To quote from this article:

Prosecutors on Thursday charged a 14-year-old boy with attempted murder and said he committed a hate crime in the classroom shooting of an eighth-grader who was declared brain dead.

Prosecutors would not say why they filed a hate-crime enhancement with the attempted murder count, but several classmates said the 15-year-old victim, Lawrence King, sometimes wore makeup, high heels and other feminine attire.

and from here:

In their comments to the Los Angeles Times, classmates explained that they had seen King involved in an argument with the alleged shooter and other boys on Monday. Students said that the victim was often teased by other boys, sometimes wore make-up and jewelry, and had come out as gay.

King, like so many young Queers, was a foster kid, living in a home for abused and neglected children (this from the gay.com article):

Lawrence King had been under the care of the county foster care system and lived at Casa Pacifica, a nearby center for abused and neglected children, said Steve Elson, the facility’s chief executive.

By way of a tip of the iceburg bit of further reading, see the Official Family Memorial Site and this L.A. Times article

Words cannot begin to express my rage and sadness.

I once had a friend who had a very similar background, but he didn’t die in school at the business end of a bully’s gun, he died of AIDS.

These are two posts I originally wrote over on http://www.adultadoptees.org in response to a thread about Nancy Verrier’s books; “The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child” and “Coming Home to Self: The Adopted Child Grows Up”.

I’ve moved the two posts over here as they cover far more ground than merely Verrier’s posited ‘damage’ Bastards suffer. (Bear in mind, Verrier’s interest and stake in such is both on a professional level, and as a m-adopter- an adoptive mother.)

So, on to the two posts;

One-

“Primal Wound” and other such ‘therapizations’ moves the experience of the Bastard out of the realm of the political (and seeking political recourse, funny about that!) and into the realm of the emotional.

Such posits we are enduring the spectrum of what Bastards endure NOT due to social experimentation at the hands of the State and an industry and the marketing of babies, and demands of said marketplace, but instead due to some mythic emotional break of essentialist notions of womanhood. (Womyn as allegedly ‘inherently maternal’ and to break such bonds as ‘inherently’ damaging.) (Speaking purely as a Radical Feminist myself, I reject such ‘essentialist’ arguments about Class Womyn as but another lie.)

Thus ‘remedies’ must be sought in the realm of the emotional- therapy, etc, and as such are seen as ‘inherently’ individual; individual problems, individual ‘solutions’, rather than as ‘Class Bastard’, a group or class of people whose identity history, narrative, physical location, etc. etc. etc. are State reassigned, manipulated, etc.

‘Wounds’ and therapy always throws the onus back upon us- when in reality, we were a group of people- often babies at the time, completely unable to defend ourselves, our history, and our own interests to whom this was done- by others. Those manipulations inflicted upon us when we were unable to speak on our own behalf, alone is often a source of deep anger (even had we wanted to consent, we couldn’t.) But these are far from ‘wounds’, they are realities of what was done with us, and our own powerlessness to act on our own behalf. Nothing can change that now, we’re speaking to matters of time and personal autonomy.

Yes, the cognitive dissonance of having to pretend we are ‘just the same as the non-adopted’ grinds at the individual Bastard- but one can either decide such is a ‘personal problem’ they need to find ‘personal solutions’ to, OR they can turn and recognize reality- that no, we are not the same as the non-adopted, the State certainly does not treat us as such, and efforts to maintain those illusions are shams. We do not have the same rights societally, and constantly working to maintain lies, false histories, false words and appellations, etc while demanded of us at all times, is simply not our responsibility.

(Such a realization can, actually be very freeing.)

