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janinebaer.bsky.social
Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
@janinebaer.bsky.social
1.4K followers 620 following 1.9K posts
An #adoptee, my book "Growing in the Dark" explains who was behind the sealing of adoption records and the harm done by these laws. https://www.xlibris.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/572366-growing-in-the-dark
🕊️ "Never again" means never again for anyone.
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janinebaer.bsky.social
"...and her sense of justice. Her passion and her integrity earned her the admiration of all."

In 1986 she wrote this powerful letter, disagreeing with a Reform rabbi who had advised that there was no need for adoptees to know their original parents. Sally's letter is attached here in 2 parts:
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1986 letter to "Reform Judaism" newsletter by Sally Brown, part 1: Titled "Adoption Miasma." "Dear Editor: "In 'Jewish Q&A' (Spring 1986) Rabbi Zlotowitz condones and perpetuates the concept of adoption as a complete and irrevocable separation from the birth family. I respectfully request that the rabbi and his colleagues review the current studies of the lifelong influences of adoption on adopted persons, adoptive parents and relinquishing parents, and then, with this new insight, return to the precedents related to Torah before formulating an official Reform stance on this sensitive issue. "The sealing of adoption records is a comparatively recent legal practice, beginning in the mid 1930s. Because of the many thousands of adult adopted persons in search of their natural families, all state legislatures are being besieged with requests to re-examine and to revise those laws that deny approximately 2.5% of our population their original birth certificates. Reunification procedures are being developed by many states and by agencies in response to this massive pressure from those people who need answers to the questions created by closed adoption records. "Rabbi Zlotowitz contends that the natural parent has a right to anonymity. What civilization, what religious body could justify the separation of child from mother on the grounds that she is entitled to anonymity? [continued in part 2...] [continuation of letter to the editor by Sally Brown, 1986] "The papers I signed in 1950 relinquishing my son for adoption made no such promise to me. And even if anonymity were to have been inferred by the secrecy of the procedure, the concept of anonymity from my son was never addressed. The rabbi is incorrect, also, in his statement on birthparents that 'By giving up their child for adoption... They are saying, in effect, that they want no further contact with the child.' "Many birthparents, myself included, have made themselves available to the children they once gave up. Without the support of accepted social tradition or knowledgeable clergy, we intuitively reach out to other adoptive parents, parents who have relinquished, and adopted persons for aid in establishing and developing these new relationships. An enlightened and empathetic rabbinate would be able to serve the emotional and spiritual needs of those Jews who are part of the adoption triangle, better than a rabbinate whose views are stagnating in the adoption miasma of the 1930s." Sally Brown Livermore, CA
November 14, 2025 at 3:09 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
Here's a little history about how adoption agencies made birthmothers anonymous: a 1936 quote by an agency worker who says secrecy was the birthmother's idea and her name is unknown. This was a script (of lies) to tell adoptees.
— "Growing in the Dark: Adoption Secrecy & Its Consequences," p. 68
The top of page 68, "Growing in the Dark: Adoption Secrecy and Its Consequences" (2004). The first paragraph quotes a 1936 book, "The Adopted Child" by Eleanor Gallagher, who was an adoption agency volunteer. This book from the early years of sealed records tells adoptive parents anticipated that an adoptee would asks about their birth parents but they would be told there was no information. "Furthermore, at this solemn moment in her life, she decided that secrecy was best for you. We, in whose charge you were temporarily placed, have made that secrecy inviolable, your loving adoptive parents have accepted the situation, whether they originally wanted to or not, and now you, too, can be a fact-facer by realizing that further details about your origin simply are not on record anywhere." Thus, following the agency's script, the reason behind lifelong secrecy became the birthmother's wishes; her voice was made to speak the agency's philosophy while her own voice was guaranteed never to be heard. "The Adopted Child" revealed that an adoption agency might choose to control the lifelong experience of adoptees—allegedly on behalf of birthmothers—in its decision to withhold information. — Janine Baer, author of "Growing in the Dark"
November 11, 2025 at 12:14 AM
janinebaer.bsky.social
I was hoping to remind parents of trick-or-treaters to vote Yes on 50 in California by taping this sign to my front door. However, most of the adults waited away from the door so the sign may not have reached its target audience. 🎃
A flyer taped to a door reads "Stop Trump from rigging elections, Vote Yes on Prop 50 November 4" in English and Spanish, in orange letters on a black background. It's for Halloween.
November 1, 2025 at 3:22 AM
janinebaer.bsky.social
Meanwhile, I was trying to clean out the junk I've saved in my garage and came across this booklet about DSA, from the 1980s about the group's founding.

