276 Sanjay Pulver
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/276
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today's guest is Sanjay Pulver, an Indian adoptee who has become an outspoken adoptee advocate in recent years. We talk about the complexities of being adopted from an orphanage in a country that is not currently safe for him to return to as a queer trans man.
We discuss the intersections between being transnationally and transracially adopted with being a trans person. And Sanjay also shares about his experience with somatic therapy. Before we get started, I want to personally invite you to join our Patreon Adoptee community today [00:01:00] over on adopteeson.com/community which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. We wrap up with some recommended resources, and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Sanjay Pulver.
Welcome, Sanjay. How are you?
Sanjay Pulver: I'm doing really well. Thank you so much for having me on.
Haley Radke: I remember the first time we were in a Zoom room together, which was a couple of years ago. But today, I'd love it if you would start with sharing some of your story with us.
Sanjay Pulver: I am originally from a very small village in South India, somewhere outside of Hyderabad.
And at three weeks old, I was relinquished to an orphanage in the [00:02:00] area and was there for about nine to ten ish months and then was placed with an unofficial foster family for about a month or so, and then at 13 months old, I was flown over to the U. S. and placed with my adopters, and I flew into Los Angeles International Airport, but my adopters live in San Diego, so we just drove down from there, and I've been here pretty much ever since.
The parts of India where I'm from, like I said, very small village. From my understanding, my birth family was part of the lowest caste in India. Usually referred to, or previously referred to, as the Untouchables, now they're called Dalits, so that's D A L I T, [00:03:00] is the nomenclature now, and I, as far as I know, I have four older sisters, one older brother, and a fraternal twin brother, who I only knew, or found out about when I was 11. And the orphanage I was part of, I found out in around 2020, was actually part of a giant international adoption trafficking scandal. But within my adoptive family, I'm an only child I'm also a transracial adoptee, and it was a lonely experience.
Because being raised in a family where I was the only non white person my age, it felt pretty isolating at times, and then, of course, realizing [00:04:00] later in my life that there were more aspects of my identity that I was unaware of and started having, thoughts about and I'm going to use the phrase coming into consciousness about really threw a lot of that into chaos and realizing how my identity as a transgender man and being adoptee are inherently linked to each other.
So a lot of that is how I started coming into consciousness or, as we sometimes say, out of the fog. Put that in quotes, is really where I started coming into the advocacy part of my journey and now talking about how all of the intersections that I have really [00:05:00] shape how I navigate the world and the conversations I have within it.
Haley Radke: You're in your early 30s now, right?
Sanjay Pulver: Yep, just turned 31 in November.
Haley Radke: Okay. I'm just trying to drag you along a little further. Early 30s, I could be anywhere in there. And you said that you didn't find out that you had a fraternal twin until you were 11. Where did, when, where who did you find out information from that you had older siblings? Where you were born, your orphanage, all of those things, did you get that information disclosed to you or did you have to look for it?
Sanjay Pulver: My adoptive grandma had made a scrapbook for me when I was really little and it had photos of the orphanage and I think photocopies of the very sparse paperwork that I had.
And this was information not compiled by my adopters there [00:06:00] was another couple who actually went to India to the same orphanage to go get their child, and while they were there, took tons of photos. Took video and then sent it to my adopters. My adopters didn't go to India to get me they decided to have me delivered instead.
They wanted expedited shipping, but that actually ended up getting delayed. Yeah, they tried real hard, but didn't happen. The paperwork that I have is like the patient intake form for the orphanage, and on it said information about family, and it just says family is poor, mother is weak.
They have four daughters, two sons, this child is born a twin, couldn't save both so wanted to give one up to adoption, and the way I found out about my twin, even though [00:07:00] it was written on that paperwork I was at an endocrinology appointment with my adoptive mother. And this was because as somebody who was assigned female at birth, my adoptive mom wanted to make sure that hormonally there was nothing going wrong that would impact my menstrual cycle.
And so we were there and as she was giving the doctor my family medical history. She was saying that, Oh, she's a twin, she has siblings, all these things, and I sat there for a minute with my jaw dropped wait, run that by me again. She, what? And that, I think that was the first time I had heard those words come out of somebody's mouth, rather than skimming over them and reading them.
And I was at an age where I could actually consciously [00:08:00] process what I had heard, and so yeah, I found out at a doctor's appointment, and I actually didn't know the the sex of my twin at that point, I only found out in 2020.
Haley Radke: Okay, I'm sorry that is how you found out. And also, I'm, do you know anything further besides just what was in that paperwork or what she said?
To me, I read that, or heard you read that off to us, recall that to us. And I thought, oh my goodness did the twin die and they didn't want you to you know what I mean? It sounded like there was some peril there.