When a Bastard rejects the ‘individual solutions’ and instead works politically and socially, demanding reality be acknowledged there are usually consequences hurled back at them, often designed to go at self image, and thus force the ‘acting badly’ Bastard back into a stance of self doubt, only to retreat back into ‘individual problem/ individual solution’ mode. Words are hurled at us, often by those close to us, or by those in relation to the medical profession; “bad girl”, “crazy”, suffering syndrome X (be that ‘primal wound’ or the ever fashionable ‘attachment disorder’ crap), ‘we adopted you, and if you don’t start behaving, we’ll just take you back.’ Ad nauseum. All of which are designed to put the Bastard attempting to ‘live out’ the reality of their own lives ‘out loud’ back in ‘their place’; a place wherein they question themselves, subsume their reality and acquiesce back into the lies.

Books like ‘primal wound’ are about maintaining some semblance of ‘the problem is with you’, ‘see, you exhibit symptoms X,Y, and Z!’ After all, there needed to be some ‘explanation’ for why we ‘act up’, right? So the one size fits all, ‘adoptees are emotionally damaged’ is a very easy line to sell to adopters- it maintains power systems, and continues to ‘blame the victim’. Worse, Bastards themselves bite down on it, so glad to ‘finally’ have some explanation for that dissonance they feel- ‘oh, of course! There’s an explanation, I’m broken! See, it’s not really my fault!’ Finally having an ‘explanation’, any explanation feels so much better than not understanding WHY they feel at odds with their own lives and the world around them that some become deeply enmeshed in their own ‘broken’ identity, and defend such fiercely anytime someone tries to tell them they’re ok, it’s the situation that’s insane.

Whereas as Bastard-centric ‘explanation’ of same ‘symptoms’ X, Y and Z would be far closer to Skinner- our own individual coping mechanisms to deal with a perfectly insane situation. We live behind walls of lies- and the system demands we ourselves maintain those lies at every turn, with our words, our actions, and our acquiescence. As for Bastards themselves, they do what they can to survive behind those walls, some perhaps more successfully than others.

For some Bastards, as adults, the ongoing demand that they continue to call f-adopters, “father” or “dad”, or their m-adopters “mother” or “mom” can be an act of self maiming. A lie every time they do so, going deeply against their conscience, yet to not do so would bear even worse consequences. (Upon their adopters deaths they feel a horrible sense of ‘relief’ at not having to maintain the lie anymore, only to be followed with deep guilt over that- and so back into therapy, self blaming, they go- unable to come to terms with the fact that maybe it’s ok to feel relief at the end of decades of having to maintain lies, no that doesn’t mean you hated your adopters, it means adoption itself creates some really ugly paradoxes in relation to the lies.)

Trust me, there’s not an agency, an organization such as NCFA, nor many an adoptive parent who wouldn’t rather see Bastards try to cope with the insane situation via therapy rather than through gathering, ‘consciousness raising’ (i.e. listening to one another, our truths, finding points of action, and trying to find ways forward out of this mess) and working at tearing down the EXTERNAL TO US culture of lies, politically. Why? Because they all stand to lose a great deal. Whether that be their own actions coming to light, or loss of fabricated identity that things like the amended birth certificates carefully allow people to maintain (womyn who have never given birth, in some cases are INCAPABLE of giving birth, being issued state forged papers claiming they did, as but one example. Womyn can be deeply entrenched in maintaining the fiction of themselves as ‘mothers’, doubly so in a culture that tells womyn that if they are not mothers they are ‘failed womyn’.)

No, like Marley, I firmly reject the therapy model- not without having my own brush with such- which fortunately came to a rather firm ‘close’ upon stumbling across a copy of Christina Crawford’s “Mommie Dearest”. It was upon reading such I came to realize that no, some of us Bastards aren’t ‘crazy’, (we’re just pathologized that way.) There absolutely ARE objective situations in the real world that Bastards get thrust into that are simply far beyond anything that could ever be misconstrued as ‘our fault’. (And again, I’m back on how due to the time/age issue we simply were completely denied any ability to express our own desires let alone protect ourselves/our interests.)

(Christina Crawford herself, and her history, being a Georgia Tann baby, and her own adoption work, such as appearing at the Bastard Nation conference some years ago, is well worth the look and a topic unto herself for yet more posts.)

