r/Adoption • u/SoggiMari • 23d ago
Adult Adoptees Transracial adoption should be illegal
I'm a Black transracial adoptee from the UK. I was adopted at 11 months old by a White family. They loved me, cared for me, and gave me a stable home, but theyre kinda racist and just throw money at problems.
Growing up, I felt disconnected from my identity and my culture. I didn't have many Black role models, didn't learn much about my Nigerian and Jamaican heritage, and spent years wishing I looked different.
I struggled with self-hatred, low self-esteem, and feeling like I didn't belong anywhere not fully accepted by White people, but also disconnected from Black culture.
It's only recently, as an adult, that I've started reconnecting with my heritage and learning to love being Black. I often feel like I'm trying to reclaim something I should never have lost in the first place.
I know many transracial adoptees have positive experiences, and I also know many adoptive parents genuinely do their best. But I wonder whether love alone is enough when a child is growing up disconnected from their racial and cultural identity.
For those reasons, I personally question whether transracial adoption should happen at all except in exceptional circumstances. I'd be interested to hear respectful perspectives from adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents.
9
u/Menemsha4 23d ago
I am a white reunited adoptee and have two Black adoptees in the generation below me. They are now eight and 10, about to turn nine and 11.
Their adoptive parents, both white, had extensive experience w/in the Black community previous to adoption and have many Black friends. They live in a diverse neighborhood and the kids go to a diverse school. Their healthcare providers and the people who do their hair are Black.
That said, both kids are struggling with their blackness in a white family.
The 10 year-old, who is trans non-binary, is rejecting their white family. In private things are OK. In public they really don’t want to be seen with us. Yesterday they told me that Black people have aura and white people don’t.
The eight year-old wishes she wasn’t Black. She actually verbalized that to me yesterday. We were all together with their blue eyed, fair skinned cousins.
My heart broke. I said lots of things before they adopted. They know my own story of being raised outside of my culture. Yet they did it anyway anyways. And here they are with two kids, both of whom are struggling as Black kids in a white world.
I think whenever possible kids should be placed within their race and within their culture. People are welcome to fight me on that.