Monthly Archives: March 2010

For Pennsylvania Adoptees: House Bill 1978 is an Unrestrictive Bill That Would Allow Copies of OBC to Adoptees

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Posted by legitimatebastard on March 31, 2010 – 10:12 am
Filed under Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate
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THIS MESSAGE MAY BE FORWARDED FREELY.

HB 1978 pending in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives is an unrestricted bill that would allow adopted adults born in Pennsylvania to obtain a copy of their original birth certificate.

If you have an adoption connection to Pennsylvania or are a resident of Pennsylvania – and you support this legislation – please send your name, address and email to choard@comcast.net so that you can be added to our database.  As the bill progresses, we will keep you updated.

Carolyn Hoard

West Grove, PA

www.americanadoptioncongress.org

~ ~ ~ posted by legitimatebastard for Carolyn Hoard of the American Adoption Congress.

~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009. Book Sales Link

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Shame on the British Parliament for Upholding Gay Rights as the Political Correct Action on Birth Certificates for the Donor-Conceived

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Posted by legitimatebastard on March 31, 2010 – 12:07 am
Filed under Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Baby Has Two Sets of Parents, Family Preservation, Genealogy, True Birth Certificate for Donor-Conceived
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There’s a new article published in United Kingdom’s Daily Mail: Mothers and fathers disappear from birth certificates to allow homosexual couples to be named as parents, article by Steve Doughty, 29th March 2010.

This story differs from the American story of two gay men being named on their adopted son’s birth certificate. That was a “victory” for Gay Rights in the USA for one couple, but, as I’ve previously stated, this is a stunning defeat for the real focus of the boy who lost his right to a truthful birth certificate.

No, this story in England isn’t about one gay couple, this is about the entire county of England going ga-ga over being politically correct, rather than factually correct for the children whose births will now be recorded falsely on official documents.

The article begins:

The words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are to disappear from birth certificates to allow homosexual couples to be named as ‘parents’ of surrogate children.

The switch means the biological parents will no longer necessarily be identified on the certificates that provide a legal record of a child’s birth.

In England, registering births on birth certificates is a practice that began over 170 years ago. But that doesn’t matter now as the change in the law will now mean that gay men who hire a surrogate can now be named as the only parents of the child. It is not clear if there will even be a formal adoption.

There is still opposition to this as

The move has been questioned by fertility experts and lawyers, who believe it means birth records will be effectively falsified.

The new law also makes provisions for two lesbians:

In the case of two women who register as the parents of a child, there will be no record on the birth register of who the biological father is.

There is much more to the article which reflects more the British way of handling these terms, so you’ll have to read it for yourself. Even so, a few quotes are noteworthy:

… gay pressure groups have welcomed the move. …that lesbian and gay couples no longer have to go through the unpleasantness of an adoption procedure.

The unpleasantness of an adoption procedure? What? It’s unpleasant to adopt a child but there’s no uncomfortable feeling that lying might not be a good idea?

There’s more:

…two men who have a child by a surrogate mother will be able to apply to a family court for an order making them the legal parents. The court will rule on whether they are fit to bring up the child.

In this case an original birth certificate naming the mother will exist. But it will be replaced by a new document naming the two men as parents if a judge grants a parental order.

Wow. I am stunned into jaw dropping open, stunned. This is just two stupid.

A child will be able to trace the original birth certificate once he or she is 18 years old.

Just like a sealed record in an adoption. The adoptee loses rights to the truth of her birth just for the sake that two gay men or two lesbian women can be named on a birth certificate, even if the truth indicates otherwise.

Lady Deech, a senior family lawyer, said the rule allowing two parents of the same sex to appear on birth certificates gave her ‘unease’.

She said: ‘There is an issue of principle here, which is the truth.

‘It puts the demands of the adults ahead of the rights of children to know and benefit from both sides of their genetic makeup.’

I’m standing firm right with Lady Deech. There’s someone who knows the gut-wrenching truth, that it is the children who will be paying the price of their selfish gay and lesbian parents. I say, accept reality, people, because the reality you push upon the children you are forcing to be your children by your out-right lies, will suffer because of the decisions you make. And, in this case, the decisions of the British government.