The ‘solutions’ to such aren’t to try to personally adjust to/cope with the incredibly messed up situation, the ‘solution’ is to do what we need to to survive (often getting out) and then look at how we were put there in the first place- who did this to us, how they benefited, how the SYSTEMS in adoption work, and how to prevent disasters inherent to adoption secrets and lies etc. in the future for other people, other generations of Class Bastard. Including, by the way, emergent identity erasure methodologies. All of which means working politically, in relation to Class Bastard, and not viewing such a merely one’s ‘personal issues’.

Am I alluding only to horrible messed up abusive adoptions?

No, I’m speaking to adoption itself- and the ways societally we are told to maim ourselves, and reject our own realities usually in order to buttress lies others are deeply invested in. Lies the State perpetuates.

That is why even ‘reunion’ is merely a personal solution to what is a Class problem- without the restoration of our real reality, and full rights by the State, connecting with another person is not inherent threat (although some piecing the history back together can at times, be) to the broader structures of lies. Reconnection does nothing to deal with the issue of State confiscation of genuine identity. Your OBC can be just as locked in a vault regardless of whether you’re ‘in reunion’ or not.

If the ‘problem’ is posited as a severance of a maternal linkage, than the ‘solution’ offered is ‘restoration of said alleged link’ coupled with what may be lifelong therapy to adjust the individual, this effectively sidetracks Bastards.

On the other hand, if the (genuine) problem is posited as State confiscation of identity, familial reassignment (yes at a time in life when our own consent is often impossible), and the lifelong expectation that we (in gratitude) must do everything we personally can not only to maintain said lies, but tread ever carefully as to not ever, with so much as a linguistic slip, ever acknowledge that our reality is anything other than what the State has told us it now must be, that is far more than an individual problem. Some Bastards will indeed, go (what gets mistaken for) “crazy” trying to adapt, others, though, will point out the depths of the BS, the completely inhumane demands being foisted off upon us, and will fight back in a rejection of the lies.

When this happens individually, it’s viewed as bad behavior, when it’s done collectively as Class Bastard, it’s bastards behaving badly- ‘ungrateful little urchins!’

********************************************************

And Two-

Just to be clear, I’m not saying adoption doesn’t come with it’s own set of emotional aspects, but what I am saying is that much of such are a by-product of adoption, the institution itself, and rather than unending cycles of self blaming, shame, etc, it’s can be important to realize that such are often coping mechanisms in relation to what we were put through.

Further, it’s important to realize that these may not be merely individual responses, but are commonalities shared by many Bastards. Talking with other Bastards (in places such as this) can awaken the realization that we are not alone, and not experiencing such in isolation, that such are in fact common, and arguably even ‘normal’ responses to the situation.

That said, yeah, I’ve had more than a decade of time to explicitly entangle myself into the guts of some of all this, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have other Bastards around (one in particular, she knows who she is) who have helped me pull some of the BS out and figure out what’s core here. The bottom line is, we’ve been through an experience (and CONTINUE to experience such) that is very different than non-adopted people. And our coping mechanisms are at times as complicated and diverse as we are. That said, we often find we have more in common and habits in common than we may think at first. Outsiders may attribute that to ‘syndromes’, I attribute it to a shared experiencing of unreality.

I’m glad some folks found my post useful, I was a little afraid I was talking past people, to say nothing of the fact that it’s very stream of consciousness writing.

A recent excellent piece from the (Canadian) Vancouver Sun on some of the tactics used to ensure womyn would not search; tell them the infant died, then put it up for adoption.

The other angle on this, and one of the many fairy tales Bastards are commonly told to prevent us from searching are the stories about how ‘your birthfamily died’ be it of ‘cancer’, ‘in childbirth’ (oh now THERE’S a guaranteed guilt producer!) in a ‘car crash’, ‘airplane crash’, or my personal favourite of the genre- the rare but oh so special ‘train wreck’.

