Thread by @ssteingraber1

Interactive map of all 50 US states showing which ones permit, restrict, or prohibit #adoptees from obtaining our original, unfalsified birth certificates. Thx, ⁦@adopteelaw⁩! and hat tip to ⁦@naturenurture5⁩ for bringing this to our attention adopteerightslaw.com/maps/

As of 3/22, just 10 states grant #adoptees the right to apply for and obtain their original unredacted birth certificate w/o restriction. In 16 states + DC, adoptee access to OBC is prohibited outright. In 24 “compromise” states, access is restricted or conditioned in some way.

Would love to hear more from fellow #adoptees born in the 24 compromise states.

I’m from IL which, since 2011, gives birth parents veto power over adoptee requests for identifying documents. Making the request for one’s own OBC a lady-or-the-tiger dilemma since what you get…

…back from the state is an envelope that will contain either

1) your OBC with the names or your parents

OR

2) a letter stating YOUR REQUEST FOR YOUR PAPERS WAS VETOED BY PEOPLE WHOSE NAMES WE WILL NOT DISCLOSE

It’s infantilizing and humiliating—also arbitrary and capricious

So-called birth parent privacy—invoking the spectre of the predatory adoptee showing up unbidden on proverbial doorsteps—is how the law was explained to me. But I’ve seen nothing written about the psychologically impossible choice that adoptees face in parental veto states…

…where our rights to our own legal documents are sublimated to the feelings of others and, just in the asking, we risk a second rejection.

I needed 10 years of personal discernment plus therapy and support groups before I finally mailed my OBC request to the state of Illinois.

And I consider myself a pretty brave person in other circumstances.

I do have my OBC now. But the the PROCESS of getting it has had continuing mental health consequences for me.

Appearing as a beggarly supplicant before state agencies is not how I conduct public affairs.

So although the act of asking for my own birth certificate gave me an identity—and also revealed that I was not born in the city I’d been told was my birthplace—it also took away part of my sense of self.

Namely it stripped from me political agency and my identity as someone…

…who goes before the state to testify, advocate, provide information for pending legislation. Someone with knowledge who brings comms skills and is in possession of tactics and strategies and truth-to-power oratory.

As a biologist in the public interest, I provide facts and tell my government what to do. I don’t beg for facts. And I don’t go in blinded to outcomes.

The act of asking for my OBC in a compromise state is the opposite of all that. @adopteelaw

#adopteetwitter #adopteevoices