But I wrote about all of this in my book, Forbidden Family, page 603:

Chapter 42: British Birth Certificates for the Donor-Conceived:

~ In the end, they voted for the wrong solution

~ focus belongs on the child created, not the parents

And on page 606, I wrote:

It appears that British legislators have completely missed the point. In Britain, it would seem that it will be okay to lie on birth certificates. We’ll have to see which way the House of Commons will vote in the future.

As I stated in my closing remarks:

At a time when the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute urges all American States to grant adoptees unrestricted access to their original birth certificates (For the Records, 2007), the British parliament seems to be going backwards. Children need to be told the truth, especially about their conceptions and birth.

It is a tragedy that the British parliament voted down with truth and up for gay rights.

As I’ve said before, when one minority group tramples on the rights of another minority group, the rights that are considered a victory are actually a travesty for the truly oppressed group.

Gays and lesbians and the British Parliament: go sit in the corner until you can adjust your thinking. Shame on you.

~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009. Book Sales Link

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Congrats to Mara for Publication of “Sealed Away” Article Highlighting The Census’ Discrimination Against Adoptees

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Posted by halforphan56 on March 29, 2010 – 5:20 pm
Filed under Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Adoption Loss, Family Systems, Genealogy, Race and Adoption
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Mara’s tenacity paid off.

I’m glad to re-print her published letter in the Times-Standard (serving Eureka and California’s North Coast) here. It is a testimony as to the generational effects of adoption’s sealed and falsified birth certificates for adoptees. Coincidentally, Mara’s article  was published previously here as “Guest Post: Census Rant”.

http://www.times-standard.com/letters/ci_14754681

Sealed away

Letters to the Editor

Posted: 03/25/2010 02:10:17 AM PDT

Recently, I found the 2010 Census form hanging on my door. As I began filling it out, I came across a dilemma. The U.S. government wants to know if my children are adopted or not and it wants to know what our races are. Being adopted myself, I had to put “Other” and “Don’t Know Adopted” for my race and “Other” and “Don’t Know” for my kids’ races.

Can you imagine not knowing your ethnicity, your race? Now imagine walking into a vital records office and asking the clerk for your original birth certificate only to be told “No, you can’t have it, it’s sealed.”

How about being presented with a “family history form” to fill out at every single doctor’s office visit and having to put “N/A Adopted” where life saving information should be?

Imagine being asked what your nationality is and having to respond with “I don’t know.”

It is time that the archaic practice of sealing and altering birth certificates of adopted persons stops.

Adoption is a $5 billion, unregulated industry that profits from the sale and redistribution of children. It turns children into chattel who are re-labeled and sold as “blank slates.”

Genealogy, a modern-day fascination, cannot be enjoyed by adopted persons with sealed identities. Family trees are exclusive to the non-adopted persons in our society.

If adoption is truly to return to what is best for a child, then the rights of children to their biological identities should NEVER be violated. Every single judge that finalizes an adoption and orders a child’s birth certificate to be sealed should be ashamed of him/herself.

I challenge all Times-Standard readers: Ask the adopted persons that you know if their original birth certificates are sealed.

Mara Rigge

Trinidad

~ ~ ~ posted for Mara by “halforphan56” Joan M Wheeler

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Me, Myself, and I, Or, halforphan, halforphan56, legitmatebastard, and imposter

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Posted by imposter on March 18, 2010 – 12:52 pm
Filed under Adoptee's Conflicting Emotions, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Adoption Loss, Adoption Psychology, Adoption Trauma, Family Preservation, Family Systems
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Oh dear! I seem to have inadvertently caused Mara a conniption. So, it is time for clarification and an apology. I am so sorry, Mara, to have implied that you  are an impostor! Or, to give the impression of a hacker in my  website! Neither are true!

Mara requested that I post her Rant on the Census so I did. But, as the person who posted the post, the automatic setting on this blog’s Theme Options automatically “signs” the post with the screen name of the person signing in to post! Since I am the Admin, even as I sign in NOT as Admin, I have to choose an identity to post the post. (Perhaps I need to create a specific one for Mara! Now there’s an idea…why didn’t I think of that before! Mara, we’ve got to talk…This means that Lori C and Mary F might also need screen names as Guests here!)