I like the founders' commitment to eradicate antisemitism in all its forms. However, at this rate, I will never clean my garage.

2/2
Black text on a brown background reads: "The socialist society we seek to create is also one that does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. It would value sexuality and all sexual relationships—gay, lesbian, heterosexual—that are based on mutual respect and the enhancement of human dignity. Racism and sexism are not the only forms of oppression that both predate capitalism and are continually transformed by it. Anti-semitism, for example, cannot be reduced to a dynamic of racial, class or religious oppressions. It occurs in a myriad of forms, and a socialist society must eradicate all of them." This booklet, though undated, also mentions the merger of two groups that created DSA in 1982, so I assume it is from around 1982.
October 28, 2025 at 1:07 AM
janinebaer.bsky.social
Today I voted YES on 50. If you are a Californian you can vote by Nov 4 to temporarily counteract what Republicans did in Texas.

"Prop 50 makes sure the 2026 mid-terms are conducted on a level playing field without an unfair advantage for Republicans." 🌁

More info at cadem.org/yes-on-propo...
Photo of a round sticker that says "I Voted!" in three languages (English, Spanish and Chinese) in white lettering on a dark blue background. A U.S. flag is in the center. This sticker was mailed to voters in California.
October 11, 2025 at 7:13 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
Rosie the Riveter National Historical Park in Richmond, CA, was the site of the 109th anniversary celebration of our National Park Service. Located on SF bay, it's where people from all over the US built 747 ships at the Kaiser shipyards from 1941-45 to defeat fascism. 🌊
On August 25, 2025, after 12 noon, a group of supporters of Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, are shown standing in front of the park's visitors center holding up letters that spell out "Protect Our Parks" on a sunny day. This took place at the end of a public event in support of telling the true, diverse, history of the United States in our National Parks, as Rosie the Riveter National Historical Park does. Behind the people holding the black-and-white sign is a one-story brick building that houses the visitors center. A photo of the San Francisco skyline as seen from the area next to Rosie the Riveter WWII Homefront National Historical Park in Richmond, California on August 25, 2025. This is the location where hundreds of Liberty ships were built between 1941 and 1945. https://www.nps.gov/rori/learn/historyculture/what-is-the-wwii-home-front.htm
August 26, 2025 at 2:30 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
I was there too. After the speakers, a group held up this sign that reads "PROTECT OUR PARKS." Our history and community are diverse in all ways and we are proud of Richmond's role in winning the war against fascism. 🌊
On August 25, 2025, after 12 noon, a group of supporters of Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, are shown standing in front of the park's visitors center holding up letters that spell out "Protect Our Parks." This took place at the end of a public event in support of telling the true, diverse, history of the United States in our National Parks, as Rosie the Riveter National Historical Park does. The visitors center located behind the people holding the black-and-white sign is a long, one-story brick building. Today was a sunny day by the bay.
August 26, 2025 at 1:09 AM
janinebaer.bsky.social
✏️ Years ago I did freelance proofreading of "News from Native California" and other projects of #Heyday Books. When I started the "Chain of Life" newsletter about the politics of adoption, I wrote to Malcolm. Here is his reply. It's from Issue 5, p 2: digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/chainoflife/...
🥚
A photo of a photocopy of the adoption newsletter "Chain of Life" reads: "November 1, 1989 "Dear Janine: "A belated reply to your letter of September 22, in your 'other' and rather wonderful role [as editor of Chain of Life]. I have heard many stories of adopted kids, when adults, undertaking the quest for their biological parents, and have always been very touched by it. There are few dramas in life as gripping as this. "I'll try to publish the letter in the next issue of News [from Native California]. [I'd forwarded a letter I received from a Native Canadian group seeing their children who were adopted by U.S. families; see Issue 4]. Thanks for keeping in touch. Warmest regards, Malcolm Margolin, Publisher News from Native California P.O. Box 9145, Berkeley, CA 94709
August 22, 2025 at 6:02 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
In Dec. 2024, Joe Biden was seen buying the book by Rashid Khalidi about Palestinian history. Khalidi said it was "four years too late."

