i watched the season finale of a certain show. a central plot point was a character’s oedipally tragic discovery of the truth of their parentage. I think the cultural popularity of the trope of the dangerous family secret is reflected in the ambivalence #adoptees face, & feel, in searching. +
many #adoptees, including myself, struggle against idea of the truth as a contested possession—that our bio & adoptive families need and maybe deserve the secrecy that we, in searching, are aiming to destroy. +
and i think that social media has in one respect been a great boon for #adoptees, because it has allowed many of us, including myself, to make oblique and mediated contacts with our original families, when the prospect of direct contact with our birthparents might have seemed overwhelming. +
opponents of opening #adoptees’ birth records invoke this idea in the scenario of the angry adoptee at the door, bent on punishing the birthparent for events that happened lifetime ago. +
reality tends to be more prosaic. #adoptees who search very rarely act from a thirst for vengeance. most of us merely want to know and to be known. to be treated as real. +
why do we allow adopters to inscribe themselves into a child's history--to erase and rewrite it? why can't adult #adoptees choose to annul this arrangement? whose interest is served by making the falsification of an adoptee's identity permanent and irrevocable?
#adoptees who out themselves as transphobes will always and ever catch the block 
The family reunion [for my adoptive family] is this weekend. The last time I attended a reunion was probably in 2007. I got married in 2008. I never had a spouse or boyfriend or friend to attend with me. Cousins within my age bracket rarely ever attended & if they did, they either hid away reading a book or were very much better than I at small talk, connecting with distant relatives they probably won't see again till next year. My grandmother was alive & I attended most of the reunions with her. I wanted to. Reunions were typically held at a state park where I could go on brief walks, hikes, play with a camera without making others [or me] feel weird. Late last year, I learned I have biological half-siblings... I'm not going to the a-family reunion this year, though it's been years... it somehow seems so wrong that I would be attending yet another family reunion without my siblings.
it’s easy to be committed to restoring the identity rights of #adoptees. all you have to worry about are a bunch of really bad arguments for the other side, plus a mountain of hegemonic public opinion shaped by 100 years of pro-adoption propaganda
some of you need to think a whole lot harder about the differences between privacy, secrecy, and anonymity. no one has a privacy right to keep my own identity a secret from me. My identity belongs to me. people seem to care a whole lot about personal autonomy EXCEPT when #adoptees demand theirs.
Hey it’s been a while since i mentioned the #adoptees of bluesky feed. if you want to be able to post to the feed but aren’t sure if you can, let me know and i’ll add you!
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2sfy6irvmfmnwxe4ouhrrn7a/feed/aaadnim25wkmc
To any fellow #adoptees who have done DNA searches, I just saw something absolutely absurd. According the 23&me, I've matched with a 10th cousin twice removed. I don't need anyone to point out to me that such a claim is ... um ... imprecise. I've matched with a distant relative with whom I have a very small amount of shared DNA in the segments that 23&me checks for markers. I'll be sure to let you all know if I live long enough to solve this puzzle.
my maternal grandparents died before i found my mother. i wonder if i want to have met them. How would they explain why no place could be found in my family for me? #adoptees struggle with such questions of blame and forgiveness. meanwhile, society says “blame? forgive? you should be *grateful*.”
notice also that like many states, Ohio provides adopters with the option of refusing the issuance of an “amended” birth certificate. i have talked to many adoptees. i am not sure i have ever talked to one whose adopters took this option. but i know *many* late-discovery #adoptees.
to underscore this point about appearances—and about how #adoptees can be lied to for their entire lives about being adopted, as was once professionally recommended!—see how Ohio’s adoption law provides that the “amended” birth certificate be deliberately forged to look exactly like an original.
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:y4bbj2ob5ayyt5nqkho7vuw6/post/3lhremfgtk224
I know many #adoptees who have experienced the intransigence of a social worker or government bureaucrat who has the documents RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM but will refuse to share them because the rules forbid it.
But also the bureaucrats who slyly commit an error or fail to notice a loophole.
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2sfy6irvmfmnwxe4ouhrrn7a/post/3lh4vpbpy7y2b
I updated the #adoptees feed to catch posts with 
and 
but it looks like the posts containing them aren’t getting caught. I’m using Skyfeed.app —is there another tool i might try?
going to stay a bit vague, because the discussion of the core issues here needs to be led by queer #adoptees.
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2sfy6irvmfmnwxe4ouhrrn7a/post/3lg2nw3xw532m
All #adoptees should be able to annul their adoptions when they reach the age of legal majority.
That last point is so validating. When #adoptees find their family, nothing changes legally. Parents and children remain complete legal strangers. Our relationships are null in the eyes of the state. This is profoundly disempowering. The fact that this nbc reporter used those terms means a lot.