For me, I picked the following names for myself: “imposter”, “legitmatebastard”, and “halforphan56″ and “halforphan”. These “fit” my different moods when I write. For some unknown reason, I decided to use the name “imposter”. I could just shut off that part of this blog’s Theme Options that automatically inserts the user-name or screen name, but I rather like the option.  (Doesn’t help that I am a terrible speller! The name “imposter” is registered and it should  be spelled “impostor”, so I will try to correct this, but it may not be something I can change!) Those are my four screen names, but since I am a legitimate published author, I was told by a business consultant, that it is better for me to sign each and every post with my business signature, that is why I use the formal signature at the bottom of every post.

In writing my apology email to Mara, I said that the screen name “imposter” came from a situation I had ten years ago. Now, as I turn that email into a blog post, I can think back to the time the situation actually occurred. It was 1993 and a boyfriend I had at the time could not understand how I could have two names and two families and be an only child in one family while being the middle child of ten in the other but actually the youngest of five while the other siblings were additions to the family. This boyfriend was going on and on getting madder at me by the second. He ranted that I was “aka” Doris but my real name is Joan, but then he said that I can’t be “Also Known As” because that’s a term usually used by the police to indicate someone is a criminal who commits fraud by signing another name for themselves to embezzle money or some other from of identity trickery. This guy thought I must be an impostor, so he yelled at me, “Oh my God! You’re an impostor! You’re a fake!” And so our break-up occurred because of his inability to grasp the complexities of my identity change due to being adopted.

 My explanations: To have an online identity, a person picks a nickname, or a screen name, or a user-name for her/himself. For me, picking one or more alternative identities was a difficult task as I had been a writer for 30 years who used both of my real names on by-lines. I have been known in the Buffalo area, and in some syndications and publications, by my legal name and my birth name. So, when it came to choosing a screen name, this was tricky for me. A screen name hides a person’s real identity online; it is a safeguard against real-life predators who can find the person at their home or place of employment and harass them. This meant a real internal struggle with my own identity.

And, for those of you in the mental health field, we do see an increase in mental health problems associated with hiding behind multiple online identities and “becoming” those online identities and “believing” oneself to be those new identities. For a person with real identity confusion — and that is what adoption has imposed upon me — choosing a screen name was a difficult small task. I have tried very hard to integrate my two real identities to make myself whole, so picking new identities damn near forced me to think contrary to a healthy mental state. So, this is my disclaimer. I simply cannot think in terms of creating a new screen name for myself because I can’t become a new person. So, “halforphan” or “halforphan56″ fits my description of myself. So does “legitmatebastard”. Those are the three screen names I use most often. There are times when one screen name fits better to the topic I am writing about. For example, it is better to use “halforphan56” or “halforphan” when posting something on orphans, and it is better to use “legitimatebastard” when I am writing about bastard issues because I am not a real illegitimate bastard as I was born legitimately, but I am a legitimate bastard as NYS declared me a bastard when the state took away my legal right to my real birth certificate and issued a falsified birth certificate to indicate I am the legitimate child of two people who adopted me, but that certificate indicates that they gave birth to me.

You should be confused at this point if you are a normal non-adopted person. I am neither. I am not normal and I am not non-adopted. I live with this identity confusion every day. This is why I am considered to be mentally ill. Am I afraid to go public with that statement? No. Why? Because this was imposed upon me by adoption itself. Other people and the institution of adoption created the problems for me. These problems are also with other adoptees. We do not share the identity confusion in exactly the same ways. Confused? Good. Now you know what it feels like to be an adoptee who knows both names. Being an adopted person who does not know their birth name can also drive an adoptee into frenzied frustration with a closed system that does not allow us access to our records for clarifying for ourselves what we need to know for healthy personal development. And for ADOPTEES’ SAKE, don’t misinterpret this post as an excuse not to open adoptees’ birth and adoption  records because of the assumption that “letting” or “allowing” us know our original identities will cause us harm!!! This discussion can go on into infinite circles unless the general public begins to accept that the CONCEPT and the ACTUAL removal of a child from  her/his family of birth and formally changing that person’s identity IS the basis of identity confusion and harm to the adoptee.

