***

Disney’s “Stitch.”

Instantly recognizable as a “fellow traveler” to Bastard moviegoers and adopted “abominations” everywhere.

Not only does he hail from the one and only Disney movie to prominently feature a social worker, alongside the perennial Disney themes of:

• being orphaned, and of impending potential family disruption,
• the importance of family preservation, (even when families are self- found, “little, and broken” they are nonetheless worthy of being deemed “still good.”)
• how even those deprived of their history can come to create their own intentional forms of family, and be reunited with their Ohana of origin
• and how eventually, in movies anyway, the lead always comes to rediscover their previously obscured roots, (Bastards make the best plot twists!)

but Stitch, Lilo, and Nani also have a very great deal to say about notions of leaving people behind:

“Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten.”

Widsom so simple, children have no trouble comprehending it.

Unfortunately, out here in the non-animated world, it’s a lesson all too many adults have yet to wrap their heads around.

***

Marley/Bastardette has written what I consider one of the most important posts on the Bastard condition I’ve seen in a long time.

In light of how some in the adoption blogosphere have gotten their knickers in a collective twist over both the California disaster and the NCFA piece (which simply is not news, except in that Bill Pierce is no doubt rolling over in his grave in light of how much psuedo-”openness” the new NCFA has come to embrace,) Marley brings up what is completely obvious to Bastards, that “reformers” and industry voices such as NCFA have far more in common with one another than either do with any genuine effort which has actually opened records and improved the lives for adopted people.

CARE, the Evan B. Donaldson Institute, and NCFA all have more in common with one another than any of them have to do with us.

Each of these, despite any “openness” language they may come to employ (usually grounded firmly in a cynical pragmatism and industry survival instinct), are ultimately willing to trade away access for some. An often undetermined number or percentage are written off as expendable, or “not politically expedient.”

Bastards on the other hand, leave no one behind.

Speaking as one of those left behind in an earlier Ohio deform effort, and as a black holed Bastard, let me add my voice to Marley’s, genuine Bastard-centric efforts leave no one behind.

No number or percentage should be left back or “forgotten.” Living daily, as one myself, allow me to tell you from firsthand experience, it’s inexcusable.

We will never trade away the person standing next to us. Any notion of “we’ll come back and open those up later” is failure. (Even the briefest study of political history will teach that lesson quickly enough.) We understand, either we all go together or we don’t go at all.

None of the adoption deformers speak for us.

In any case, go, read, and learn:

SWAPMEETIN’: NCFA, REFORMISTS, AND BASTARDS

Marley’s piece from where I sit is a mandatory Bastard backgrounder and has everything to say about where we find ourselves today.

(And ’cause I’m a space geek, enjoy a Black hole picture post.)

Yesterday, Bastard Nation responded to the Evan B. Donaldson Institute e-mail from Ms. Hicks with an important “Open Letter” a copy of which, with an introduction from Bastard Nation’s Executive Chair, Marley Greiner, can be found on her personal blog, The Daily Bastardette.

Go read the piece, it will get you up to speed on the situation.

In response to the Bastard Nation open letter, I wrote the following:

That SO needed saying.

Speaking as one of those ‘Black Holed Bastards’ (from Ohio, myself,) I found the EBD e-mail from Susan Hicks appalling.

Ohio’s black hole is precisely the situation we who care about genuine open records have worked to eradicate. So when Massachusetts built a new black hole for Massachusetts Bastards, we were horrified.

It is “example A” of the kind of legislation we have fought and continue to fight against. It is, to put it mildly, what not to do.

For EBD to then turn around and HIRE a person who proudly brags of having played (to use her term) an “instrumental role” in the Massachusetts disaster shows either profound ignorance of what black hole legislation does to Bastards (something that as Marley pointed out even EBD’s own report rejects) or outright stupidity.

You don’t REWARD people who were part of destroying records access/genuine open records by placing them in the position of the Institute’s ‘project administrator’ on open records! Good grief!

Putting forward Ms. Hicks as any kind of liaison with the rest of the open records and adopted people’s community would be laughable, were it not so tragic.

It is beyond insulting.

Marley and BN are if anything, being far too polite.

Once again, EBD shows that despite even the content of their own reports, their current set of actions reflect a profound unawareness of the issues faced by, and real needs of, adopted people.

Perhaps instead of e-mailing AT adopted people, EBD would do well to LISTEN to those of us who have been working towards our own open records instead.

As I’ve said before, when it comes to adoption, and open records, we (pro-uncompromised open records adopted people) are the experts.

