'Like adoptive parents, who want to be accepted as being the same as biological parents'

I am an adoptive parent. I don't pretend to my children that I gave birth to them, they know they have their 'first' parents (as we put it). I disagree with changing birth certificates as well, I think they should be left unchanged. We have a court order to state we are the children's legal parents. There's no need to change their biological reality in their birth certificates either.

This is not a good analogous at all. I am my children's mother, in the sense that I am raising them and doing what other mother's do post birth. However, I will never be my children's biological mother. I would never pretend to be either. (I am also real!)

There are no legal documents that represent that adoptive parents are the biological parents.

I’ve never know any adoptive family where the parents or children claim this.

Adoptive families don’t claim that the whole world of children and families centres them and their needs and wishes.

Adoption isn’t a “ legal fiction “. Adopters ARE the legal parents of the child.

It’s nothing to do with “ real “ and “ unreal “ or fake parents.

Adoption doesn’t “ erase reality “ as a PP suggested. That sounds more like a Disney film than contemporary adoption in most western counties.

I don't know any adoptive parents who are calling for their child's birth cert to be changed to state that they are the biological parents, nor do I know any adoptive parents who deny that their children are adopted, or who object to anyone else talking about conception or birth, or who try to make other people change their language to pretend that adoption doesn't exist.

I wish my children weren't adopted - because that would mean they could have safely stayed with their birth families, that they might not have the feelings of rejection they have etc. But me pretending they weren't wouldn't have any effect on the reality that they are.

The comparison with adoption and trans would perhaps be valid if new "transition certs" were issued rather than birth certs being altered, and also if transpeople stopped insisting that changing their "gender" meant that they were biologically the opposite sex to their sex at birth, and if they stopped insisting everyone else pretend there is no such thing as biological sex.

Adoption should never rewrite history. My children's adoption is part of their history.

Wait so someone can suddenly self identify as a parent, and take whichever child they identify off the streets? Adoption is a lot simpler than I thought...

None of the adoptive families I know (a lot) do either.

Of course! That is obviously also true.

I might start doing that Gncq. See if I can get away with it!

The reason adoptive parents become legal parents is not for their own validation but because the children need adult/s to exercise parental responsibility for them and provide permanence.

It's completely not the same as men wanting to be legally recognised as women. Nobody benefits from that other than the individual.

But adopters don't get post modern and declare biological inheritance a social construct.

The word parent is both a noun and a verb. One is a parent and one parents. You can be a parent by virtue of having contributed a gamete to the creation of a human being, but you are also a parent if you have the legal and social responsibility of a parent and you do the work of being a parent.

The word woman is a noun and nothing else. You are a woman but you don't womans. You don't go around womaning all over the place.

I presume adoptive parents like mycatismadeofstringcheese (thanks for sharing your story) don't butt into all conversations about biological parents by saying "I'm a parent because intersex conditions exist so nerr" either.

I think there's just a lack of understanding of the difference between things that are different and things that are unequal.
Adoptive parents raising a child are as equally valid as biological parents raising their child, without the facts surrounding that and the experiences being identical.
Transwomen are as equally valid as women, but the facts surrounding that and the experiences of both aren't identical. Transwomen aren't actually women and they don't need to be to be recognised as such or treated as such to be valued equally.
Different does not always mean unequal.

If the writer of the piece was trying to argue that no one insists adoptive parents are actually the biological parents and that they gave birth and legal documents should be amended to reflect that, and that ignoring the biological reality is actually harmful, yet they are still recognised and valued for what they are I could get behind that as a way to view transwomen.
Live as you want and call yourself what you want but don't twist reality and legal recognition of reality to suit that.

Adoptive parents arent pretending they are biologically related to their children in the way extreme trans people insist we pretend they are biologically the opposite sex.

Also, adoptive parents do actually have children, they are actually parenting these children, and are experiencing the life of a parent in a way almost identical to bio parents (obviously not all parent experiences are the same but they all fall under the category of parent's experiences).