Look, people, this just goes to prove that the entire concept of child adoption is detrimental to the central person adoption was meant to help: the adoptee. Adoption, itself, creates identity confusing and pathology. As psychotherapist Nancy Verrier states in her two books (The Primal Wound and Coming Home to Self) the mental health profession needs to come to terms with the realities of the problems inherent in the adoption system itself by not pathologizing the adoptee and not pathologizing the mothers and fathers of adoption loss.

By extension, the legal and judicial systems of the States and the Federal Government had better start re-examining the institution of adoption. Family preservation is of prime importance, extended kinship care with tender loving care, and finally, legal guardianship, should be mandated as the only forms of child care for families in crisis. Adoption is NOT an option for the betterment of parents and children in crisis.

 Want to adopt? How about changing YOUR attitude and adjust YOUR thinking to, “I think I’ll be the legal guardian to a child who needs a loving home so that I can prevent that child from suffering permanent separation from natural blood kin and siblings and I can also prevent that child from suffering identity confusion. I don’t have to adopt, but I can help in more constructive ways.”

 ~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

Comments are welcome.

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Q and A: Where to Buy My Book

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Posted by legitimatebastard on March 16, 2010 – 12:39 pm
Filed under Uncategorized
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Can I buy your book in my country?

I don’t know every available online avenue where my book is being sold. I don’t know every sales link, nor do I know every country that has its own equivalent to Amazon.com. However, I do know that my book’s direct sales link, worldwide, is: 

http://www.trafford.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000137652

You can click on that link from  anywhere in the world and order my book, Forbidden Family. This is the direct buy set up through Trafford Publishing. This means that once you place your book order, the Trafford Print Shop processes that order and ships the book to you anywhere in  the world within a very short time; three days I think. That is the beauty of Publish on Demand Publishing.

Is your book available in Book Stores?

No, not yet. The downside to choosing to publish with an online Publish On Demand publisher is that the book is not yet available in bookstores.

How do I buy your book?

To buy a copy of my book you must have Internet access.

I saw your book at $1 a long time ago. Are you getting Royalties?

Yes, I am. That $1 price has been corrected. Please do not worry about any unusual discounted prices. I will still be getting my share of royalties, so if you see a ridiculously low price somewhere, know that the book seller paid full price for the books and I am still receiving royalties. Several of my readers have written to me asking about that. As an author, I am completely in the dark about how this book is being sold and purchased by worldwide book sellers.

Your book’s name is out there, but no cover photo or book blurb.

I know that a few online book sellers do not have a cover photo nor do they have a write up of “About The Book”. I cannot control this oversight. If you spot anything that needs attention, please let me know via email at the contact page tab. I can email or call my publisher and have them look into any problem that is out there.

Why did you choose Trafford?

I chose Trafford Publishing because they were the best Publish-On-Demand publishers available. Their staff is wonderful and professional. There are pluses and minuses to any publishing contract. I like the provision that reverts the copyright back to me. I also like the provision that the book is available through Trafford Publishing worldwide. It will be available for sale online at their bookstore for as long as I choose to keep it available, and as long as Trafford is a publisher. This means it will never go out of print.

Should I, at some point, pick up a contract with a mainstream publisher, my contract with Trafford allows me to do that without penalty.

The advantages of picking up a mainstream publisher would mean that the mainstream publisher would then pick up all media exposure and bookings for lectures and book signings. Currently, I am doing this completely on my own as I cannot afford to pay for these services at the pay-per-services fees through Trafford.

I still would like to see your book on the shelves in a book store!

So do I! It will eventually get there!

So, for the confusion that is out there, even if you cannot locate an online bookseller in your country, please check back at this website for the LINK to TRAFFORD PUBLISHING at which you may always purchase my book.

Can I get an autographed copy?

Unfortunately, at this time, the only way to receive an autographed copy is to purchase the book through me. I will have to work out a sales fee based upon  location of purchaser for the shipping costs. Just yesterday, I sent the book to Idaho and to The Hague, at two very different and expensive shipping costs. So, right now, I take the loss on the expensive shipping costs. This will be eventually worked out.

I am also devising ways in which I can perhaps solve the “signed copy” problem. Stay tuned to this post for more info on this as I invent a solution ….

Will your book be available at our local Library?

