Zoom in on Adoptee Concerns: 2 Adoptees United Discussions coming up!

Bastard Nation friends Greg Luce and Adoptees United hold bi-monthly zoom discussions on topics that concern Class Bastard. and the state of adoption worldwide. I’ve missed a couple of them, for which I kick myself. I am making a real effort not to over-nap (late afternoon wipes me out) or get otherwise distracted,

The next two meetings promise to be insightful and important to us as adopted people and adoptee rights activists.

Monday, November 29, 2021. 6:30 PM Central: Who Do We Mean by Adoptees?

Join Erica Babino, the Adoptees United Leader of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIB), as well as AU board members Anthony Walsh and Chelsey Wright, who will talk about identity, personal experiences, and what it means for them to be genuinely seen and heard. We’ll also be joined by additional guests, including Shelise Gieseke, a transracial Korean adoptee and the assistant director of Adoption Mosaic, and Kris Rao, a late discovery intercountry adoptee and author of the blog Indian Late Discovery Adoptee. Some of the questions participants will address include:

What mistaken assumptions about you do you hear from other adoptees?
Are affinity groups important to you and were they hard to find?
What would you like to change within the adoptee community?

These questions are important. I have my own gripes about the “adoptee community” and– how shall I put this nicely– adoptee legal, social, and cultural status, and enthusiasm for change do not translate into actual hard work change. The consciousness is there, but how to move from personal grievance to class-identified action has always been a mystery to me. Not that I expect everyone to give up their lives for “the cause” but we really need to build a bigger ‘turnout.” Everyone has a talent or interest that can be put to use. Maybe some of this will be discussed or could be a separate topic next year. Don’t get me started on outlier deformers!

Thursday, December 9, 2021, 6:00 PM Central: I Dissent! Examining a Right to Void Your Own Adoption

Attorney and Adoptees United board member Gregory Luce will talk with adoptees and others who have circumvented social and legal restrictions on “undoing” an adoption or who are considering other remedies, including “readoption”— i.e. adopting back an adult child who had been relinquished decades ago.

Nikki Carlson will talk about her experience in successfully vacating her adoption in Minnesota and restoring her original birth certificate—but at a great emotional and financial cost. Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy and her son Max will discuss how they are exploring whether to “undo” Max’s current adoption by readopting him, including how it could be done and what goes into any decision to do so. We’ll talk with others about how they are considering undoing their adoptions, if they even can. And we’ll discuss what the right of an adult adopted person to annul an adoption could look like and how it could be implemented.

Wow! This is a hot topic, and I’m looking forward to it. For years the only person I ever heard of that annulled their adoption was Mike Chalek, with excellent reason. Mike was a regular on the old alt. adoption and I followed his case there. His book, Fraud on the Court, recounts this important historical event and is in my personal library. Voiding one’s own adoption is a radical move, but justified. I’d carry it farther and suggest that in some cases, states and/or adoption agencies get hauled into court and taken to the cleaners. As fraudulent, illegal/quasi-legal, and unethical adoption “practices” and outcomes, and adoptee physical and sexual abuse continue to be exposed, we’ll see more of this, and should (I hope) get pubic traction., Naturally, anyone who pursues this “anti-adoption” course will be vilified, especially on social media, as an ungrateful; anomalous, disturbed–maybe even Satanic. They are “angry” which of course, They are. They will be hectored, “Would you rather have been aborted?” “Would you rather have ended up in a dumpster?” They will be sent thoughts and prayers.

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Please cut out an hour or so of your time for these two important discussions. Go to the linked discussion topics above to register

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