Yeah, whatever it takes to maintain that ‘forever family’… .

Good thing adoption is so strong a ‘civil institution’ that hospitals, agencies, etc would NEVER have to resort to lies or underhanded schemes to obtain said kids, right?

Right?

Anyone still believing that one, I think I’ve got some Enron stock to sell you, along with a certain bridge in Brooklyn.

Adoptees claim they lost their biological parents through underhanded methods

Duncan Thorne, Canwest News Service

Published: Sunday, January 27, 2008

As of now comments are set to moderated approved only.

Nothing personal, just consider it just another unfortunately necessary level of spam control.

Buckeyes for Equal Access that is.

BEA has a myspace up here. To quote just a paragraph of Bastardette’s wonderful introduction to BEA–

“Anyone can become a BEA friend, but we are inviting particularly anyone with an Ohio adoption connection who believes in the unalienable right of all adoptees to their identities and public records of their births–that adopted persons are legally equal to the not-adopted. We want people who will visit, write call, fax, and email Ohio legislators and demand that adoptees be treated equally ”

I, myself am an Ohio Bastard, a Black hole Bastard to be more specific. BEA matters deeply to me.

Getting a clean bill that leaves no one behind matters deeply to me. I’m not willing to work to get my records at the cost of leaving someone else trapped in limbo. Working smart, and focusing on the genuine facets of an open records bill also matters deeply to me.

Open records are about the relation between Bastards and the State, they are not inherently about search or reunion, nor medical information, nor any of the personal aspects of what any given bastard may or may not use their own information for (just as any other, non-adopted citizen may use their own information). Open records are about equal treatment under law. They are about ending State confiscated records, and ending State created lies.

In all these aspects, I’m a strong supporter of BEA.

BEA can do it!

And it’s the only model that will- for all bastards, not just a privileged few.

Some days it’s just too horrific to even blog.

Thus, I begin “News”. This is the new tag I’m going to be using from time to time, you know, like when words simply fail me.

Or when I’m too busy, or disenchanted, or furious to actually blog, but media stories go by that are certainly blogworthy. I’m not going to put up tons of follow through on every single story, but they’ll provide a sampling and names and dates and the gist of some of the tales for you to begin further research on your own.

I’ll just put up at least one link to a particular media piece that tells part of the story and tag it “news”. From there, any given search engine should give you more details of how things eventually concluded, etc.

If you’re of the strong of stomach, eventually, as this collected body of work grows, you’ll be able to hit the “News’ tag in the left hand tags column and find bundles of news tidbits similar to today’s tale sharing the ‘joy’ of adoption;

Cops: Ex-Queens woman may have killed adoptee

Newsday.com
January 10, 2008

(Judith Leekin, Shane Graham, Port St. Lucie, FL)

This is one of several posts that I made private between May 31rst 2008 and July 22, 2008. (This represents the time period between my resigning from working on the Adoptee Rights Demonstration / Day for Adoptee Rights, (ARD / DAR) and it actually taking place in New Orleans.)

The piece below was originally posted Jan. 10th, 2008.

I changed its status to public view with this disclaimer added July 22nd. Now that the event has passed I am restoring my earlier writings towards the purposes of restoring the historical record.

They were taken down as they reflected my original support for and work towards ARD/DAR prior to my resignation. In late May, I resigned, and I did not wish these pieces to be mistaken for active recruitment to the event in the period between late May and the event in July.

Part of my reasoning was due to a technical quirk of blogging itself; each post stands alone, decontextualized from the larger narrative. As these older pieces could be viewed via web searches etc. as distinct and apart from the context that I had since resigned, I made them private until after the event had passed.

My single post history of ARD/DAR and the events leading up to it can be found here. The post below should be viewed in the context of the events explained in it. Additional posts concerning ARD/DAR particularly from July 22nd forward can be found by utilizing the Adoptee Rights Demonstration tag (results will appear in reverse chronological order, from newest to oldest.) They too, should be understood within that larger context.

