[spitzlvr]

What exactly is a birth cert? Non-Adoptees would say it records all the official information of your birth. Adoptees know better. Birth Certs can be changed.

Up until recently I was OK with my BC. I mean, I have found my bparents, and I know the real info.

I thought of my bc as a useful legal document showing that I am my parents daughter.

Now, on the radio I heard a discussion of transexuals wanting/getting amended birth certificates. Now, this is NOT a debate on if they should get new ones or not, it is just something that started me thinking.

I mean, if I do a legal name change (like when I got married) I do not change my BC. I was not born with my married name. I can kinda justify the adoptee BC because it is USUALLY a child, and this gives them a concrete connection with their parents.

But a transexual? Being a female for 40 years, then having the BC changed to say male? For some reason, this upsets me. Not because of their changing it per se, but becuase it feels like you can change it to say anything.

As an adult I can have an adult adoption, and get a new bc today. At 39 years old, I can change my bc.

OK, there is no point to this post. I am rambling.

This is just making me sad - I feel like the BC is a fraud.

It doesn't help that my FIL passed away with his son present at 11:30 at night, but the nurses didn't respond the the room til 12:05, and now FIL death cert is, as far as we are concerned, WRONG. It says he passed on Sunday. He didn't. He passed on Saturday.

Are any legal documents actually true???

[healingfeeling]

good vent spitzlvr..........i agree with you that not everything should be so easy to change on a legal document (such as your born gender!)....however its definitely not worth getting frustrated over because we'll only drive ourselves nuts.....a false time on a death certificate, that would be hard to swallow.

[bssrkcla]

I think this rambling/question deals more than with the question of legal documents. I believe it deals with the very question of who we are....or who we think we are. Are we what a paper document says?
Are we what a document says our name is?
"What's in a name?"...."A rose by any other name."
When someone asks who we are, we instinctively answer with what our name is. Well, who is that?
We, adoptees, look for the answer of who we are in our original birth certificate or in our natural parents.
We hope to find the answer to who we are once we find our birth mother, birth father, or original birth certificate.
Have we found the answer?
Once we read the document, is that our answer?
Once we meet our birth mother, does she have the answer to who we are?
Is the "hole" that has been in our lives suddenly filled upon meeting our birth parent?
I believe these are the philosophical questions that are asked in the ramblings of the birth certificate question. Anyone else ask these questions? Anyone find the answers?

[MlynnBrrtt]

Honestly I understand your frustration. I personally (as a future foster "mother") do not believe in changing a child's BC. While I am not adopted I do have issues with my father (he is abusive) and am just getting to know his side of the family (similar to meeting Birth relatives I would assume). It is a scary and exciting process. Before meeting my extended family (my "father" isiolated us from his family and we had little/no contact with them through out our lives due to his abusive and manipulative actions) I had considered "adult adoption" as I wanted to rid myself of my association with him. I was seriousley considering having an uncle adopt me. It was more about my hurt over having a unloving father and the fantasy that if I just found someone to be my "father" that all my hurt would disapear. I was lying to myself.

I thought about it for quite a while....but then decided that I am who I am...and changing my name would change nothing. I decided to embrace my genetic history as just another part of who I am as a person....and I believe that is a right that EVERY person is entitled to. If an adult decided to change thier identity then I believe that they should be entitled to do so. As far as BC's go....I don't believe they should be altered....atleast with out serious thought, counseling, and valid reason.....as you can't change your genetic history. I do however understand WHY it would be done in some situations and I am no one to judge others who have made this choice for THEMSELVES.

As far as transgendered persons changing thier BC I can understand and support thier reasoning for doing so. Transgendered persons are born in the wrong body. They mentally and emotionally develope as thier "true" gender while it is only thier physical bodies that show otherwise. Obviousley we understand by now scientifically that there is a great deal more to gender identity then physical sex organs....in fact I would assume that they play a less signifigant role in gender association then the mental/emotional/social aspects of gender idenity. Gender norms are flexible....they vary in every culture and from individual to individual. Honestly I believe that if thier was a gender mistake that was corrected (via surgery, counseling, exc) then I don't have a problem with ammending a BC to reflect the true gender of a person. They were ALSO born with thier emotional gender not just thier physical one.


I believe identity is a personal belonging...and is not something any other person (besides ourselves) has any right to tamper with or change....we are who we are born...and changing a BC is taking something away from a child with out thier consent. This is how *I* feel and I am sure many people disagree with me. This is an issue I have thought out very much. While I want to be a foster mother and long term care giver....I have come to the conclusion that I can not with good concious change a child's BC which means that I ethically won't be adopting (unless and until there is so major adoption reform) any time soon. I would love to make children a part of my family via a perminant guardianship because thier are so many child in need of a stable place to call home....but I don't for a minute feel that it is my right as a person to take something so precious as a BC away from any child for the sake of a legal proceding/process (finalization) or for my own good.