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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

SB 381 update: The bill cleared today’s Appropriations hearing and is now on the Suspense file. Aug 6–12, call (916) 319-2014 (Chair Wicks’ office) and ask her to pass SB 381 off suspense to the floor. No opposition on record. Every call helps! 🧡 🥚#AdopteeRights

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Update: SB 381 will be heard by Assembly Appropriations on August 5th! 🥚💙 This is the last committee stop before a full Assembly floor vote, expected around August 17-19th. Not law yet, but every vote so far has been unanimous or nearly so. We're closer than we've ever been.

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Re: SB 381 support. 🥚 Adoptee Rights are Human Rights.

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Gretchen Sisson @gretchensisson.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Here’s a review from yesterday’s judiciary committee meeting with Senator Aisha Wahab and the California Alliance for Adoptee Rights. It’s a privilege to contribute to this conversation and help move forward the case of open records for adopted people. Next: appropriations!

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

To watch the committee hearing for SB 381 live tomorrow June 30th at 8:30am PST: Go to: www.assembly.ca.gov/events/today The hearing should appear there when it goes live. You may need to scroll down to Judiciary.

assembly.ca.gov

Events | California State Assembly

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Tony Corsentino @notalegalrecord.net · 23/06/2026

No one has a right—on grounds of privacy or anything else—to withhold MY own identity from ME. Until we eradicate this confused belief, adopted people will never advance from “solution to other people’s problems” to “autonomous human beings.” 🥚

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Join us Tues. 6/30 in Sacramento for what could be a historic day for adoptee rights! Meet us at La Bou Cafe at 7:30 AM - we’ll have signs and stickers to hand out, then we’ll walk over to the Capitol building together. SB 381 is 3rd on the agenda so we are anticipating it being heard in the AM.

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Re: Adoptee Rights, all has been peaceful since Oregon's Measure 58 went into effect, with all parties free to make their own decisions about contact, without the state in the middle.

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Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯 @janinebaer.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

🥚 ADOPTEE RIGHTS: Jean Strauss has made her films about sealed records available: www.youtube.com/@adoptee-bir... "...these films examine the history of sealed adoption records and the growing momentum across America towards transparency, truth, and equality under the law." 🎞️

youtube.com

Adoptee Birthright Archive

This archive of over two decades of documentary work by Jean Strauss chronicles one of the longest-running civil rights struggles in modern American family law: the nationwide movement to restore adul...

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Adoptee Advocates of Michigan @aaom-adoptees.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

No child is “saved” by a system that protects adults and agencies while ignoring the rights of the child. Placing a child into a different family doesn't justify erasing their identity, and adoption can't be considered ethical care when a child’s humanity and rights are disregarded in the process.🥚

No child is 'saved' by a system that ignores their rights. Adoptee Advocates of Michigan.

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Adoptee Advocates of Michigan @aaom-adoptees.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Sealed records don't preserve privacy. They shift the disclosure from a controlled release of a birth record to a DNA-based investigation that can involve multiple unsuspecting relatives, and parents can be found with only one distant relative in the database. 🥚

DNA testing is cheap, easy, and far from private. Sealed records don't protect adoptees or birth parents. State secrecy harms us all. Restore Adoptee Rights

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Tony Corsentino @notalegalrecord.net · 24/03/2025

you know what preserves everyone’s privacy *far* more effectively and thoroughly than forcing adoptees to send a tube of spit to 23andMe? giving them their *fucking birth records.* looking at you, purportedly “progressive” California.

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Loather @loather.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Urgent alert for Californian adoptees! Our clean birth certificate bill SB 381 is scheduled for hearing in the assembly health committee but there have been some concerns related to birth parent privacy and the committee members NEED to hear from us. Especially Chair Mia Bonta. Please call!

ACTION ALERT - SB 381 needs your help
RIGHT NOW. California's adult adoptees are still fighting for the right to access their own original birth certificates - a right every other Californian already has. SB 381 is scheduled for hearing in the Assembly Health Committee on Tuesday June 23rd. We need a massive wave of calls to committee members THIS WEEK asking them to support the bill AS WRITTEN - with clean, unrestricted access for ALL California adult adoptees.
Please call and leave a voicemail:
'Hi, my name is____. I'm calling to ask
Assemblymember ____ to support SB 381 *as written* with clean, unrestricted access to original birth certificates for ALL California adult adoptees. Sealed records do not protect privacy - they simply deny adoptees a document that is rightfully theirs. Please support SB 381 as written. Thank you."

Health Committee members:
Bonta (Chair) — (916) 319-2018
Chen (Vice Chair) - (916) 319-2059
Addis - (916) 319-2030
Aguiar-Curry - (916) 319-2004
Ahrens - (916) 319-2026
Caloza — (916) 319-2052
Carrillo - (916) 319-2039
Gonzalez — (916) 319-2054
Johnson - (916) 319-2063
Patel - (916) 319-2076
Patterson - (916) 319-2005
Rodriguez - (916) 319-2043
Sanchez - (916) 319-2071
Schiavo - (916) 319-2040
Sharp-Collins — (916) 319-2079
Stefani - (916) 319-2019
Every call matters. Every voice counts. California adoptees have been waiting 91 years.

