Tom Daley Christmas message

[ChristinaXYZ]

Tom Daley is giving the alternative Christmas message on Channel 4 this year.

www.channel4.com/press/news/tom-daley-deliver-2021-alternative-christmas-message

Scroll down the above page for the text of the speech.

I am fine with him praising Quinn but he skips over the other conflicting arguments and issues over including transwomen in women's sport.

He is however spot on with the ridiculousness of major sports granting the prestige of the top competitions to places with dubious human rights records.

Chilling to hear some posters basically say that it doesn’t matter if you cause a newborn baby suffering as it won’t remember later. What kind of monster thinks like that?!

@TrufflesAndToast

Chilling to hear some posters basically say that it doesn’t matter if you cause a newborn baby suffering as it won’t remember later. What kind of monster thinks like that?!

People say this to me, all the fucking time about my DD. 'Oh but she would have been much too young to remember any of that'!

I wonder whether they would be ok with people abusing their own babies because they won't 'remember'? Fucking sociopathic frankly.

@TrufflesAndToast

Chilling to hear some posters basically say that it doesn’t matter if you cause a newborn baby suffering as it won’t remember later. What kind of monster thinks like that?!

Similar train of thought that people followed when deciding not to use pain relief when performing medical procedures on babies until well into the 20th century.

@TrufflesAndToast

Chilling to hear some posters basically say that it doesn’t matter if you cause a newborn baby suffering as it won’t remember later. What kind of monster thinks like that?!

When I studied psychology there were still people who believed that babies didn’t feel pain. Obviously people who had never met a baby.

This was an interesting point made on Twitter.

@RVN123

The remarkable achievements of trans athletes generally consists of the remarkable achievements of mediocre males who still have the ability to beat female athletes due to their male physiology.

Mediocre males.

Well done all you mediocre males.

This. And re surrogacy, the only people I know of who have children by surrogacy, chose a particular country because it was “the cheapest” . What happens afterwards to women used like this ? Say the baby is fine, the birth traumatic but not deadly - what about the consequences later ? Two of my friends have needed a hysterectomy as a direct consequence of giving birth. How do you compensate a woman for something like this, with whatever you have paid in this “cheap” country, to buy your baby ? Plus as everyone else is saying, a baby is the same as any of us, but small, they have all the same feelings, only no context. They carry within them all their lives the breaking of the bond between mother and child. How can anyone claim to be a loving parent when they have done this terrible thing to their baby ? Babies are not commodities.

Surrogacy is the commodification of human life. It is the buying and selling of individuals. In lockdown 'stock' had to be stored in Ukraine as purchasers were unable to take delivery of their 'product'. Defective 'products' are routinely rejected. Did we outlaw slavery over a century ago or did we just say it is OK so long as the individuals are babies and aside from tearing them away from their mothers and countries of birth you are otherwise kind to them?

I note that the poster who said it was obvious why it wasn't buying and selling humans hasn't come back to tell me why..

Benji I am sorry for the loss and trauma you've had. It's highly relevant to this discussion. We need to learn from the evidence and lived experience of people who have been through these parallel experiences.

Agree, with Rose, Benji. An infant being removed from it's mother is always a tragedy, even if it is a best scene scenario because the mother is unable to meet the baby's needs.

I listened to this podcast which I found interesting. Even altruistic surrogacy has consequences. open.spotify.com/show/4DgaWNgwGm8o7aHMhDYM9M

I note that the poster who said it was obvious why it wasn't buying and selling humans hasn't come back to tell me why..

The poster has been run ragged sorting Christmas, work and positive covid tests @Kotatsu

Quite simply, the money exchanged isn’t for a person, it’s for the process. Unless you also consider adoption fees slavery?

Of course it's for the baby. The baby wouldn't exist unless "commissioned". An adopted child already exists. Can you really not tell the difference?

Quite simply, the money exchanged isn’t for a person, it’s for the process. Unless you also consider adoption fees slavery?

Of course it’s for the person. If I commission someone to build me some furniture, I’m not paying them for the process of building a bookshelf only for them to keep it for themselves am I?

And besides, why is paying a woman for the process of putting themselves through a pregnancy for someone else’s benefit okay?