Near the end, Khalidi describes the problem: "...there are now two peoples in Palestine, irrespective of how they came into being..."
forward.com/opinion/6789...
The last paragraph on page 246 of "The Hundred Years' War on Palestine" by Rashid Khalidi: "While the fundamentally colonial nature of the Palestinian-Israel encounter must be acknowledged, there are now two peoples in Palestine, irrespective of how they came into being, and the conflict between them cannot be resolved as long as the national existence of each is denied by the other. Their mutual acceptance can only be based on complete equality of rights, including national rights, notwithstanding the crucial historical differences between the two. There is no other possible sustainable solution, barring the unthinkable notion of one people's extermination or expulsion by the other. Overcoming the resistance of those who benefit from the status quo, in order to ensure equal rights for... [continued on page 247] ...all in this small country between the Jordan River and the sea—this is a test of the political ingenuity of all concerned. Reducing the extensive sustained external support for the discriminatory and deeply unequal status quo would certainly smooth the path ahead." — Rashid Khalidi, "The Hundred Years' War on Palestine," 2020, page 247
August 13, 2025 at 12:35 AM
janinebaer.bsky.social
Walking in Berkeley today I noticed this chalk message on the sidewalk. 🌿

"Gaza kids deserve 2B free"
Photo of a concrete sidewalk in North Berkeley (Vine Street) with colorful words in chalk that read "GAZA KIDS DESERVE 2B FREE"
August 7, 2025 at 7:27 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
34 years ago ⌛ I wrote about the difficulty adoptees have obtaining our family medical history and noted that staying healthy presents many obstacles in a country without universal health insurance.

The 1991 article can be downloaded in Issue 14: digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/chainoflife/...
🥚
This is an image of the text of the first two paragraphs in the July/August 1991 issue of Chain of Life, a feminist adoption reform newsletter. The article title is "Four Impossible Steps to Better Health" with the phrase "Search and the Healthy Adoptee" above it, written by Janine Baer. The opening paragraph explains that knowing family medical history is a problem for adoptees in closed adoptions. The second paragraph brings in a popular culture, mentioning the late comic Gilda Radner, who had died in 1989 of ovarian cancer. It summarizes an Oakland Tribune article that suggested her death might have been prevented if she had known more about her family medical history. (Radner was not an adoptee.) More text from page 1, Issue 14, of the Chain of Life newsletter from 34 years ago (July/August 1991) addressing adopted people about obtaining family health information. "Ignorance is bliss only temporarily, until the onset of an unexpected illness." It mentions that people in the U.S. lack universal health insurance, another barrier to good health, and quotes a 1989 poll that found 89% thought the U.S. health care system needed "fundamental change or rebuilding." These paragraphs on page 2 of the newsletter describe a poll about comparative views of health care systems in Great Britain, Canada, and the U.S. The conclusion of the article in the last paragraph describes the challenges of staying healthy in the United States in 1991, especially for adoptees who must try to obtain family health history despite closed records. It reads: "Four Impossible Steps to Good Health "In the end, adoptees are faced with a series of problems in the process of optimizing their health, some they share with other Americans and some that are unique to adoptees. Aside from inheriting healthy genes and crossing their fingers, what can adoptees do to stay healthy? First, find your relatives, both birth mother and birth father, despite closed records — and perhaps despite your birth mother's reluctance to name your birth father. Second, hope that your extended birth family members on both sides talk to one another, and also are open about ther illnesses. Third, hope your birth relatives will be willing to share this information with you. And fourth — whether or not your search is successful — be sure to obtain good medical insurance coverage."
July 27, 2025 at 10:08 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
📚 In "Growing in the Dark: Adoption Secrecy and Its Consequences" I explain the sealing of adoptee birth certificates in California—when and how legislation was passed in the middle of the Great Depression—then I list the ongoing effects of this now 90-year-old law.