In the mean time, EBD does not and can not, speak for me. Certainly not if they view Ms. Hicks as an Institute appropriate ‘project administrator’ on open records.

As for those of us who ARE black holed Bastards ourselves, we will continue to speak and work on our own behalf- uncompromisingly.

Why? Because my life, my access to my own State confiscated records, and my authentic genetic identity are all not things I’m willing to ‘compromise’ away.

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.

Bastardette has an entire series of posts (read from the bottom up to understand the chronology) detailing the ongoing saga of the removal of the open records provisions from the original HB7, resulting in a “substitute bill” that is completely silent on the matter of adult adoptees’ access to our own documentation. In response, Bastards have mounted a grassroots campaign counter offensive, attempting to restore the open records provision to any version of the legislation that passes out of the Committee.

This afternoon was the latest hearing on Ohio HB7. Bastardette is aiming for an update to her page later tonight with details about what happened today. I’d urge BLC readers to check in there later on.

(To be clear, I’m no great fan of HB7, although I feel it included some important provisions. I would far rather see a pure open records bill alongside other legislation putting ‘teeth’ into open adoption agreements, etc. But as is, it’s possible that some version of HB7 will be going forward. If it does, it is critically important that the open records provision be restored to the bill.)

In any case, I wanted to post a slightly edited version of my letter to Ohio Legislature’s Health Committee members as it points out the arbitrary and discriminatory nature of Ohio’s system as it currently exists and how Bastards such as myself are essentially trapped by that system:

[Address Block]

Dear Representative ___________,

I am an adult adoptee, born and adopted in Ohio in the late 1960’s and a former resident of ________, ________, ________, and ________ Counties.

I’m writing to strongly urge your support for restoring adult adoptee access to their own documentation, as was initially included in HB7 before the later substitute bill removed the provision. I ask you reject the substitution bill (LSC 127 0671-4) if access to our information is not included in the final version of the bill..

HB 7 as it was originally written, was in part, created as a remedy to Ohio’s existing law. Under the current system, Ohio not only treats adopted people and our historical documentation differently than it treats non-adopted people, it goes further, by creating a three tier arbitrary and discriminatory system of records access.

Under current Ohio law adoptees are sorted by birth date or date of adoption finalization into three tiers, thereby creating three different classes of adopted people (which are also not treated equally:)

* some with complete access to their original unaltered birth certificate
* some with no access except by court order
* and a third group with conditional access

Due to the arbitrary nature of the ‘cut off dates’ for each of the three tiers, access to my own unaltered birth certificate is thwarted merely by ‘accident of birth.’ Were I born a few years earlier or perhaps a number of years later, I would either have access or at least have a better chance at access.

As is, I fall into the 2nd category, I’m locked out. Despite my attempt to get a court order, the existing system has failed me. I am left with no recourse, other than to support changes to the Ohio law.

Other Ohio adoptees and I are depending on you to support nothing less than a clean open records bill to restore our rights. We do not need yet another attempt to slap still more plaster onto the current flawed system. What we need is the same access to our vital statistics and authentic history as all other Buckeyes.

The restoration of adult adoptee access to our own information originally in HB7, would have decluttered the existing jumble of the arbitrary tri-tier discriminatory system, restored our rights, and provided clarity and fairness. Such access is in line with what other states (Alaska, Oregon, Kansas, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine) have already done to promote fairness and equity in their adoption systems.

By comparison, the substitution bill is an anti-adoptee piece of legislation. Far from resolving the issue, the substitution bill only continues to attempt ‘reforms’ that fail to go to the heart of the matter; that Ohio adoptees are still arbitrarily receiving different treatment and denied equal access to their documentation. This failure then only ensures that these issues will continue to arise in the legislature again at some later date.

All I ask is simply to be treated like everyone else born in Ohio, I want equal treatment under the law.

End arbitrary discrimination against Ohio adoptees, please support restoring the adult adoptee access to our own information provisions of HB7 as it was originally written. If any version of HB7 is passed out of committee, it is imperative that it addresses the core issue of restoration of access, and does so in a way that ultimately supports adoptees themselves.

I would appreciate knowing your views on this legislation and hope I can count on your vote in support of restoring adoptees’ rights.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Respectfully submitted,

[Baby Love Child's name and contact information block]

Note, The arbitrary and discriminatory tri-tier system goes by various names; sandwich adoptees, blacklisted adoptees, those left behind, ’special’ bastards, triple threat legislation, and one of the terms I tend to use,”Black Hole Bastards”, or bastards who have been black-holed. You can read more about us Blackholers on Bastardette’s page by using these search results.