The only way for that to happen is for you to request that your Library pick it up and pt it in their collection. Here’s how to do that: give them this information and ask the Library to add Forbidden Family to  their library:

ISBN number is: 978-1-4120-6154-4. Date of publication: Nov 2009. Trafford Publishing link: http://www.trafford.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000137652

So, thank you for your questions. I hope I’ve answered them here. If not, please email me!

~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

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Guest Post: Census Rant

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Posted by imposter on March 14, 2010 – 2:49 pm
Filed under Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Adoption Psychology, Family Preservation, Family Systems, Genealogy, Race and Adoption, True Birth Certificate for Donor-Conceived
Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Recently, I found the 2010 Census form hanging on my door.  As I began filling it out, I came across a dilemma.  The U.S. government wants to know if my children are adopted or not and it wants to know what our races are.  Being adopted myself, I had to put “Other” and “Don’t Know Adopted” for my race and “Other” and “Don’t Know” for my kids’ races. 
 
Can you imagine not knowing your ethnicity, your race?  Now imagine walking into a vital records office and asking the clerk for your original birth certificate only to be told “No, you can’t have it, it’s sealed.” 
 
How about being presented with a “family history form” to fill out at every single doctor’s office visit and having to put “N/A Adopted” where life saving information should be?
 
Imagine being asked what your nationality is and having to respond with “I don’t know”.
 
It is time that the archaic practice of sealing and altering birth certificates of adopted persons stops. 
 
Adoption is a 5 billion dollar, unregulated industry that profits from the sale and redistribution of children.   It turns children into chattel who are re-labeled and sold as “blank slates”. 
 
Genealogy, a modern-day fascination, cannot be enjoyed by adopted persons with sealed identities.  Family trees are exclusive to the non-adopted persons in our society.   
 
If adoption is truly to return to what is best for a child, then the rights of children to their biological identities should NEVER be violated.  Every single judge that finalizes an adoption and orders a child’s birth certificate to be sealed should be ashamed of him/herself. 
 
Sincerely,
Mara Rigge 
~ ~ ~
Posted by Joan M Wheeler at the request of Mara Rigge, March 14, 2010.
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There is No Rational Explanation for Coercion to Give up a Baby for Adoption

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Posted by halforphan56 on March 13, 2010 – 12:40 pm
Filed under Adoptee's Conflicting Emotions, Adoption Loss, Adoption Psychology, Adoption Trauma, Family Preservation, Family Systems, Missing Baby
Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This blog entry is a response to reading Cedar’s blog post: Adoption Practice: “What is coercion?”

Many years ago I was the only adoptee rooming with a half dozen mothers-of-adoption-loss in a hotel room. They were surprised at my support for them, saying that adoptees were hostile to them because of being given away, but I wasn’t hostile to them.

Maybe it was because I before I entered into adoption awareness in 1974 I was introduced to feminist thought in 1971. I was 15 at the time. Womanhood came first and with that came the understanding of what it means to be able to carry life within and the struggle to gain independence from men. So, I understood womanhood long before I was thrown into shock at being found by siblings I was never supposed to know.

So, when I hear of women’s voices telling of what actually took place for them, I believe them.

It is a great burden to have reunion thrust upon an 18 year old who was raised in a sheltered life. My upbringing lead me into believing that sex before marriage was a sin, and was bad, that pregnant teens were, well, you know. That was what I was forced-fed in home and at school and at church. The cognitive dissonance really hit me in 1971 when Canada Jane came into my life. She was a beautiful traveler who had a perspective that was so unlike what I had been taught. Her freedom of self lifted me out of the holds of suppression. And she did it through poetry and photography.

So I am female first and adoptee second. And, the experience of being a real bastard is not mine so when I hear (rather heard in the past) adoptees speak of rage at being abandoned or given away, I did not experience abandonment in the same way. I knew my mother was not a teenage mother. She was not a “tramp”. She was not a seductress nor was she seduced. She was a wife and mother of four other children at the time of my conception, gestation and birth. My mother was nothing less than my mother in the full sense of the word. My father was nothing less than my father in the full sense of the word.

I knew these points instinctively at the moment I was found and heard my sister’s voice on the other end of the phone. When I met my father for the first time and developed a relationship with him, he was my father, he was not some sperm donor or a cad or a womanizer or a creep. He was my father.