From the Table of Contents:
A page from the Table of Contents of "Growing in the Dark: Adoption Secrecy and Its Consequences" by Janine Baer (2004) listing the consequences of sealed records. 1. Criminal baby selling was less likely to be discovered (p. 81) 2. Secrets could be kept in the adoptive family (p. 90) 3. Birthparents' invisibility was legislated (p. 91) 4. Psychologists speculated about adoptees' mental health while adoptees could not learn their genetic family's medical history (p. 93) 5. Searching for relatives was done legally and illegally (p. 100) - Challenges to secrecy (p. 102) - Opening records in Oregon (p. 104) - Conclusion and the future (p. 106) - Postscript (p. 109) - Bibliography (p. 111) Endnotes (p. 133)
July 26, 2025 at 10:37 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
"Here is love born of pain, of the past century’s most horrific crime, love of one’s own spread outward into love of another.” — Omar El Akkad, p. 144
Photo of orange library book cover, titled "One Day, Everyrone Will Have Always Been Against This" by Omar El Akkad (2025)
July 17, 2025 at 12:16 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
Flashback ⚡ : This is how I remember MacArthur Park. In this photo I'm about 3 years old, feeding pigeons there with my dad* in 1953.

* My adoptive dad. 🥚
This is a black-and-white photo of me at about 3 years old, feeding pigeons in MacArthur Park, Los Angeles, with my dad* in 1953. Named for General Douglas MacArthur after the war, it was called Westlake Park before the war. There is a sign behind us that says "No Swimming Allowed in Lake." This is how I remember MacArthur Park.
July 17, 2025 at 1:20 AM
janinebaer.bsky.social
MacArthur Park, 7 decades ago:
A black-and-white photo of a little girl feeding pigeons in MacArthur Park, Los Angeles, with her father next to her (smoking a cigar), 1953
July 7, 2025 at 11:28 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
A flashback to MacArthur Park, circa 1953. That's me at about 3 years old with my dad. 🌴
MacArthur Park, Los Angeles, 1953: A black-and-white photo of a girl ~ 3 years old, with dark brown pony tails, sitting on the ground in a park feeding pigeons. Her dad is next to her, wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigar. Beyind them is a lake with a sign that says "No Swimming Allowed in the Lake."
July 7, 2025 at 8:55 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
This is the first of four images of the short article I wrote for the Chain of Life newsletter's May/June 1989 issue. They are complete text of my summary of a lecture given by geneticist Dr. Mary-Claire King at the University of California at Berkeley where she was then a professor. The title of the article is "Argentinian Grandmothers Gain Custody of Kidnapped Grandchildren With Help of Genetic Tests." Summary: Democracy was restored in Argentina in 1983. The Grandmothers had protested the disappearance of their children during the dictatorship and "have been trying to identify and gain custody of their grandchildren who were stolen..." King, the geneticist, "has been successful in matching children with their biological families through the use of blood tests and statistical methods..." I [Janine Baer] wrote, "As someone concerned about human rights and an adoptee, I was fascinated to hear Professor King describe the work she has done in Argentina at a lecture at UC Berkeley in April" [1989]. This segment of the article gives details of the DNA test and then discusses "arguments used by psychologists to explain why the children should be returned to their grandparents..." We don't know what they will remember; kidnapping is a crime; and the adopted children would eventually learn "that the parents with whom they are living were involved in the murders of the birthparents..." In Argentina post-dictatorship, only two crimes could still be prosecuted: kidnapping and rape. "Meanwhile the Grandmothers' offices have enlarged, they are using personal computers to store information about missing relatives, and they are providing for future grandchildren to be able to find their birth heritage by storing family 'pedigree' information in the computers in case the grandmothers die before they are found." The bottom of the image of this article includes a hand-drawn chain and the title "Chain of Life: An Adoption Reform Newsletter."
July 4, 2025 at 5:28 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
Shabbat Shalom on Pride weekend. 🌈