Sanjay Pulver: India in the 1990s was very similarly had a similar attitude, rather, towards girls than boys and wanting sons over daughters, very similar to China's, one child policy in sentiment, just not legislated [00:09:00] into existence, and my birth family, as far as I know, had four daughters and one son, and then my twin brother and I were born.
So it was like, yay, we finally have our second son, and then, oh my god, we have a fifth daughter. Get rid of her. I, that is a part of my story that I have always known and have been told since I was very young. Yeah, you were probably given up because you were a girl. That was a reality that I've lived with for a while.
And I say it so matter of factly, and people are very shocked by that, I think. And it's like saying what I had for breakfast. It's just, yeah, this is my life. Okay, next thing. But I think also the fact that when I was trying to follow up with my adoptive mother like as we were walking to the car I was sobbing and crying and very upset being like why didn't you tell me [00:10:00] and the answer I was told was oh we did tell you were when you were younger but you were probably watching TV, so you didn't hear us, and even if you did hear us, you were too young to understand what we were saying, and that was the end of the conversation.
Haley Radke: Oh my goodness, so dear. Yeah so I've heard you talk about this a little bit, but maybe you'll weave this in as you share more of this part of your story, but if you had grown up in India, obviously stating the obvious here, you would have had a very different life.
Sanjay Pulver: Yes.
Haley Radke: And what does that mean to you to be living in the United States having been able to make some choices that you wouldn't have likely been able to had you grown up where your biological family [00:11:00] still is I'm assuming. I don't know Yeah, I don't know exactly. We don't know. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe more about your coming into your identity?
Sanjay Pulver: I would say that I fall very solidly into the stereotypical tomboy, to butch queer woman to trans guy sort of pipeline.
I know that's not everybody's experience, but that was mine, absolutely. Just short of playing softball, I was a band kid instead.
Haley Radke: Wait, what did you play?
Sanjay Pulver: I'm a French horn player.
Haley Radke: Okay.
Sanjay Pulver: I've been playing for 20 years.
Haley Radke: Wow.
Sanjay Pulver: I'm very proud of that. And funny enough, I was actually the only girl in my entire fifth grade class to play trumpet so I was just you know I was one of the guys from a very young age and I think I never [00:12:00] grew out of that if anything I grew into that more than out of it I guess you could say but I think the biggest differences, the fact the access to gender affirming care is the biggest one as far as differences in being raised in the U. S. versus being raised in India, I think a big one too is just, how long would I have actually survived? I know it's a morbid and macabre thing to think about, but I've told people since I was, young that, yeah, I probably wouldn't be alive had I stayed in India because I was very small when I was born.
Even by Indian standards, I was small. And at 31, I'm 4'10 and a half, so I'm like, look, if Indian people were saying I was small when I was born I was small. I just, there was no way of winning that. And saying I was relinquished for being assigned female at birth, [00:13:00] saying that yeah, I probably wouldn't have survived had I stayed in India is just one of those unpleasant but objective facts that I share as part of my story.
And the other side of being trans, and if I were to go try and search for family now, aside from the fact that I have no information, so I really have nothing to go on, there is a major risk as a trans and queer person traveling to India right now, so it's literally not safe for me to go, even if I wanted to.
And if I did go, I would basically have to, I'd say be stealth, so being stealth is just not being open about either your sexuality or your gender identity is a term that's in, used in the community [00:14:00] pretty frequently. And having been on testosterone a little bit over nine years now I do, I'm gonna use it in quotes, but I pass pretty well.
Passing is not necessarily the goal or really should be considered the standard for any trans person. If you want to pass, great, if you don't, great. Just like there's no one right way to be an adoptee.
We're all individual, we all have our own different stories, paths, and all of them are valid. I just, I do want to make that parallel as well. But, I run into the issue of if I were to find my family what would I say? Hi, I was your daughter, I came back with a beard. Hi. What, how, how do you navigate something like that or in a way, I almost need to use the very small [00:15:00] amount of masculine privilege that I have, which is not a lot. I will definitely say that it is not a lot. I still experience misogyny on a fairly frequent basis, and just because I have a beard and a slightly deeper voice does not mean that people have stopped treating me as though I was still feminine.
But, I've thought about if I were to go search, I would basically take all of my paperwork that has my birth name, all of my stuff, and just say, yes, my name is Sanjay, but I am searching on behalf of my sister. Because they'll probably want to talk to a guy about this more than they would want to talk to a woman about this.
And whatever information they give me is my information, but I'm asking for it in such a way that I'm not, hopefully, not putting myself in unnecessary risk. [00:16:00]
Haley Radke: Oh my goodness, the complexity, like all the added layers you have in your experience and from what I understand, it's very difficult to search in India anyway, DNA testing and things is I don't know, we're recording in 2024, maybe it's different in the future, but you can't take kits out, I think I saw you post something about that.
