What’s in a NAAM?

National Adoptee Atonement Month names what we want. Taking that name turns the “original NAAM “on its head. It reflects the deeper process of reclaiming our histories. original identities, and names. It is the rejection of the celebration of a mismanaged, money-grubbing. discriminatory harmful public policy created by adoption industrialists, their trade associations and hangers-on, and the state. that crosses party lines and ideologies.  Adoptee resistance is a revolutionary act.  National Adoptee Atonement Month is not a publicity stunt or ego massager. We will not be adoption’s poster child. Continue Reading →

Of Ballots, Birth Certificates, and Bastards: A Short Discourse

Perhaps it’s about being adopted. The birth certificate is the breeder document for all other “official” government and quasi-government paperwork you may be hounded to obtain Without that certificate, you don’t exist as far as the state and its subsidiaries are concerned. The birth certificate acts as a deed of identity. Of course, in the case of adoptees, we don’t exist as our born, natural selves. We have government-approved identities and government-issued amended birth certificates that are full of lies to prove it. I once ran across the ABC of someone who was adopted as a teen by a young couple. According to the document he was born to parents who were 8 and 6 at the time. Precious! 8 million fraudulent birth certificates. Call Homeland Security! Continue Reading →

National Adoption Awareness Month 2020: Using NAAM as an Instrument of Subversion

A lot of people complain that adoptee voices are stifled, especially during NAAM, but I think that’s a big mistake. I believe that since NAAM was established, the month has slowly become ours—despite the refusal of lawmakers, “pro-choicers,” and entitleds  to grasp that we are hijacking their celebration. Sure, there is definitely a happy-dappy overlay, including National Adoption Day, but over a 20 year period, I’ve seen a lot of change. Class Bastard has stepped forward and grabbed the narrative. Continue Reading →

Bethany Pimp-a-Thon, Part One: Money Changes Everything

Does anyone really believe that Bethany has switched out its 70+ year history of coerced birth and relinquishment, promotion of secret adoption, sealed birth certificates and adoption records lobbying, and overt adopteephobia for a beefed-up “global family care” mission? The “global mission” simply tugs at heartstrings of prayer warriors and the pursestrings of donors while it keeps the agency’s raison d’ etre–adoption and child profiteering– running in the background. Continue Reading →

Pro-lifer: Adoptees are terrorists

Adoptees are terrorists.  Adoptees are also a (Satanic?) cult, insane, ungodly, and bullies. Posts I didn’t include here refer to us as “dark” and “doom” fill-in-the-blank….Adoption is the queen of intersectionality.  I talked about that for years before I ever heard the actual term “intersectionality,”  which is, of course much more detailed and diverse than what I was talking about.  That said, race, class, sex, gender, abortion,  misogyny, economics, consumerism, social welfare, reproductive rights, reproductive justice, public policy, religious wars, culture wars, colonialism, neo-imperialism, immigration and citizenship, Real ID, neo-liberalism. taxes, natural disasters, redistribution of wealth (especially children), narcissism, Supreme Court nominees. Class Basrtard is embedded in them all. Continue Reading →

Eliminating Illegal Adoptions the Baby Box Way or Today’s WTF Moment in AdoptionLand

I have no idea where this comes from. I have never heard any traditional Safe Haven advocate make such a crazy claim. Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue–or better yet–a Freudian slip. Or maybe Znachko was echoing the conspiracy theory developed by SHBB’s sister organization, Hope Box in Marietta, Georgia that pushes the idea that baby boxes will save newborns of sex workers and trafficked women from being sold into sex slavery at birth. (SHBB has never used this argument.).Or maybe she’s suggesting that dissatisfied adopters need to stick their forever adoptees into a box rather than re-homing her or him on Craig’s List. Continue Reading →

Framed in Bigotry and Discrimination: A Look at Trump’s Executive Order: Strengthening the Child Welfare System for America’s Children

The emphasis in the Executive Order is not some abstract improvement, but the creation of a robust evangelical-coded “faith-based” equalization in child welfare. The EO promises to increase much-needed child welfare improvement not through government initiative, but through taxpayer-funded tax-exempt so-called “faith-based” partnerships with private religious child welfare organizations and corporations including churches, para-churches, and ministries. Moreover, the EO promises “faith-based “foster and adoption recruitment.” The suggests nonsensically that the lack of “faith-based partnerships” keeps children stuck in state foster care when they could be transferred to the Christian adoption market if that market were more open and available. Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation Statement in Solidarity with Black Lives Matter

The Bastard Nation Executive Committee expresses our solidarity with Black Lives Matter and with those in the US and around the world protesting police violence and systemic racism. We support all peaceful protest. We support free expression and the right to address and demand redress from the government. We support self-determination, self- ownership, and autonomy. We support human dignity and civil and human rights. Bastard Nation condemns racism, the abrogation of free speech, civil rights, police repression, police brutality, state secrets, and state-based violence. Continue Reading →

Huxley Stauffer: The best gift until you’re not. Short update and more questions

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Newsweek reports that the Delaware County Sheriff has confirmed that Huxley Stauffer has been located.  I love the lede:

YouTuber Myka Stauffer’s ex-son Huxley is not missing, say authorities. This confirmation came after claims that the five-year-old child was unable to be located after he was “rehomed” by Stauffer.

Nobody is saying where, of course since–you know–adoption is confidential.

But the investigation continues, which makes me think the Sheriff is taking this seriously. A welfare check on the bios is expected.

It looks like Huxley was non-bureaucratically re-homed with the current endgame of private placement. The Stauffers are being represented by Columbus adoption attorneys Tom Taneff and Taylor Sayers.I have never heard of Sayers, but Taneff is a very familiar name. I can’t reach into in my memory deep enough to remember why (though it may be obvious) whenever I read or hear his name I get queasy.

But I do remember this:

Twenty years ago I was part of a panel discussion on OBC access during a 2-day adoption law conference on records access and open adoption held at the Capital University Law School Center for Adoption Law and Policy (then the Dave Thomas Center for Adoption Law and Policy). The presentation went really well. The then-director of the law center hated Bill Pierce and NCFA. He refused to invite him to present an opposition argument, so he got a proxy, who actually supported records access, to play the heavy and present the opposition argument. She did the minimum and squirmed a bit.

Eye Roll: Later,Taneff sat behind me and another Ohio activist.  We were confounded and baffled when he informed us that he had no idea that post-1963 OBCs were sealed. And he was Quad A; a leading adoption lawyer in the state! Indeed!.

More questions:

  • Did Taneff get involved with the Stauffers from the beginning, or did he sign on when the frying pan sizzled hot.
  • Did he get pulled in later to make the transfer “legal?”
  • If he was facilitating a legal re-adoption from the get-go, why didn’t the Stauffers say so and refer questions to him?

You’d think if he were involved in the re-homing scheme he would have intervened publicly for the Stauffers early  on to protect his clients from public outrage, shame, embarrassment, and accusation. Sounds like he’s their cleaner. I hope he’s charging them $650/hr.

I wonder how long it will be before the Stauffers hire a white savior PR firm?

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See my previous blog, Huxley Stauffer and the Pattern of Re-Homing. Making Connnections: The best gift until you’re not for more.