Communal Prayer of Remembrance from prayerbook of Congregation Sha'ar Zahav in San Francisco, read tonight on Pride Shabbat. "O God, remember today those members of our family who were martyred in years past because of their sexual or gender identity: those murdered by fanatics in the Middle Ages, those who perished in the Holocaust, and those struck down in our own cities, in our own time. Remember also those who took their own lives, driven to despair by a world that hated them. And in mercy remember those who lived lives of loneliness, repressing their true nature and refraining from sharing their love with one another. O God, watch over the souls of tehse beloved ones: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and help us bring an end to hate and oppression of every kind." (page 491 https://shaarzahav.org/our-siddur/)
June 28, 2025 at 4:18 AM
janinebaer.bsky.social
🥚 Here's a time machine look at a TV portrayal of adoptee search from Issue 17 of the Chain of Life newsletter (1992) I described two television serials I watched that had adoption stories; "Beverly Hills 90210" was one. The rest can be found at digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/chainoflife/...
Two paragraphs from the January/February 1992 adoption newsletter "Chain of Life" describing an episode from the high school TV drama "Beverly Hills 90210." In the Dec. 12, 1991 episode, the character Steve who is 17 years old learns he is adopted and immediately searches for his family. The two paragraphs in this image say that "Steve got in a few good adoptee comments about feeling like an 'ornament' in his mother's life; in a dream sequence, reference is made to adoptees feeling as if they were bought in a store." Also, another teenage character, Dylan, who had been abandoned by his parents, tells audiences that "real" parents are those who raise you, which I called "predictable."
June 27, 2025 at 8:48 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
The 26-page report feels personal because my (birth) mother was 19 and living in Vancouver with her sister when she conceived me. She "disappeared" from Canada to Los Angeles where I was born. This short excerpt describes "Unmarried Mothers — A Lifetime of Suffering."
🥚
From page 3 of a Canadian report about post WWII adoptions. Written in 2018, the text reads: "Unmarried Mothers — A Lifetime of Suffering "Emotions were still raw and the trauma was still evident when mothers bravely told their stories of heartbreak, humiliation, shame and longing; stories that date back to up to 55 years. Committee members heard the tragic accounts of women who, at the most vulnerable points in their young lives, were abandoned by family, banished from society, and mistreated during pregnancy and labour. The women were then dispatched without regard and with the sole instruction to never say a word about the babies they had just surrendered for adoption."
June 20, 2025 at 3:32 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
Here is the historical note that I always think of when I read about late discovery #adoptees. Amazingly, the ability to keep adoption secret was part of the rationale for sealing birth records. I found this when I was researching my book "Growing in the Dark: Adoption Secrecy and Its Consequences."
From the "Sacramento Bee" newspaper, January 22, 1935. This short news items provides a rationale for the bill to block adopted people in California from obtaining their own birth certificates. Without this new law, it says, adoptive parents could not stop strangers from telling the child he or she was adopted. In other words, the ability to keep the adoption secret from the child was part of the motivation for sealing adoptee birth certificates. The text reads: "Bill to Keep Adoptions Secret Is Introduced "Assemblyman Charles W. Fisher of Alameda County introduced two bills yesterday which would require all adoption records be filed with the state department of vital statistics and would place the records on a secret file. "Fisher said there have been cases in Southern California where unscrupulous persons have obtained access to the adoption records and blackmailed the adopted parents by threatening to tell the child it was adopted." — Legislative Notes, January 22, 1935
June 15, 2025 at 3:41 AM
janinebaer.bsky.social
🌈 Fifty years ago, gay people were criminals in California. In 1975 the state passed a bill, authored by Willie Brown, that changed this law. Today a #Pride flag can be seen in front of a high school in the Bay Area, a reminder of how much has changed — and we are not going back. 🌁
Three flags on a flagpole: U.S., California, and Pride flags, San Francisco Bay Area. Blue sky with clouds.
June 9, 2025 at 10:33 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
Here's the next page that continues the story.

