Being a Gay Adoptee Survivor sucks in a new way.
I've been gone from MS a long time, but this is something I need to get out somewhere. This could be triggering for too many reasons to list. Here goes...
I'm adopted and have been searching for my birth family. I've found the maternal branch, my birth mother is deceased, and there's no contact with my half-siblings there yet. I may have also found the paternal branch as well. I've been talking to a large number of possible first cousins/half-siblings and they all seem convinced that I'm their brother and that we share the same father.
The older generations of the family (grandparents and some parents) were very abusive and homophobic. A paternal uncle who was gay killed himself because his Catholic family treated him so terribly and tried to "fix" him by praying away the gay. There are suspicions that another uncle and my birth father might have been sexually abused by priests as boys. The same uncle was convicted of sexually assaulting a 3 year old girl, and there have been similar credible reports (no charges) about my possible birth father sexually abusing children as well. He has been a lifelong serial philanderer. He treated his children abusively (not CSA as far as I know) and they characterize him as a bastard and a monster. None of these people I've just met know about my sexual abuse and rape at the hands of a Catholic monk.
The possible half-siblings are all wonderfully welcoming and open minded and strangely pleased to find the brother that they all seemed to think was out there. So much so that before we have definitive DNA proof they are all convinced that I'm their brother. One of them that I think was badly physically and mentally abused by him was telling me this history and repeated the "pedophile vampire" myth that 9 out of 10 sexually abused children go on to become perpetrators. I pushed back and explained that while it happened it was much less common and we moved on to other things.
There is so much here to unpack. It's just tough for me to think about this physically and sexually abusive man from this homophobic generation being my birth father. It's confronting, and not a little re-traumatizing, to think that some of these possible half-siblings might see me as a potential perpetrator instead of as a recovering survivor if I were to disclose to them. I think my possible birth father, his siblings, and parents are guilty of contributory negligence in driving my gay uncle, their brother and son, to suicide.
This man is still alive so, if he is my birth father, I could meet and talk with him and ask the questions that most adoptive kids have. But at this stage I don't think I should and I don't think I want to. At the same time, I want to make sure he knows that his first born son (me) is gay and that there are an unusually large number of gay people in his family tree. I also want to hold him accountable, in part, for what happened to his younger brother. Then there is the fact that I look more like this man than most of his children and it feels terrible to know that. Terrible to think that looking at me they might see who and what he is instead of who and what I am.
I've only known about this awful history for about 12 hours, so I have more processing to do. I also have decisions to make about how much I disclose about what happened to me and when.
-efm
I'm adopted and have been searching for my birth family. I've found the maternal branch, my birth mother is deceased, and there's no contact with my half-siblings there yet. I may have also found the paternal branch as well. I've been talking to a large number of possible first cousins/half-siblings and they all seem convinced that I'm their brother and that we share the same father.
The older generations of the family (grandparents and some parents) were very abusive and homophobic. A paternal uncle who was gay killed himself because his Catholic family treated him so terribly and tried to "fix" him by praying away the gay. There are suspicions that another uncle and my birth father might have been sexually abused by priests as boys. The same uncle was convicted of sexually assaulting a 3 year old girl, and there have been similar credible reports (no charges) about my possible birth father sexually abusing children as well. He has been a lifelong serial philanderer. He treated his children abusively (not CSA as far as I know) and they characterize him as a bastard and a monster. None of these people I've just met know about my sexual abuse and rape at the hands of a Catholic monk.
The possible half-siblings are all wonderfully welcoming and open minded and strangely pleased to find the brother that they all seemed to think was out there. So much so that before we have definitive DNA proof they are all convinced that I'm their brother. One of them that I think was badly physically and mentally abused by him was telling me this history and repeated the "pedophile vampire" myth that 9 out of 10 sexually abused children go on to become perpetrators. I pushed back and explained that while it happened it was much less common and we moved on to other things.
There is so much here to unpack. It's just tough for me to think about this physically and sexually abusive man from this homophobic generation being my birth father. It's confronting, and not a little re-traumatizing, to think that some of these possible half-siblings might see me as a potential perpetrator instead of as a recovering survivor if I were to disclose to them. I think my possible birth father, his siblings, and parents are guilty of contributory negligence in driving my gay uncle, their brother and son, to suicide.
This man is still alive so, if he is my birth father, I could meet and talk with him and ask the questions that most adoptive kids have. But at this stage I don't think I should and I don't think I want to. At the same time, I want to make sure he knows that his first born son (me) is gay and that there are an unusually large number of gay people in his family tree. I also want to hold him accountable, in part, for what happened to his younger brother. Then there is the fact that I look more like this man than most of his children and it feels terrible to know that. Terrible to think that looking at me they might see who and what he is instead of who and what I am.
I've only known about this awful history for about 12 hours, so I have more processing to do. I also have decisions to make about how much I disclose about what happened to me and when.
-efm
Last edited:
