Legislation- IL HB 4623 and IL’s Kafka-esque Confidential Intermediary Hell
Appalling.
Kafkaesque.
Driving one to the very brink of madness.
Indeed, one of the very few Bastard situations I can imagine more day to day hellish than even the insanity Black Hole Bastards like myself are trapped by are those poor souls ensnared by state’s Confidential Intermediary programs- aka Hell. (And no, I’m not talking the Norse Goddess, here, though Christianity does do its “borrowing” now doesn’t it?)
Words fail me in light of the twisted wreckage of endlessly navigating the M. C. Escher-esque corridors and staircases, each leading one into the other, with no clear up nor down, no beginning, and no end.
Flat out, I don’t know where Bastards find the strength to fight over and over again again against the impossibility of our situations, courtesy of State legislatures, who over and over again fail to show the (gender irrelevant) balls and clout it’d take to clean up the messes so many individual States have made. (The exceptions being Kansas and Alaska who somehow managed to withstand the pressure and NEVER seal their adoptees’ original unaltered birth certificates from their State’s Bastards. More recently, Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine have each reentered the real world, by restoring the right of access to their Bastards.)
All of which leads us to IL HB 4623, the latest in a long line of ‘deform’ bills which continue to screw IL born Bastards. As always, Bastardette has a far more comprehensive blog posts/pile of articles about this train wreck than I could ever even attempt, she’s been providing wonderful coverage. Just follow the link and read bottom to top if you want to read in chronological order.
Which brings me to what I really want to blog about, 73adoptee’s devastating deconstruction/autobiographical retelling of what IL’s Confidential Intermediary system (CI system) has meant in practical application for an IL born Adoptee living outside of their State of birth.
Go follow the link, I’ll wait.
Still here? If you never follow another link off my site, please, go read the piece, really, I can wait.
Ok, you back yet?
Not rocking back and forth, foaming at the mouth, in a straight jacket in a nice little rubber room yet?
Seriously.
This is the experience of an adoptee. This, in light of moronic statements like “… most adoptees in this state do have their birth parents names” from Melisha Mitchell (Exec. Dir. of the White Oak Foundation, author of IL HB 4623 with Rep. Sara Feigenholtz.)
Now honestly, were that true, how on earth would her organization even exist, seeing how they’re in the business of ‘searches’? If most IL adoptees already had their parents’ names, believe it or not we are just as ‘qualified’ to use Google as the next ‘professional search asshole’. Common sense anyone? Anyone…? Anyone…?
But “…have their birth parents names.”
Really?
Gee thanks Melisha, I’m sure shovel loads of donkey dung like that certainly helps directly affected adopted people like 73adoptee come to realize their own experiences mean NOTHING, and must be nothing more than mere personal delusions. ‘Obviously’, we’re the ones who are insane, not the system built to contain us. Fortunately, we have softheaded fools like you working to ‘enhance’ our adoption experiences. All in the name of ‘helping’ us.
How quaint.
So, Illinois Open, is where to get up to speed and connect with others to restore Bastard rights, and IL’s adoption system to some semblance of sanity. 73adoptee, Bastard Granny Annie, Bastardette, Amy Adoptee, Rights of Adoptees, and others in the Bastard community are blogging and working against HB 4623.
For the moment, though, unless and until the existing tangle of a non-system, with no intake path into what little even exists for those who live out of state changes, to the very core, call it a lay diagnosis, but Bastards agree, IL’s adoption system makes us ILL.
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May 23rd, 2008 at 6:43 am
Baby Love Child, you beautiful Bastard! Thank you for your reply on my blog, as well as your own post about my experience and HB 4623. The more people who know about this travesty, the better.
One slight correction to your blog. I am actually an Illinois resident. I was born here, sent off a week later with my adoptive family who lived in Ohio, then I returned to Illinois to attend college and have been here ever since. So I am a constituent of the lawmakers who are debating HB 4623, that steaming platter of excrement disguised as “help” for adoptees.
Now, Ohio’s HB 7 – I’m no longer an Ohio constituent, so they could care less what I have to say about it. Even if I didn’t want to live in Illinois, I would have a vested interest in staying here because otherwise, as you noted, I would have zero say in the laws that directly affect my access to my original birth certificate. Since Ohio has my adoption file firmly sealed away, I have no influence over legislation that could grant me access to it. I am certainly not the only adoptee adopted across state lines, or who no longer lives in the state where my records are impounded.
And there is no effing way “most” Illinois adoptees have their birth parent names. That is another smokescreen to disguise the fact that Illinois’ post-adoption services are ineffective at best and tragic at worst.