Original text of the post, as it appeared prior to being made private appears in full below.

So, now after the long December hiatus (sorry folks!), I’m finally getting to at least one of the posts that’s long overdue: the post about the upcoming Adoptee Rights Demonstration in New Orleans, (which I affectionately refer to more as ‘Bastards take it to the Legislators’, somewhat of a post-Katrina New Orleans Bastard sequel for those of us who were at the Bastard Nation “Bastards on the Bayou” conference back in 2002.)

Ok, so what’s the deal?

The National Conference of State Legislatures annual meeting will take place in New Orleans this July. In response, a one day PROTEST FOR ADOPTEE RIGHTS has been proposed and is being hammered out. Why? Well, because the conference is a national meeting of the largest organization of State lawmakers – the people with the power to open records in their respective states, or not.

In short, we’re going to New Orleans in response (not reaction) to the upcoming conference there of those who decide whether or not we’ll be able to access our records.

The protest centerpiece itself will focus upon a march from Lafayette Square to the convention center, but many other activities are planned over the course of several days. Including; possible educational work prior to the march, a full page ad in the print version of the New Orleans Times-Picayune (“listing adult adoptees and their friends and family who support adoptee rights, the goal is one thousand names, one thousand adult adoptees, representing all fifty states”), and naturally, a variety of interactions with the lawmakers themselves are being strategized.

The protest is not limited only to Adoptees/Bastards, but open to “EVERYONE who supports the rights of adoptees to access their records of birth” who wants to come out and show their support.

Perhaps most importantly, though, this event has the POTENTIAL to be somewhat of a watershed moment (yeah, I know, not exactly a term to use in relation to New Orleans, sorry) for the open records movement and open records supporters.

Far from the few voices calling for pure open records that used to be somewhat ‘crying (and working) in the wilderness’ in years past amidst a sea of (often well intentioned, but misguided) compromisers. Pure uncompromised open records has become somewhat a more ‘mainstream’ position as of late, in no small part due to the hard work so many have put in to accomplish the actual opening of records (Bastard Nation and others) in states such as Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine. People are seeing open records in practice and seeing that yes, it can be done. It MUST be done. Anything less is a continuation of a legacy of secrecy and lies. Anything less only protects the misdeeds of the industry and it’s ilk. Pure open records are not only possible, they are already a hard won reality in some states.

Unfortunately, simultaneously, we are also forced to endure retrograde legislation such as the recent ‘black hole’ law that eventually passed in Massachusetts (see this older Bastatrd Nation action alert blogged by Bastardette on the MA Black Hole legislation.)

In short, from here, we can see both possibilities, pure open records in our lifetime, or disasters like MA that slam the doors shut, leaving Bastards behind. New Orleans, thus becomes not only a meeting site for the State Legislators, but also for those who support pure openness, to at one place and time come together and cross pollinate and strategize, and work, and take it directly to those who deny us equal citizenship under law.

The events in New Orleans hold the POSSIBILITY of being a crucial point in the work supporters of openness hold dear, but only, if they show up. Showing up is critical to that process; anything less, becomes missed opportunity, missed potential.

As of this writing, it appears activists will become coming from across the US and even internationally.

Think of the Adoptee Rights Demonstration as twofold; both externally focused, responding to those who deny us our most basic rights- to identity, to authentic history, etc, but also internally focused, this is a unique opportunity for supporters of open records from across the spectrum, many groups, as well as geographically far flung to come together and find our way forward, together. Whether you’re new to this kind of activism/strategic work or ‘old’ and cynical, like myself, this event is an opportunity, let’s plan and work to ensure it doesn’t become a lost opportunity.

Barring the unforseen, I’ll be there. My partner, Sleeps with Bastard, will be there.