I recommend this book, "The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow," to readers. I was able to borrow a copy from my county library system. 📚
(p. 123 in Martin, continued from previousi page) "...he obtained a court order to have the Sisters of Charity show cause as to why they refused to supply him with his records. In July 1902, after years of frustration in his search, King entered the Foundling compound and shot two sisters, both in the arm and one in the torso, before shooting himself. All survived. At arraignment, King told the judge, "This thing preys on my mind, day and night. I cannot work and I cannot sleep; I who thought so much of the Justice of God. All I want is my rights. The law would not help me, and I had to take the law into my own hands."
June 2, 2025 at 11:32 PM
janinebaer.bsky.social
The Sisters of Charity argued against opening records of foundlings to those who came back to ask for them by citing his violence.

Here is part of that story from "The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood," page 121: +
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Excerpts from page 121 of "The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood" by Kristen Martin (2025): "Both representatives of the Foundling and representatives of the state and city governments did not consider that people have rights to self-knowledge. In fact, in a 1903 letter to the city comptroller arguing for the necessity of secrecy, a representative of the Foundling, stoking fear about making birth parents' information public, references a case where a man asked to see his records. 'Perhaps you will recall the case of one, King, who recently obtained much publicity by going ot the Foundling Hospital and demanding to see the books of the institution concerning himself.... The sisters refused to give him the knowledge he sought, and after visits he shot two of them.... King's reiterated cry was that he had a right to know who his parents were... [and implied he wanted an inheritance].' ...contemporaneous accounts in the New York Times paint a different picture..."
June 2, 2025 at 1:06 AM
janinebaer.bsky.social
Here's what T.J. Anthony said at a 1989 presentation on "Lesbian and Gay Families: Issues in Adoption and Donor Insemination." This was in the first newsletter I published to bring adoption issues from the adoptee and first mother perspective to the queer community. 🧾
T.J. Anthony, a gay man, told the audience at a 1989 workshop on Lesbian and Gay Families in Oakland, California, about his experiences as a former foster child. "It's easier being openly gay in Orange County [a conservative county in California] than talking about yourself as a foster kid," he said. He and his five sisters were removed from their mother's custody after she forged checks to pay bill after their father abandoned thefamily. T.J. had five sisters who were all adopted out. He refused to be adopted so lived in an orphanage and 19 foster homes until he was found by his sister at 16. T.J. was white but didn't know his ethnicity. "When asked, T.J. would give the ethnic group of his current foster family as his own. This was not very credible when T.J., who is white, would tell people he was black." He later learned his true ethnicity was Greek. T.J. feared he would not be able to meet his sisters and mother again if he were adopted. This image shows the first of two parts of an excerpt from an article published in the Chain of Life newsletter, May/June 1989. The four-page newsletter can be found as a PDF by downloading "Issue 1" https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/chainoflife/index.html Part 2 of the story of T.J. Anthony's experiences in foster care, as told at a workshop in Oakland, California, in 1989. "When T.J. Anthony was 16 his wish came true: his oldest sister found him and reunited the family." Since he was the only child not adopted, T.J. was then his mother's only legal child. "Anthony concluded that closed adoption is a cruel and violent act.... "Foster and adoptive kids, said Anthony, are told to be grateful. But he is not grateful for the lies, deceit, dishonesty, physical abuse, 62 social workers, and a judge who stole kids from their mother.... "He is grateful for his birth mother, for PACER [Post Adoption Center for Education and Research] and for new forms of parenting that respect a child's humanity. Parents, he said, should give their children two things: truth and love." The entire newsletter can be found by downloading Issue 1 as a PDF from https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/chainoflife/index.html.
May 12, 2025 at 8:59 PM