Kudos for clarifying the important differences between replacing an adopted person’s original birth certificate and a trans person choosing to replace and actually correct their own OBC.
An adoptee’s OBC is sealed and altered, without the knowlwdge or consent of the person whose BC is changed, the adoptee.
What hit me hard in seeing your OBC was how truly callous it is. “THIS IS NOT A LEGAL DOCUMENT,” slashes down across the OBC. Well, it WAS a legal document before they sealed it. Then they *replaced* it with a forged fake adoptive birth certificate. And if that was stamped on my OBC? I would wonder, did that mean I was an illegal newborn baby? Some people who were adopted don’t even learn that they were adopted until late in their life. This causes the adoptee intense pain, confusion, anger and an identity crisis the likes of which Freud never imagined.
And why is the infant named “Baby Boy?” Was your mother even allowed to name her own baby? Or did the name she chose for you, her child, get dropped in favor of the commodity name?
Then the last space at the bottom of the OBC for, “Mother’s Mailing Address for Registration Notice,” where they just typed in, “For Adoption.” To me, that is heartbreaking. And the truth: Plenary adoption erases who we were — with the supposed goal (in most cases during the Baby Scoop Era) of erasing the stain of being born a bastard.
Sorry folks, but it didn’t work. For myself, my parents never hid from me that I was adopted. I found it fascinating that I grew in some other Mommy’s tummy. But soon I knew to the marrow of my bones there must have been something wrong with me, for my own mother to give their own baby, me, away to complete strangers.
We have the human right to the truth of our origins, including our unaltered, unamended OBC, along with knowledge of and information about our original birth family, family medical history, and any other of OUR OWN information contained within our adoption case file, court records, etc.
There’s an underlying constant wistful grief connected to being adopted, though sometimes I put it on the back burner because it’s just too confusing and painful. It’s hard to grow up as a tulip in a bed of daisies, never quite fitting in, rarely feeling any certainty about who we really are.
Thank you, Tony, for clearly and logically speaking on issues which seem muddy so often in the way people do talk about adoption.
Very helpful and well-considered, as always, Tony. Thank you.
Thank you, Maureen.
Kudos for clarifying the important differences between replacing an adopted person’s original birth certificate and a trans person choosing to replace and actually correct their own OBC.
An adoptee’s OBC is sealed and altered, without the knowlwdge or consent of the person whose BC is changed, the adoptee.
What hit me hard in seeing your OBC was how truly callous it is. “THIS IS NOT A LEGAL DOCUMENT,” slashes down across the OBC. Well, it WAS a legal document before they sealed it. Then they *replaced* it with a forged fake adoptive birth certificate. And if that was stamped on my OBC? I would wonder, did that mean I was an illegal newborn baby? Some people who were adopted don’t even learn that they were adopted until late in their life. This causes the adoptee intense pain, confusion, anger and an identity crisis the likes of which Freud never imagined.
And why is the infant named “Baby Boy?” Was your mother even allowed to name her own baby? Or did the name she chose for you, her child, get dropped in favor of the commodity name?
Then the last space at the bottom of the OBC for, “Mother’s Mailing Address for Registration Notice,” where they just typed in, “For Adoption.” To me, that is heartbreaking. And the truth: Plenary adoption erases who we were — with the supposed goal (in most cases during the Baby Scoop Era) of erasing the stain of being born a bastard.
Sorry folks, but it didn’t work. For myself, my parents never hid from me that I was adopted. I found it fascinating that I grew in some other Mommy’s tummy. But soon I knew to the marrow of my bones there must have been something wrong with me, for my own mother to give their own baby, me, away to complete strangers.
We have the human right to the truth of our origins, including our unaltered, unamended OBC, along with knowledge of and information about our original birth family, family medical history, and any other of OUR OWN information contained within our adoption case file, court records, etc.
There’s an underlying constant wistful grief connected to being adopted, though sometimes I put it on the back burner because it’s just too confusing and painful. It’s hard to grow up as a tulip in a bed of daisies, never quite fitting in, rarely feeling any certainty about who we really are.
Thank you, Tony, for clearly and logically speaking on issues which seem muddy so often in the way people do talk about adoption.