That’s me holding up my original birth certificate. It shows I was a person who was born in Detroit with a different name and past than the one I lived after I was adopted. This document is no longer a state secret, despite Michigan’s efforts to keep it sealed in some storage area, and especially never in the hands of the human being who owns that document by birthright.
I have published a summary of my latest advocacy work to secure my original identity records and promote legal equality for Michigan adoptees:
- On July 18, 2016, I finally received a copy of my original birth certificate, after the state of Michigan had refused to give it to me when it had no legal rationale to keep it sealed and hidden from me.
- Read my detailed story on my struggle with the state of Michigan, ending with state vital records officials giving me my original record of birth.
- See a detailed timeline and a copy of my requests to the state for my original record and the state’s responses on this page.
- See my press release that I sent on July 23, 2016, with a link to my original birth record, to Michigan and Pacific Northwest media why this protracted battle of identity records is a major public policy issue of vital interest to those who work to promote equality and fair treatment under the law.
- Review my “key facts” page on my request for what is mine by birthright: my original birth certificate. My goal is to ensure that this victory supports others who suffer from the state’s discriminatory legal practices that deny adoptees equal rights.
- Explore my forensic analysis of email records that shows how state public records officials worked to deny me my birth certificate while expressing a culture of paranoia and confusion how the state’s poorly worded adoption statutes should be handled. I was labeled “the problem” and tagged in their system because I made a request for my original birth record.
- Review the State of Michigan’s replies to questions about its records-keeping practices that is has almost no tracking system to monitor adoptee records request or even the number of adoptees born in the state who are also subject to discrimination by the state’s adoption statutes.
- Read a detailed summary of my visit to Lansing, Michigan, in June 2018 to advocate for changing Michigan’s discriminatory adoption laws to restore equal rights to all Michigan adult adoptees re access their original records of birth.
- Listen to my June 11, 2018 interview and watch my video with Stateside, Michigan public radio’s news magazine, where I talk about my newly published memoir and Michigan’s adoption laws that deny Michigan born adoptees equal access to their birth records.
- Throughout 2023 I published essays focussed on promoting legislative reform in Michigan. During the year, I repeatedly focussed on the failures of Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer to acknowledge the legal injustice to tens of thousands of Michigan-born adoptees, like myself and my sister, who is adopted like me, and to share even a single statement she was committed to restoring basic human rights to many. You can find my videos and blog posts on the navigation menu using the “Archive” feature and then search by month and the year 2023.
- In February 2024 I provided written testimony supporting two reforms bills that were upended by a coalition of right and left of center groups (the Michigan Catholic Conference, an advocacy group affiliated with the Catholic Church, a historic promoter of massive family separation efforts at its Catholic Charity-run maternity homes, and Right to Life Michigan, along with ACLU of Michigan). The coalition helped to scuttle what could have been lasting legislative reform to restore legal rights to tens of thousands of Michigan born adoptees, like myself and my adoptive sibling. As part of my advocacy efforts I helped line up interviews by the “Stateside” radio show on Michigan Public Radio for myself and also for three members of the Michigan group (Michigan Adoptee Rights Coalition) who had been working to craft and pass bipartisan legislative reform. You can catch the full episode exploring the harm of Michigan’s adoption secrecy system that aired in March 2024.
- Between August and November 2024, I again was denied copies of my original birth certificate, in violation of state law and a court order, by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. I documented these illegal actions with videos and a chronology of events that highlight how the state health agency breaks laws and even sends adulterated copies of original birth certificates in violation of a court order. This is grounds for an audit at the very least, and I believe grounds for firing staff for ignoring courts and court orders. The agency continues to lie to adoptees in its communications about laws it is not following regarding the release of original birth records of adoptees.
I have moved links to all my essays on adoption and adoptees. I will continue to update that page as I publish more or my work.
(Last updated June 2, 2025.)