My father was talked into giving me up for adoption. His experience in relinquishment is different from that of a mother. Mothers and pregnancy and giving birth are a different experience. But from his perspective as the husband of a pregnant wife, and the father of four children expecting the fifth in the mid 1950s, well, he was the breadwinner, the paycheck, the head of the household. It was his responsibility to take care of us all, to pay for us to provide for us. We were all dependent upon him.

When my father was faced with a pregnant wife who was violently ill, he was frightened. He did not think that the baby has to go, he thought that this was his family and he had to figure out how to fix it all. Illness made his wife go into pre-term labor. She delivered her infant two months too soon on the hospital bed before the nurses could get there. A few weeks before that, she was X-rayed to determine why she was so sick. A massive tumor filled her abdomen along side of the “fetus” who was guessed to be five months at that time. The tumor was real but the age of the “fetus” was wrong. When I was born the doctor determined I was 32 weeks of gestational age; a real feat of birth and survival in those primitive days of 1956.

I survived my mother’s cancer. I survived a premature birth. I survived six weeks in an incubator. My mother died. My father was stressed. Instead of help all he got was talk. The baby needs two parents. The baby? The baby was part of the whole family. The five children needed two parents, but the reality was that the mother died and the whole family needed help to cope with that loss. But no help was given. Just convince the father that the baby, alone, needed two parents. Make him believe he was not worthy to be the real father of his own daughter… make him believe that the only solution was to give her up permanently to another couple so she could lead a better life without him or her siblings.

I say that my widowed father was coerced into giving up his youngest child to adoption. And for that, he was crucified and his given-up daughter was both smothered in love by her adoptive parents and isolated by them. Stockholm syndrome is the better name for what I feel for my adoptive parents for I have those 18 years of a bliss or happiness of childhood gooiness. Yeah right. How do I justify the sad feelings I have for the father who died in 1982 when I see his picture playing with me as a one year old on the floor with the reality that he knowingly and willfully kept me apart from my own siblings for his sake of raising a child of his own? How do I justify the sad feelings I have to recall those happy times when Mom sewed those matching mother-daughter-doll dresses when she wanted me to grow up as she dreamed I would to fulfill her visions of the daughter she called her own? Did I have any rights or feelings? How did these two people justify within themselves what they were doing to me and to my siblings and to my father? How did they justify taking a child away from her family so they could call me their own?

Coercion is just that. There is no rational explanation.  

~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

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Gang Stalking

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Posted by legitimatebastard on March 12, 2010 – 2:40 pm
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Many thanks to Robbie for introducing me to this topic. Yeah, I’m a victim of this, both past and presently. Great articles, but my favorite is this: Gang Stalking: Psychological Targeting in a Group Setting from Rheyanne Weaver.

Trash talk is everywhere online about me. My “fans” have made a mockery out of me, but they are the ones who are showing their true colors. And guess what? Their stupidity, malicious attacks are backfiring. Instead of turning people away from me, they are making more book sales for me! And my true Friends and Fans are in touch. Heartwarming. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Those of you who wrote to me during these last few weeks of the Change.org contest, you’ve spoken words of passion, of being victimized by adoption, and you’ve shown me your own demons. I’ve found the place I needed to be for a long time: AAAFC. Several friends in the past have encouraged me to join. I tried twice in the past few years, but this last attempt, well, I made it in! Actually, my own stumbles with online message boards and getting used to the media were to blame for me not completing the process. I had to finish my book. Now that that’s done, I can really focus on staying connected with online media friends.

So this brings me back to Gang Stalking. Robbie mentioned it last evening. And boy, what a difference this revelation has been! Long before the Internet, my life has been influenced by family networks of relatives just eager to gossip about me, to ruin me, to make me look like dirt. I succumbed to decades of harassment by developing permanent damage to my nervous system in the form of traumatic nightmares, a heightened startle reflex, fear of people, extreme shyness, and medical problems. I was also suicidal for a very long time. I can easily fall back into that, thanks to my online “fans” who want me to fail. Ignore them, you say? I do. I’m not actively seeking them out, nor am I bothering them. My mere existence — my very birth — has been a bother to them for all of my 54 years. I wish they would just go away.

Now, for those who want to say that my negativity is saying no to reunion, you are wrong. I am very much for responsible and respectful search and reunion. Trouble is, I didn’t even  have a respectful adoption, much less a respectful reunion. The ones who can talk among themselves and be each other’s supports can do so much damage to the one who is the target.

