Through those years the most important thing I learned from TLS was critical thinking. I doubt he realized this at the time, and I didn’t either, but he was the beginning of me really thinking about things. Things that mattered. He was way ahead of other people our age. He questioned and challenged and encouraged. Nobody had ever bothered to do that to/for me before. By example he showed me that it’s not only a right but a duty to be who you you are deep inside; not to be molded by other people’s opinions or desires or fantasies. I think he struggled with that himself and came through on the other side. That one is a really hard especially when you’re adopted, and I’m still working on it. Continue Reading →

The AAC has consistently folded under the slightest pressure to compromise its “principles” in order to get “something passed.” That something has been disclosure vetoes and disclosure vetoes disguised as contract preference forms, contact vetoes, white-outs, redactions, and tiered access based of birth or other factors. Scratch a dirty bill and you’ll find the AAC, an affiliated organization or Indies latching on to AAC examplet. Delaware, New Jersey, Montana, Ohio, Indiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Illinois, Missouri, and Washington State are just a few states that have been jammed by AAC-led Deform, Inc’s baby step solutions to the problem of Class Bastard and institutional adoptionism. Getting ones name on a law has been more important than securing adoptee equality. The unfortunate bi-product of this is that the time, money, and energy spent on killing their bad bills could be used to pass clean bills. As a result Bastard Nation, whose mission for the last twenty years has been legal equality and the restoration of OBC and other adoption record access for all adoptees without restriction, gets the rep of the “bad guy.” Groups that claim to agree with our non-compromise position but pile on restrictions, pevaricate to their members and placate special interests and politicians to negate those rights, but mayge cause some personal “reunions” are repped as the “good guy. Continue Reading →