Do I have reservations? (Well, will it be New Orleans in July? Yup, and I know what that means. Will lots of Bastards end up looking like a bunch of white faces- unavoidably so, we are after all, what the open market bought- usually white skinned and often blond or fair haired. That’s the very nature of the adoption beast. How do we do what we need to do in New Orleans while not overlooking or in anyway downplaying the magnitude of the realities New Orleans itself currently faces? On that one, I have no real answer yet. Yeah, it’s going to be strange protesting for open records in a place where day to day fighting for SURVIVAL is a genuine reality. I’m still trying to figure this one out, but the bottom line is we’re there because they’re there- the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Annual Meeting.) Oh, you meant HOTEL reservations… none-the-less yes, of course, we have those too!

Tuesday July 22th, 2008. Don’t be late.

This is yet another of those many ‘coming in in the middle’ posts, that are so very Baby Love Child. While I’ve been carefully watching the unfolding of this saga, this is the first I’ve blogged it.

The story of Masha Allen is emblematic of so much of the core of what’s wrong with adoption, both international and domestic. I have neither the time, nor the space to write a recap of what she has been through, but fortunately, at this moment, for the purposes of this post, I don’t need to as Bastardette among others has already been explaining Masha’s story and the ramifications of it for quite some time now.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, allow me to simply point you over to her page, not only to get up to speed on her previous work, but also to draw attention to her latest blog entry on Masha; “Masha Update: Child Exploitation Cracks in the Floor.” Readers unfamillar with Masha may want to actually start at the bottom of Bastardette’s post, to look at her previous posts on Masha, particularly “Masha Speaks — The Adoption Industry Bunkers in: “Disney World Girl” and the Shame of Complicity.”

Also be sure to see the blog post Bastardette’s latest post is referring over to, Childlaw’s piece “Child Exploitation Cracks in the Floor.” (Along with the other pieces there focusing on Masha.) It does a good job of focusing on what the aftermath of Masha’s life has been like since being removed from Matthew Mancuso;

“A few weeks later, on June 8, 2005, Buchanan told CNN Insight’s Jonathan Mann that Masha “has been adopted by a very loving family who has changed her name and moved her to another part of the country, where she can make a new start and have a very, very wonderful life ahead of her.” Mann’s response: “That’s astounding!”

Since then Masha’s astounding and very, very wonderful life has included five name changes, six schools, and ten addresses across two states and four counties. To date the system has continually failed Masha repeatedly for a number of years. As Masha once said, “you expect me to trust the system after all they’ve done to me?””

and

“When Masha was rescued, she was placed with a young single foster parent with her own history of sexual abuse, given an unlicensed Christian therapist and a Medicaid card. When the FBI reportedly “moved her to another part of the country” a few months after her adoption, Masha was taken from the only community she knew and her thin support system was shattered. She began an unstable lifestyle which continues to this day. No therapists, no medical team, no house or meaningful compensation. Just a prayer and a press release and a one way ticket to nowhere. ”

So a Bastard and her adoptive father walk into a bar… did I mention she had a parrot on her shoulder?

No, sorry, wrong joke. Let’s try this again.

So some time back Baby Love Child and her adoptive father walk into Vital Statistics (vital sadistics) one morning. (As they were both born in the same state they go together and are in the same office.) They each fill out the appropriate form requesting certified copies of their birth certificates and each plunk down $7 ($9? Whatever, it’s since gone up.) They hand in their paperwork, and sit down to wait.

Within a few minutes, BLC’s adoptive father is called up to the window and the clerk hands over his certified copy. His document is an authentic record of an historical act: that a womyn biologically related to him gave birth to him.

Baby Love Child, on the other hand, continues to wait. Eventually, she too is called up to the window and the clerk hands over a certified copy of a State sanctioned lie.

Surprise! “Joke’s” on Bastards!

No, we don’t get what everyone else gets. Unless someone makes a ‘mistake’ and we ‘by accident’ get a hold of the real thing, we’re left holding the ‘amended’ or ‘altered’ birth certificate, the one that lists my adopters as ‘mother’ and ‘father.’