However, I have in-person and online true friends who are there for me. The occasional email from Michael in LA, from Jab and Amrita, also from  LA, and from folks who I won’t name, have meant the world to me. Elaine and Rene, in my darkest moments, you come through for me. Thank you.

In the last few weeks, I’ve stepped up connections as a published author. Doing the public speaking thing, well, I’ve done it in the past so I can do it again. The positive people around me now are making this time around much easier. And you make me laugh! From the autograph seeker, to the book reader, to the astonished church member and the common-sense church member who just can’t seem to understand why “they” falsified my birth certificate, to the retired college professor who extends a sincere soft smile with a request for my book, to the befuddled small business owner who said “They don’t do that today, anymore, do they?” — all of you are such cherished people! You’re making this journey of mine easier and more pleasant. With your eagerness to learn about my adoption and about the larger issues, you’ve made the journey through the Gang Stalking so much  more easier.

To Denis over at the tavern: you once asked me, “Is it safe being seen in public with you?” Well, my dear friend, you are safe. I’m safer because of you. I’m safer because you care. It’s not me who is dangerous. It’s the people doing the stalking who have caused me so much harm.

To Julie over at NLS, and to the Dandelions out there: thanks for your help and enthusiasm. You’re sweet. And resourceful. And Dandelions are all over the place! Spring is coming! Bring on that Dandelion salad!

See, as I get out there, meeting people, coming out of my shell, I’m finding true friends who are also my fans. If you folks talk among yourselves about me, I know it’s all good because you’ve given me hugs and smiles. You make up for the jealous maliciousness or shunning that my own family members continue to dish out. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want these relatives in my life, at all. I don’t want to see their names, their faces, or have their friends seek me out in public. It’s been like that for years. Do I feel guilty? Hell no. I do not want abusers, users, stalkers and mean people in my life. I want peace and positive people in my life. New readers — want to know why I don’t want my own relatives in my life? Go read their trash talk about me. It’s free. My book will cost you. Go for the free and dirty stuff. The ones who yelled at me for attending adoption conferences and reading about adoption and writing my Letters to the Editor about adoption were so big on telling me that I am crazy for doing what I do and that they don’t want adoption shoved down their throats, well, these are the people who are out there now, writing their blogs and using adoption terminology as if they are the experts. They know what they’re talking about, I don’t. And I certainly don’t want them in my life. They don’t want me in theirs, so why are they reading my website and my book? Why are they stalking me, still?

And there’s a big difference between being a friend, a true fan, an interested person, a follower on Facebook or My Space or change.gov. True positive networking is not stalking. True family and friends can share something like,  “Gee, next time I perform, I’ll let you know so you can see the show” and know that true friends will follow you. 

So when I travel around seeing your shows and performances, I’m a fan. I may get tongue-tied because you are the star, but you make me happy. And from that, I’m learning a valuable lesson.  I’m starting to see people react to me that way and I’m touched by the sweetness. There are crazies out there, but  my true fans and friends, you are special.

Go read up on Gang Stalking. It’s a creepy thing. I’m a victim. But I’m a survivor, too.

See you all on AAAFC! And on the writers’, artists’ and musicians’ circuit.

Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

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Vote Today For Adoptees’ Civil Rights to their Original Birth Certificates, Even if You are Living in a Foreign Country

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Posted by halforphan56 on March 9, 2010 – 9:52 am
Filed under Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Adoption Loss, Genealogy
Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

This Idea for Change in America: Return Adult Adoptees the right to their Original Birth Certificates, is now down to 13th place. We need to be in the Top 10 for this Idea to be presented to President Obama and his administration. We have until Friday March 12th at 5pm to vote.

Click the link below to VOTE YES and to read the discussion comments.
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/return_adult_adoptees_the_right_to_their_original_birth_certificates
Even if you live in a foreign country, please vote for American adoptees to have the right to receive a Certified copy of their Original Birth Certificate! I know my readership is worldwide, so come on folks! All it takes is a personal conviction that adoptees deserve the same civil rights as non-adopted people do! Vote today! Many countries worldwide have what we need in America!

Thank You!

Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

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Access to Adoptees’ Birth Certificates is Not Enough to Break the Cycle

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Posted by halforphan56 on March 5, 2010 – 11:41 am
Filed under Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights
Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

There’s an incredible discussion about Cully Ray’s and Mara Rigge’s Idea for Change in America at the change.org website:

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/return_adult_adoptees_the_right_to_their_original_birth_certificates

Go there to vote in favor of true Open Records for Adoptees. Read the comments and add your own!

 

My last comment there was this:

If you doubt just how deeply Christian thought is entrenched in adoption, a close look at the Missionaries from Idaho in Haiti, is in order. Just a few adoptees’ blogs will indicate the destruction done by Christian adoptors of orphans:  

http://www.babylovechild.org/2010/03/02/laura-silsbys-pipedreams-of-a-future-in-the-child-containment-industry/

http://bastardette.blogspot.com/2010/03/waitng-for-god-silsby-still-waiting.html

http://bastardette.blogspot.com/2010/03/more-trouble-for-laura-silsby-dumped-by.html

Keep this in mind: the law behind the present system of documenting births and adoptions for adoptees in America was begun in 1930 under the guise of “protecting” illegitimate children from learning embarrassing facts about how they came to be, therefore, the justification for making “new” birth certificates for adoptees was the idea of lifting them up from the status of a less-valued birth to that of being adopted “anew”. 

I must be the only ORPHAN to speak out because I have yet to hear any other HALF OR FULL ORPHAN born of married parents to oppose being held in this category. Please understand, I do not say this as a weapon against my fellow adoptees who are of unmarried parents. 

This is a degrading system of recording births and adoption based purely upon the moral judgment of the Registrars who wrote this law in 1930. I do not like being categorized into something I am not. My fellow adoptees shouldn’t be in this socially-constructed trap, either. We have been humiliated by these horrendous society judgments far too long. Lift us up and into a free society. Give us back our dignity and civil rights to our real birth certificates.

And for god’s sake, stop religious fanatics from adopting children. To missionaries like Laura Silsby, children are adoptable only because they (the missionaries and other religious fanatic adoptors) think that they are doing “god’s work”. The end result (not going into all the other issues in adoption here) is that all orphans (half and full, and even the ones who are not orphans at all) will suffer the same fate as their illegitimate counterparts in adoption: their birth certificates will be sealed and a new falsified one will be issued.

Asking for Access to our sealed Original Birth Certificates, alone, is not enough to break the cycle and change public view of adoptees. We must break this cycle and promote an end to the humiliating process of incorrectly documenting adoptees’ births and adoptions by sealed and falsified birth certificates. Demand an Adoption Certificate to replace Falsified Birth Certificates.

 

Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

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US Citizens of Puerto Rican Birth Face Birth Certificate Fraud and Need New Birth Certificates

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Posted by legitimatebastard on March 3, 2010 – 2:34 pm
Filed under Uncategorized

This tiny article (Puerto Rican birth certificate law affects Ill.) reveals a huge problem for people born in Puerto Rico. This article addresses only 50, 000 Illinoisans who were born in Puerto Rico that will have to ”get new birth certificates because of a law enacted in the U.S. island commonwealth.”

Identity theft seems to be the issue.

My questions: how many of the millions of Puerto Rican-born people affected are adoptees? Do Puerto Rican-born people adopted and brought to the mainland now have to get new amended birth certificates as well? Will their Original Birth Certificates be altered again, too? How many times are governments going to alter birth certificates for adoptees?

Federal officials have said up to 40 percent of U.S. identity fraud involves birth certificates from Puerto Rico.

As of July 1, all previously issued Puerto Rican birth certificates are void. It will affect more than a third of the 4.1 million people of Puerto Rican descent living in the 50 states.

Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

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“Return Adult Adoptees the right to their Original Birth Certificates” is Currently in 5th Place of the Top 10 Ideas for Change in America

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Posted by halforphan56 on March 3, 2010 – 1:12 pm
Filed under Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Genealogy
Tagged as , , , , , , ,

Keep your votes coming in! By clicking on this link: http://www.change.org/ideas/view/return_adult_adoptees_the_right_to_their_original_birth_certificates

your vote will help secure civil rights of American adoptees to the truth of our births! Be sure to read all the comments and add your own. Now is the time to be heard!

Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

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