Love your Escher reference. Goes nicely with my motto, “What Would The Doctor Do?” because an episode of Doctor Who was based on the Escher sketch you mentioned. The “solutions” offered adoptees are truly a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. No up, no down, no left, no right – just take the pittance we deign to offer you and go away like a good little bastard. I’m fortunate that the Doctor taught me long ago to stand up against the injustices of the universe.
Adoptees (and the rest of the world) have been societally lobotomized into thinking bastards’ very existence is shameful. If there is only one thing people take away from my experience, it’s this:
Do not trust confidential intermediary programs.
They do not exist to help you.
They exist as an excuse to deny true records access, and to make even more money from adoption.
No human being should be treated in this manner simply for having been adopted – something none of us had any control over.
Also be sure to write Illinois legislators and tell them why the adoption community opposes HB 4623. The extended deadline for the bill is today (Friday, May 23); we don’t know when the vote may occur as the sponsors have done their best to keep everyone in the dark.
http://73adoptee.blogspot.com/2008/04/write-now-oppose-illinois-hb-4623.html
And thank you, Baby Love Child, and all those out there who are also writing about your experiences. Sadly, these experiences are all too typical for those of us who live with adoption every day. Where do we find the strength? We find it because we have no choice. Our anger is the only birthright we have, at least in places like Illinois and Ohio.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
You ought to try the Indiana CI system. I have been lied to so much. I am spitting mad but you know that already.
I spoke with another adoptee who was adopted from the same agency ten years later. ALL OF HER INFORMATION FROM THE AGENCY WAS A LIE. I have had search angels look at my stuff and its the same issue. They all think its hogwash. I am at my wits end with my own search but I will help others search.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Triona, yeah, like that. (what else can I possibly say?)
The very first time I stumbled into your blog I immediately thought, damn, I don’t know what’s ‘back there’, but she has some kind of direct experience with this (the Escher-like ‘rationales’ of adoption that is), she ‘gets it.’
Yup, I came THIS close to making the ‘maze of twisty passages’ analogy myself, but it conflicted a bit with the Escher image I was working with. But yeah, great minds think alike or something.
Count me yet another Doctor Who Fan bastard (Tom Bakker, nautrally. Thank/blame WOSU.)
I also thought your words from your post-
“…the adoption industry has turned me into a vocal advocate for adoptee rights. It’s ironic that if the records weren’t sealed, there wouldn’t be people like me publicly questioning the adoption industry’s more dubious practice”
Goes well alongside your comment-
“Where do we find the strength? We find it because we have no choice. Our anger is the only birthright we have, at least in places like Illinois and Ohio.”
Both of which very deeply mirror my own experience.
This blog would simply not exist were it not for the filthy nexis of industry-State collusion and what it does to us daily.
There is more dripping down the adoption sewer pipes hour by hour than I could ever possibly blog. Once one begins to ‘pay attention’ there’s a virtually never ending stream of raw fodder for posts that belong here.
That said, the CI systems, and direct experiences with them need to rise above the noise level and gain the attention they deserve.
They are one of the most corrupt, money grubbing, answering to no one hellholes ever fashioned; a particularly effective methodology of control for us and cash cow for those in the racket. Just anther way they get us ‘coming and going’. Adoption, a system we never entered by actions on our own part, and never consented to.
More to the point, we were at an age when we were too young to protect our own interests. The State, as then supposedly ‘acting on our behalf’ abdicated its duty to some of it’s most vulnerable citizens, obliterating or at minimum confiscating our authentic history, and replacing it with what are in so many cases easily proven to be lies. Then they ‘get us on the back end’ by leaving us no recourse other than to be forced into chutes like their CI systems in vain attempts to regain the very documentation every other citizen takes for granted.
They get away with it because ultimately who the hell is going to stop them? Certainly not leggies (many of who are adopters, or otherwise involved in adoption themselves.)
Nothing you don’t know already.
I thought your circumstances (which yes, I got wrong in my blog entry, thank you for correcting me) were also a really good example of how we end up having to deal with the complexity of the interstate complexities of our records disaster.
Again, I can’t thank you enough for writing that all out.
April 11th, 2010 at 6:14 am
[…] also blogged about HB 4623 and Illinois’ Confidential Intermediary program previously, see Legislation- IL HB 4623 and IL’s Kafka-esque Confidential Intermediary Hell and Prospect of open records makes IL Catholic Conference fearful of potential […]
April 17th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
[…] I’ve already pointed readers at Triona Guidry’s (73adoptee’s) incredible piece about her Kafka-esque experience with the Illinois Confidential Intermediary system, but I’ll do it again as it’s simply must read material. I’ll also point you at her previous entries, particularly Caveat Emptor On Confidential Intermediary Programs. […]