adoptēre

I am an adoptee. I was adopted at six years old in rural South Carolina. Mine was a closed adoption; I assumed my adopter's surname and my real birth certificate was sealed, never to be revealed to me. My childhood was extremely traumatic, with physical, sexual, and verbal abuse. After twenty years of searching, I found my family. My father died before we could meet, but my mother and I have happily reunited. 

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Finding my biological family and my true identity uncovered a host of inconsistencies in what I was learning and what I had been led to believe. It caused a lot of anger for the years lost in which I could have been a more holistically complete person.

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I first went to private Facebook groups of adoptees, and I began realizing just how eerily similar many of our stories were, including, unfortunately, the abuse. I began to realize just how toxic and harmful the very institution of adoption is, and I discovered that all other developed nations have ceased and outlawed closed adoptions and have committed to giving children explicit rights.

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When I began writing on Medium, I wrote about my experiences as an adoptee, and I received a warm response. I also noticed that there are several writers addressing this topic, so I decided to start a publication to amplify their voices. 

adoptēre was born.

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We currently have sixteen contributing writers... sixteen additional voices to address this issue. Our voices can serve as an audit to the existing narrative, a narrative that advances a saccharine, false, shallow image of what adoption is and ignores entirely the wellbeing of the child involved.

Our voices can speak out for change and accountability.

Our voices can shine a light into the darkest of corners and demand reform.

Click below to read our stories.