Actually when it comes to overseas adoption then yes that too can amount to buying a child. It is a reason why many countries forbid their children from being adopted overseas. We know that the children 'aquired' for this are not always the abandoned orphans they are presented as. So yes, 'adoption fees' can also be buying a child and some aspects of the adoption trade is little more than people trafficking.

I think in trying to be kind, some people do pretzel their thoughts to make this into something it is not.

This most definitely is creating a child for someone. A deliberate act that does indeed remove that infant from their birth mother directly after birth. Does Tom Daley keep the child in contact with the surrogate? Include that surrogate in the life of the child?

As pps continue to point out, there is a chasm between surrogacy and adoption of a child already created. However I think many people like to gloss over the distinction. Designer babies is never comfortable to acknowledge is happening.

Also, the minimising of the risks associated with pregnancy is appalling. Being pregnant causes so many reactions in the body. Many minor things that people wouldn’t even think about. But yes, ultimately some that are life limiting, and certainly some that remove fertility forever.

And not just the surrogates but the egg donors as well. As some young student egg donors have discovered in the USA.

No. When you get men insisting on ‘equal reproductive rights’ in New York, meaning ‘some woman can carry my child and put their body in danger and receive a modicum of funds for the risk and it is MY RIGHT to have this service’, you know there is something seriously fucked up in society and with the process.

ClaudiaWankleman
It's an intentional straw man to call it 'buying a human', for the obvious reason.

What else is it called if someone gives money to obtain permanent possession of a thing, if it is not buying that thing?

And what is a baby if not human?

Going back for a moment to the nit-witted diver that the thread is about:

In his speechette he says "the first out trans Olympic medallist who won gold for the Canadian women’s soccer team".

It would be more gracious (and accurate) to say "the first out trans Olympic medallist who won gold with the Canadian women’s soccer team". Soccer teams usually field eleven players, not just one.

It would be more gracious (and accurate) to say "the first out trans Olympic medallist who won goldwiththe Canadian women’s soccer team". Soccer teams usually field eleven players, not just one.

Would it though?

The private adoption industry in the US skates very close to surrogacy. At any one time there are about a million couples looking to adopt (primarily babies) and this has lead to a $15bn industry in an environment where women have decreasing access to contraception or abortion services. Women from poor or disadvantage backgrounds are financially supported through their pregnancies and persuaded that handing over their baby to wealthy families is the right thing to do. The going rate to 'buy' a baby is about $50k.

time.com/6051811/private-adoption-america/

Three Identical Strangers is a documentary - the adoptions were in the 60s but the way the adoption agency treated the babies and parents was just criminal.

Pregnancy and childbirth are still significant causes of death. They kill about 300,000 women worldwide annually.

Sorry but a declaration of a non binary identity does not make a person special especially not in sport. What adversity has Quinn got over? has Quinn ever been prevented from playing on the women’s team? Yes the whole team did really well but it had nothing to do with Quinn’s self identity.

Women's football has always been extremely accepting of gender non-conforming women. I wouldn't imagine most people on, or working with, the team batted an eyelid.

I remember listening to a programme on the radio. I had just had a baby about 2 or 3 months beforehand. The brutality meted out to 'unmarried mothers' in the mother and baby homes in Ireland was beginning to be openly discussed.

The programme was about how the babies were removed from the mothers to be given up for adoption. There wasn't really any choice in it. for the new mothers. Many of which were without support, money and vulnerable. Some had been abused. Subsequently it was revealed the religious orders involved charged money in the transaction from baby to adoptive parents. Documentation was many a time tampered with so that years later the sold children couldn't trace what happened to them. Or the mothers find out what happened to their children.

The tears were streaming down my face listening to the stories on the programme.

@ClaudiaWankleman

I note that the poster who said it was obvious why it wasn't buying and selling humans hasn't come back to tell me why..

The poster has been run ragged sorting Christmas, work and positive covid tests @Kotatsu

Quite simply, the money exchanged isn’t for a person, it’s for the process. Unless you also consider adoption fees slavery?

What are these 'adoption fees' of which you speak? Maybe you are confusing the UK with the US?

If I knew as much as you know about adoption (i.e. I saw Juno once), I wouldn't talk about adoption to people on the internet. HTH