The Declassified Adoptee

Amanda's Note:  I was proud to participate in the drafting and endorsement of this much-needed letter as an ally to the transracial adoptee community. Please share this letter widely and follow/support #definetransracial on Twitter. Rachel Dolezal. Photo credit: artist unknown . June 16, 2015 Please direct all media inquiries to Kimberly McKee, PhD at mckee.kimberly@gmail.com. This past weekend the world took to social media to dissect the events surrounding Rachel Dolezal, the former president of Spokane’s NAACP chapter who came under heavy scrutiny for falsely representing herself as black. As part of this real-time discussion, the term transracial is being co-opted to describe Dolezal identifying as black despite being born white. As members of the adoption community — particularly those of us who identify as transracial adoptees — we are deeply alarmed by the gross mischaracterization of this term. We find the misuse of “transracial,” describing the phenomenon of a whit...

"Born. Adopted. Sealed. Denied!" was the hallmark chant of the Adoptee Rights Demonstration during my years attending and co-planning the demonstration as the now-former Vice President of the Adoptee Rights Coalition . The demonstration and its simple four-word message aimed to educate  legislators attending the annual National Conference of State Legislatures regarding a near 90-year-old legal practice that seals the original birth certificates of adopted people in all but 2 states and treats adopted people unfairly when attempting to access this certificate in all but 6 states. When we are born, we receive the same birth record as all other people. Following our adoption, this birth record becomes sealed and an amended birth certificate takes its place. A large portion of us are denied fair access to the original birth certificate as an adult--or denied access altogether. Born. Adopted. Sealed. Denied. But, what if I told you that the amended birth certificate--the rec...

I read the Fifty Shades of Grey books at the suggestion of my sister-in-law who has dual degrees in communications and English and is a popular books maven of sorts. She has the uncanny ability to predict whenever any bit of media will become relevant in pop culture. If you want to look like a pop culture genius at your book club, you ask her for a title to recommend to the group. If you want to know what basically unknown lit is going to explode into everyday conversations tomorrow, she can tell you that too. Her suggestion regarding Fifty Shades fell into the latter category. "I'll apologize in advance," she said. It's the worst thing I think I've read in a long time." Indeed, it was so bad that I hesitated to write about it at all. I originally wrote this piece years ago to address the book trilogy. With the release of the movie grossing over $81 million dollars in its first three days, it's time to update the piece and release it anew.  Al...

My necklace of our matching pair. I had already known my original mother's name for several months before we reunited. As is the practice in my birth state, most adoptees can have their original birth certificates and know their mother's name using the established government channel. We are forbidden to reach out on our own as the civil and criminal legal consequences of doing so are thoroughly explained and signed off on before our records are unsealed. My mother, my  first  mother, had given me permission to see my original birth certificate. I received a copy of her handwritten permission letter addressed to the Department of Children's Services. I traced my index finger along the curly writing imagining that she must be so nice. Saturday marked the 5th anniversary of the first time I heard my mother's voice since infancy. Our "reunionversary" was something that took me a year to put into words . In the past four years, I haven't written much ...