The State does not give me a document that is an authentic record of an historical act. Nope, instead I am given a State certified piece of paper that supports a lie: the lie that the people who adopted me are somehow related to me.

There is nothing on that piece of paper that says I was adopted. There is no indication that these people are not genetically related to me. No, the only way I know that is because they bothered to tell me. And some adoptive parents NEVER tell the kids they adopted of their adopted status. The State issued false paperwork enables them to maintain that lie.

But the bottom line remains, through no fault of our own, Bastards, as a class, who come from sealed records states are barred the very basic thing almost everyone else can demand of the State, an accurate account of our own births. And we are denied it not merely as individuals, but as a class. The State is both in the ‘business’ of maintaining birth records and of denying many Bastards theirs.

As for the parrot? Well, there is no parrot, but we are left shat upon.

This is the face of inequality. Unequal access under the law.

So, in light of the fact that this is no joke, this is autobiographical, in other words I’ve LIVED this, we bring you today’s Chicago Sun-Times commentary supportive of open records. While not perfect, they are at least on the right track.

As always, I recommend reading Bastard Nation’s “The Basic Bastard” which quickly puts to rest some of the myths that continue to haunt even commentaries such as this.

It concerns me that the commentary points out an agency as intermediary, as this is antithetical to actual unrestricted access. I certainly hope they are not offering this up as a model.

Finally, let me directly address one of the other common misunderstandings inherent to the commentary.

While the commentary may speak to “a long tradition of secrecy”, the Basic Bastard shows this to be at its heart, in practical application of sealed records, a myth (see chapter II- “A History of Sealed Records in the United States”.)

Yes the writer(s) of the commentary managed to include the fact that neither Alaska nor Kansas EVER sealed their records. But what the writer(s) may not be familiar with is the rest of the history. States like Pennsylvania didn’t seal theirs until 1984 and in Alabama records were still open until 1991 (through the perseverance of Bastard activism, Alabama has recently RESTORED access!)

While closed records were first proposed by two registrars of Vital Statistics in 1931, (during the American Eugenic period, I highly recommend reading Edwin Black’s “War Against the Weak- Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race” as a vital tool in understanding the period, reproductive autonomy, and adoption itself) most states only sealed their records in the 40’s and 50’s, during the height of the McCarthy era, a period when secret government dossiers on its citizens were not uncommon. So far from any ‘long tradition’ of sealed records, what we’re actually looking at is a relatively recent piece of social engineering. Shame based secrecy in relation to pregnancy is old, but sealed records are relatively new.

The State confiscated Bastards genuine identities is a RECENT phenomenon, and part of the lag time in fighting that has been the time it takes for generations of Bastards to hit their own adulthoods. The 1970’s marks somewhat of the dawnings of Bastard activism here in the US. While (original) mothers and sometimes fathers gathered and worked for opening records while those early waves of sealed records Bastards grew up, it was not until the Bastards themselves hit adulthood and beyond that they were able to begin to work politically on their own behalves.

So my life partner, Mike, has finally set up his own blog, “Sleeps With Bastard.” (Cue the champagne!)

As a non-adopted person, external to the adoption pentagon (I’ll explain later, in another post) but someone deeply familiar with concepts of information systems and information control among other things, I at least, feel he’s got things of importance to say. Things that may in fact prove quite useful for Bastards interested in the broader context in which adoption sits.

Just be forewarned that he, like me, tends not to approach blogging with the usual blog timescale (see my tag in the left-hand column.)

Whereas I tend to write about detail (here anyway), he tends to focus upon adoption as part of the fractal-like nature of broader American phenomenon. Some may come to see our two blogs as eventually somewhat complimentary. We often approach similar items, each from our own vantage point.

In some ways Baby Love Child is going to run on not only some of the same assumptions as his, but may actually rely upon his blog to elaborate from a different perspective on broader trends. Linguistically, we certainly speak one another’s language.

I’d advise new readers begin with his about page, then move on to his first post.

Enjoy!