Alright then. Yesterday I placed a poll for order of interest on 3 topics I have rolling around in my brain space. As per large majority, today's thread is about rifts in adoptionland.

Poll here if you were curious about final tally: https://twitter.com/WordyRamblings/status/1296098939364614145?s=19

I'm sure this will be very wordy. If you're not into the topic at hand feel free to mute me or unfollow me or both. Whatever you need to do. It's all fine.

Now, on to the rest of my disclaimers and explanations and then we can get into it.

"Adoptionland" as a term for starters is a catch all for adoption centered spaces. It's where you'll find adoption discussions and, usually, people connected to adoption in some way. For added context I mean human adoption not pets.

Occasionally someone unfamiliar with adoption will wander in and feel nearly inundated with adoption information.

Not everyone in adoptionland is an adoptee. I, however am, and speak from that perspective.

People you may find in adoptionland are adoptees, foster youth, former foster youth, care leavers, adopters, adoptive family, carers, original parents, original family, allies.

You may also see agencies caseworkers social workers and misc organizations connected to adoption.

In my view, people that wander on to say, "my 4th cousin twice removed had a neighbor who's mail carrier's dental assistant was adopted" aren't part of adoptionland in a sense of the core. They're usually a person woefully uneducated and starting problems. But they exist.

You may also see hopeful adoptive parents interacting within adoptionland.

It's likely unnecessary to say but adoptionland isnt a place on a map. Its everywhere, all the time, and some people are very involved and others are not.

I'm heavily involved in adoptionland. Shocker. I know.

That being said, I also know that I give a perspective, usually persuasive, but open and try to keep bias in check.

Let's be clear now. I have *extreme* biases in relation to adoptionland dynamics.

I find it highly unlikely I'll be able to stop them all from spilling out in my tone. At this point I'm not even sure I care to anyways.

I'll try to keep my acronyms to a minimum but if one sneaks in and you don't know what it stands for just ask.

Because of all the different things going on, it's also plausible some of you are not going to like all that I say. If you take personal exception to something... we can chat about that... but all my words today are my exact feelings and I dont intend to backtrack on any of it.

If you think I'm just entirely wrong from the ground up go make your own thread about it.

Anyone having a discussion in my mentions as I always say is welcome... but if you're rude to me on my own timeline, I owe you zero pleasantries.

Okay disclaimers done let's begin.

Starting at the broadest sense and moving my way into smaller and smaller groups...

The first rift you'll see is the one of disconnect between APs/HAPs [adoptive parents/hopeful adoptive parents] and adoptees.

This ones pretty blatant if you're paying attention. Adoptees by and large to not trust adopters, and we have fairly good reason for it.

The assumption that stranger AP should be automatically trusted because they believe themselves to be safe is skewed.

Adoptees on the whole are not going to find APs on the whole safe. Because far too many APs are not.

So, if you're an AP and adoptees dont seem to like you or trust you, maybe see if you're overstepping any boundaries that adoptees are forever talking about.

I'm sure there are APs that feel adoptees attack them for no reason. Maybe theres an occasion that that's actually true. My bias is showing now though, and a part of me will always question the veracity of the statement "for no reason".

In an ideal world adopters take the information adoptees are giving freely as a resource. A learning exercise. A practical application. A warning.

In the real world there's bad feelings and trauma and a power imbalance that is deeply felt.

For that rift, biased or not, I feel it's on adopters to do better.

It's also clear that adoptees as a group are not going to ever unanimously trust or want adopters as a group in their spaces. Don't expect that to happen and perhaps coexistence is possible.

Original family adoptee rift comes in when original family attempt to lessen the impact of an adoptee's story to center themselves in it. This never goes well.

Lots of adoptees have a healthy mistrust of misc original parents because they've been dismissed and insulted.

I'm sure that some original family can say they feel an adoptee did that to them too. Again my bias is clear.

Not everything is for everyone, and if someone feels you're unsafe and the power dynamic of relenquished or relenquisher turns into a round of oppression Olympics...

... well rifts happen. In the nicest way I can, not every relenquishment was coersion. Not every parent was part of a baby scoop. Not all adoptions are stolen babies... and when an adoptee is sharing that, to demand a new story is not okay.

There are rifts within the original family section of adoptionland too, between birth parents that actively push for more adoptions, and those that actively push against it.

Those that demand records stay sealed and adoptees stay secret and those demanding secrets die.

Now, into the groups I know the most about. Rifts within the adoptee community within adoptionland.

There are many, and this is where I might get messy.

First things first. There are adoptees that just plain don't like each other.

I have adoptees I just plain don't like. There are adoptees that just plain don't like me.

The only things we have in common are
1. Being adopted.
2. Mutual animosity.

The thing is, this is not a rift, for people to just dislike other people.

Personality clashes are a thing, and we are never all going to be friends. This is actually fine.

Now, personal animosity that bleeds over into disparaging of character... that's a problem.

Adoptee spaces are not big spaces. You're going to run into people you dont like. This is not a call for everyone to hug and become besties. That's a ludicrous suggestion.

