the Sex Discrimination Commissioner — whose honorific is “Dr” by the way — replied:

“Yes.”

It got worse.

A report submitted to the Senate hearing included concerns that employers:

“ … did not adequately understand or accomodate induced lactation”.

I confess to being among those who might struggle to accommodate paid male staffers who want to engage in a spot of induced lactation on company time.

I also struggle to accommodate flying frogs playing harps. Not because I lack compassion for amphibious musicians, but because the premise is absurd.

A Senate Question the Commissioner Couldn’t Dodge

Senator Blyth pressed Dr Cody on the practical implications:

“Does the commission believe an employer should be legally required, or are they legally required, to provide lactation breaks and breastfeeding facilities to a biological male who has medically induced lactation?

Dr Cody replied,

“They are subject to the same protections as anyone who is breastfeeding.”

I love the way she referred to “anyone who is breastfeeding” rather than to “women who are breastfeeding” or to “mothers who are breastfeeding”, neither of which she could have said without giving the entire game away.

At this point, I’m supposed to write that the world has gone mad, Western civilisation is doomed, and the comet is running five minutes late.

But you knew all that already.

Besides, I promised you that Dr Cody’s principled protection of men using chemicals to lactate so as to transmit a mystery substance from their dude-nipples to a newborn was not last night’s funniest admission.

So I won’t keep you in suspense any longer.

Taxpayer-Funded Coaching for the Human Rights Watchdog

The part that made me laugh was when it was revealed that the Australian Human Rights Commission had used taxpayer money to pay for a consultant to coach Dr Cody in her answers to the Senate.

Let that sink in.

The nation’s human rights watchdog needed to pay someone to help its Sex Discrimination Commissioner explain why the law protecting breastfeeding women might also protect men who induce lactation.

The best gobbledygook money can buy.

The best gobbledygook taxpayer money can buy.

Of course, when you think about it, it actually makes sense.

When your job requires you to explain that men can enjoy the legal protections associated with breastfeeding women, you likely need professional assistance to keep a straight face.

Which she did.

When it comes to disenfranchising women while talking absolute garbage, Dr Anna Cody is extremely professional.

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Republished with thanks to The James Macpherson Report. Image courtesy of Adobe.