Unlike transwomen (and same but change the sex for transmen) who aren't actually women, nor do they have any idea what it's like to be a woman, and who are not experiencing life in any way similar to any women.

We don’t try to get breastfeeding support services or birth centres closed down because they are excluding adoptive parents.

Nor are we claiming sole right to use the word parent, all others are cis-parents. Anyone who objects should be cancelled.

To woman Was meant to be in italics as I couldn't find quotation marks

An adoptive parent may not be the biological parent but they are the person who parents the child and thus fulfills the role of the child's parent.
To equate transwomen with women you would have to accept that there was a way to **^^women. Good luck with trying to define that!

That seems to be deliberately provocative.

Adoptive parents know how their child came to their family. Haven't read about a lobby of adoptive parents saying ''we are the biological parents, if you disagree that's cis parent privilege''.

I’m an adoptive parent and it is horseshit.

I think we’re accepted as parents because we are actually parenting. Bedtimes, homework, eating vegetables. It’s not about our identity, it’s about what we actually do.

I go to a mothers’ support group.
When the conversation invariably turns to pregnancy and birth, I listen to people’s stories. I don’t start getting upset and saying that they are exclusionary that they are “adoptionphobes” because “not all mothers give birth”. When they ask about my birth story I tell them I don’t have one but happy to tell them about the day I first met DD.

We often talk about the birth family with DD, always kindly and with love. We don’t try to write them out of existence. We’re very clear DD has two mums and two dads. There’s no pretence that we are her biological parents.

OK we don’t tell everyone (ie random strangers in the street) but we’re open about it with the people that we know. Friends, Colleagues, school teachers, doctors. If a doctor asks about her family health history, I don’t give mine as it’s not relevant.

And I agree with others it takes ages to get approved. They want to be sure you’re committed, resilient and understand the difference and implications of adopting. You don’t just change your profile description to parent on twitter and get handed a child!

It's not hard to find online the accounts of adult adoptees who feel they suffered emotional harm and have a lot of anger about the erasure of their reality and their biological parents by those who wanted to be positive about their adoption and the 'realness' of their adoptive parents.

Those bonds, the reality, people's truth and stories and feelings matter. Adoption is a complicated walk along a tightrope of it all, but even things like 'gotcha' celebration days now are more recognised as being for the adoptive parents a wonderful joyful anniversary of receiving their beloved child - and for the child, a trauma anniversary of leaving family/loved foster families/going to people they didn't know well/ a legal end to their contact with their biological family.

If you want to draw the TW parallel - it's the same issues there that erasure can be a joyful thing for one group, and at the same time it can be trauma and damage to the other. Everybody's needs and truths matter.

Parents are the people who nurse you through the worst illnesses possible, both physical and mental, who change nappies, who spend time educating their kids and supporting them, who put their kids first.
Nothing to do with biology.

Adoptive parents are not the same as biological parents in all respects. The genetic code is different. The experience of becoming a parent is different. Adoptive children may face different challenges to biological children.

Transwomen are not the same as women in all respects.
The genetic code is different. The experience of becoming a woman is different. Women face different challenges.

Where adoptive parents and biological parents are exactly the same is that they are both parents with the same duties of love and responsibility towards their children. This is the important fact for children - they need to know that their parents and their family is just as valued and strong as any other family. They don't need to be told that there are no material differences in the real world - they don't get lied to and told they are biologically the children of their adoptive parents.

Who are the adoptive children in the TRA analogy? Oh yes, the TRAs themselves who need every fact massaged to meet their narcissistic need.

I'm not an adoptive parent myself but my children are donor conceived so I'm very keen on messages about all family types being legitimate. I don't tell the children, however, that no one has a father living in their house to make the fact that they don't have a father living in their house more palatable. They know the truth - our setup is different and it's not always ideal. My job as a parent is to help them live with the truths that make up our lives.

It's widely accepted now that lying to a child about the fact that they were adopted and not telling them that their parents are not their biological parents is not in the best interests of the child and is a big no no. So the argument is a non-starter in the first place.