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Tony Corsentino @notalegalrecord.net · 08/01/2026

NY Adoptee Rights Coalition with a letter in support of CA SB381, which would give CA #adoptees unrestricted access to their own birth records. “Since the law's enactment, NYARC has not heard any negative stories from birth parents, who have also been some of our most active advocates and allies. +

RE: SB381 - DO PASS RECOMMENDATION
Dear Senator Caroline Menjivar and Members of the Senate Health Committee:
I am the spokesperson for the New York Adoptee Rights Coalition. In 2019, New York secured the right for all New York-born adult adopted people to request and obtain certified copies of their own original birth certificates. The legislation took effect on January 15, 2020.
Since that time vital record authorities in New York have released more than 20,000 original birth records to the adult adopted people named on them.
Since the law's enactment, NYARC has not heard any negative stories from birth parents, who have also been some of our most active advocates and allies. We have, however, heard from people thanking us for helping to heal their families by ensuring that their adopted loved one is treated as an equal citizen to their non-adopted relatives, neighbors, and friends. The sky has not fallen, people are not hiding from one another, and no harm has been done to anyone. Remarkably, Democratic Assembly Member Deborah Glick, who long opposed similar bills, realized that the law no longer worked and that it reflected and reinforced outdated stereotypes associated with adoption and "out-of-wedlock" births. She concluded that the law was overdue for change. She also apologized to adoptees on the floor of the Assembly, after which there was a standing ovation when the bill passed 56-6.
I am sure you are hearing from California adoptees, adoptive parents, and birthparents about SB381. I trust they are making the same arguments about equality that won out in New York six years ago. Suffice it to say that New York, after eighty-three years with one of the most restrictive vital records laws in the country, turned a corner on January 15, 2020.
The results have been nothing short of astounding.
Please support SB381. I am open to any questions about New York's current law.
Best regards,
Annette O'Connell
Spokesperson
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

CAAR is fighting for a CLEAN bill, we will NOT accept restrictive amendments. No permission slips or redactions! SB 381 is about unrestricted access for ALL California adult adoptees. June 23rd, Assembly Health Committee. Come ready to support a clean SB 381 or oppose a dirty one. #adopteerights

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Adult adoptees in California are still denied access to their original birth certificates - a right granted to every other person born in this state. Change is long overdue. Many of our California adoptees are 80+ years old, they've waited their entire lives to see their own birth certificate.

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

California's 1935 sealed records law is a civil rights relic - built on shame and secrecy, not justice. Adult adoptees are the only California citizens denied access to their own record of birth. It's beyond time to change this outdated and unfair law. SB 381 will be restorative and healing.

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KayelaWrites @kwrights.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

#Adoptees should have the legal right to access their original birth certificates and annul their adoptions. Both violate a person's inherent human right to know and preserve their own identities. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. #adoption 🥚

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Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯 @janinebaer.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

🌁 The California Assembly will soon consider SB 381, the adoptee rights bill that passed 35-0 in the senate in January. Here is the explanation from 1935 about why it was necessary to "keep adoptions secret." Like most people who weren't adopted, legislators know little about this... + 🥚

This is an image of the text in the Sacramento Bee newspaper's Legislative Notes" dated January 22, 1935. It 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."

Labeled "Figure 1," this image is from the book "Growing in the Dark: Adoption Secrecy and Its Consequences" (2004) by Janine M. Baer

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Go Virginia! Please write a letter of support if you can (details in link below).

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Some important and informative links: CAAR website: caallianceforadopteerights.org CAAR Instagram: www.instagram.com/ca_adoptee_a... CAAR fact sheet: caallianceforadopteerights.org/wp-content/u... CAAR Petition: c.org/KnvWFjK5P5

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Gretchen Sisson @gretchensisson.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

SB381 has unanimously passed the California Senate! A huge step forward. On to the assembly!

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

We just got an update from the Senator’s office - the plan is for SB 381 to be taken up today, Tuesday 1/27. Session goes from 10am-3pm. We don’t know exactly when our bill will be heard. Join in person to watch on the balcony, or on the live stream: www.senate.ca.gov/calendar

senate.ca.gov

Senate Events | California State Senate

Note: Dates without current Senate events will not display in results.

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Gretchen Sisson @gretchensisson.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

The conversation in front of the health committee today is infuriating. We’re devoting infinite time to this hypothetical group of birth mothers who don’t want their children to have access to their records. I’ve spoken to so many birth mothers. I’ve never met this woman.

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

California Adoptees and Equal Rights supporters everywhere, 🥚 Another way to make your voice heard re: SB381 is the comment section on Legiscan. Please leave a quick comment of support if you can (and “like” any comments you agree with). Education is important right now. #adopteerights

legiscan.com

California SB381 | 2025-2026 | Regular Session

Summary (2026-01-20) Vital records: adoptees’ birth certificates. [January 20 hearing: Placed on APPR. suspense file.]

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Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯 @janinebaer.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

🎉 "California proudly protects bodily autonomy. The state enshrines the right to control your own medical decisions, your own reproductive choices, your own identity. Unless you’re adopted. Then California claims the authority to seal your birth certificate..."

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Tony Corsentino @notalegalrecord.net · 14/01/2026

Anyone who has ever attended a municipal government meeting will be familiar with the “there are many people who oppose this but they couldn’t be here” maneuver

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Access to one's OBC is a fundamental human and civil right and current laws reflect outdated, mid-20th century beliefs about adoption secrecy that have been disproven time and again. YES on SB 381

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Adult adoptees in CA are denied the right to their own original birth certificate. SB 381 restores equal access to this record. It is not about contact, reunions, or confidential communications. It's simply about allowing adults to access the document that records the true facts of their birth.

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California Alliance for Adoptee Rights @caladoptees.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Sealing original birth certificates (OBCs) after adoption is an outdated and discriminatory practice rooted in stigma, not necessity. In the era of DNA testing and social media, secrecy no longer exists. What remains is a policy that simply denies adoptees equal access to their own identity.

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