However, if you only ever take exception to the words someone says because you *already* dont like them, and spend your energies tearing them down and making up stories to pit others against your enemy... you are causing a rift. You are also causing unnecessary drama.

Just acknowledge you dont like each other and then leave each other TF alone.

Last point on personal issues, I will still defend someone I do not like when they're right.

My dislike of someone doesn't automatically make them wrong.

Now theres also dislike for a *reason* which is a whole different thing.

There are several marginalized communities within adoption.

If you have a belief that is counter to the human rights of a marginalized individual, you're creating that rift.

Examples are adoptees that are racist, homophobic, transphobic, abusers, ableist, fatphobic, etc etc etc.

Not one person is required to build a bridge to you.

If you are any of those things, or a staunch defender of people that are any of those things, you are creating a rift within the community.

No community is required to keep people that harm others. I don't care if you're an adoptee or not.

Here I choose my words carefully. Because I want to be *crystal clear* here. White privelege is a real thing. I am a white person. Do not take the following statements to mean I do not have a modicum of white privelege. I absolutely do.

There are adoptees in community that are harmful. They create a toxicity. They are mean, spiteful, arrogant. They have to be the center of attention and the ultimate authority. If you cross them in any way, they will claim you're attacking their marginalized intersection.

To reiterate, it is inappropriate for me to use my privelege I do have to drown out someone that is marginalized. However, your marginalization, such as race, gender, sexuality... do not give you a free pass to be a terrible fucking person.

And if anyone that questions you about anything ever, is met with that they are oppressing you because you are marginalized... not only are you being garbage in general for this, you're creating lateral violence and you need to stop.

Another rift within community that people by and large dont want to admit is real... is between ICAs and DIAs. [Intercountry/international adoption and domestic infant adoption]

There are a lot of ICAs that feel like an afterthought for DIAs.

Plenty of ICAs that are present and accounted for to fight for all the rights for domestics, that hear crickets when its time to discuss international rights.

Plenty of DIAs that consider the birth certificate the be all end all of rights and completely disregard everything else, including the number of ICAs that dont even have an original birth certificate.

All adoptee rights are important. However if that's going to actually start to be true, DIAs are the ones that need to ramp it up here.

There is a disconnect I note often between transracial/interracial adoptees and same race adoptees as well.

This is assumed to be an ICA/DIA thing. It's not. Some icas are same race adoptees. Some domestic adoptees are TRAs.

Theres a level where shared experience no longer applies. And that level hits at race. I can see from my *adjacent view* that it's not the same. It's not the same. It's not the same.

Same race adoptees need to stop acting like it's the same. Its not the same.

Theres a rift that exists between "older" adoptees that have been in adoptionland for forever and "newer" adoptees that are fresh to the community.

Some of the older community (not age) are particularly unwelcoming to the newer adoptees.

Look. I get that you're war weary and embattled. That you've been fighting the fight for years and years and years.

But you were new once too. Stop being a dick.

There are likely some new people fresh to the community that have approached it half cocked and unwilling to listen to the people that have been around. Perhaps you feel disrespected. Perhaps though this is that personality clash thing again.

New people dont have to like the older ones. Older ones dont have to like the newer ones. But we all have our place. Accept the growing pains.

A rift that exists also is literally older adoptees that are particularly harsh to literally younger adoptees.

Someone can be 19 for example and have a very relevant concise and direct point of view. Or maybe they're finding their stride...

... either way they arent a 3 year old.

Unilaterally deciding they don't "belong" unless they prove themselves is pretty jacked up. Quit it.

Again maybe they're coming across childish or disrespectful to you. Maybe just leave them alone then. People can also be 80 and completely immature. So your age is not the decider of all levels of discourse.

Another rift that is usually condensed down to "happy adoptee" vs "angry adoptee" exists.

I think the two titles themselves are misleading and add to the problem.

Adoptees that share a traumatic story are not automatically angry. Although anger is entirely valid as well.

A happy adoptee is not automatically unwelcome.

However, theres happy and then theres toxic positivity.

A "happy" adoptee that is sharing specifically to counteract a "bad" narrative is problematic.

I dont see a single story from an adoptee told truthfully in their own way being dismissive or unwelcome, until it speaks in absolutes that do not leave room for others to have a story as well.

My adoption is this way and I am happy, however I can see that's not always the case. Vs "well my adoption was great why all the negativity"

I suppose a flip side would be, "my adoption wasnt like that, I'm glad yours was" vs "theres no way you're actually happy"

For anyone that has a truly great adoption I am glad for you. Really. I mean that.

I do however think that your narrative is absolutely already the accepted one, and you should work to expose all the situations that aren't like yours...

... instead of saying that the adoptees with issues relating to adoption are just bitter damaged irrelevant people that are ruining something you insist is flawless.

That's toxic.

Genuinely happy adoptees that are making space and caught in this crossfire... idk what to tell you, except point out the toxicity when you see it and keep trying to make space.

So many words. So many rifts. Adoptionland friends that made it this far ... did I forget any? I feel like I did.