Sanjay Pulver: So the current laws around at least DNA testing in India from my understanding is that you can't take genetic material out of the country. So for example, if I were living in India and I wanted to take a 23andMe test, I could order the test, take the test, I could just not ship, I would not be allowed to ship it back out to be processed.
And that is the biggest reason why both Ancestry and 23andMe do not ship to India. [00:17:00] And therefore, all of the demographic data those companies have come from expats and adoptees. And there are DNA companies within India that do testing, but they only say here's where you're from in India they don't do family matching because that still is a very taboo subject, you know talking about having children out of wedlock especially when you get into caste politics, which I do not have a thorough enough understanding to be able to fully explain that.
Haley Radke: When you mentioned that I was like, oh, yeah I have heard from fellow Indian adoptees that they sometimes will match with other adoptees in the states, which, great that you have a connection, but you're still at a loss for the other [00:18:00] information.
Yeah, that's complicated. Okay, there's so many things I want to ask you about. I don't know where to go first. I think I want to circle back to the orphanage tracking, trafficking, tracking the, I'm thinking about DNA too much, the orphanage trafficking situation, because again, in your story, there's this complexity where, people often will say to adoptees, oh do you wish you had languished in an orphanage?
And that is a part of your story. You were in an orphanage. Can you talk a little bit about that, and how did you find out that your orphanage was caught up in this
scandal?
Sanjay Pulver: In 2020, I was on, funny enough, I was on Reddit, and I posted in the Adoptee Reddit page community saying, I'm an Indian adoptee, this is all the [00:19:00] information I have.
I'm making one last ditch effort to figure out if there's any other information I can get. Anybody got anything for me? And somebody said, you should contact this particular person who's the main point person doing searches in India, who's also an Indian adoptee who was adopted to Germany.
And so I got in contact with this person, and we set up a Zoom call, and when I was mentioning, oh, I'm from the action for social development orphanage, he was like, wait, you came out of ASD? And I said, yes. And he's I've never known anybody to come out of there from that scandal. And I was like, what scandal?
And basically in 1999, so I had already been in the states for six years at that point, but in 1999, the orphanage got raided and it was [00:20:00] shown and proven and the executive director confessed was arrested and confessed to illegally purchasing children and sending them to the U. S. to make money off the adoptions.
And even went to lengths to forge relinquishment documents. To file guardianship certificates, basically falsely, like under false pretenses. And how that connects into my story is that in May of 2020, before I had this zoom call, my adopters were cleaning out a filing cabinet and my adoptive dad was like, here's a file about your adoption if you want it.
And I was like, oh, okay. And I opened it up and it was all information and files that I had never seen before in my life and it also included this guardianship certificate, which [00:21:00] I did not know existed and essentially what that said was my adoptive father was named my legal guardian, and it gave him the legal right to take me out of India and adopt me according to the laws of whatever country he, he lived in this case being the U. S. On the U. S. side, I am completely legally adopted all above board. I have not actually been formally adopted in the eyes of Indian law. So I'm only half adopted, technically. But, to your point about the orphanage, being in a tiny crib, on my back, pretty much, the only times I would be picked up is maybe if I was being fed, maybe not, I don't know.
I actually had a lot of developmental delays physically, because I wasn't hitting all of those, crawling, rolling [00:22:00] over modeling milestones, and I didn't realize that structurally, my body compensated for that over the years unknowingly, which is why, actually, last year, I started seeing a somatic therapist who also specializes in trauma, and in developmental stuff as well interestingly, I'm hitting developmental milestones in my late twenties, early thirties that babies do in the first few months of their lives, which is interesting and fascinating.
And also, I never thought I'd be looking at a baby rolling over and going I'm jealous of you you're a baby, why should I be envious of you you haven't done anything, but I'm like, wow, here I am being jealous of babies, who knew, but, institutional orphanage care[00:23:00] did mess me up in a lot of ways, and I know that because in the criminal complaint and everything, the documents were forged, that really gives me a lot of, hesitation around whether or not if something were to happen where we're going into a new election cycle, knock on wood, this does not happen, but at least for the U. S., if trans people continue to be attacked and attempts to eradicate us continue. As an immigrant, I'm really here at the government's pleasure, and the government's behest. And I don't really know what I'm gonna do if, for some reason I get in trouble or something and I get deported because India has no records on me, really.[00:24:00]
At least not currently, because everything, again, is in my birth name, and none of it has been updated gender wise, and I found out I'd have to pay like 600 bucks to change my name and my gender on my Certificate of Citizenship, which is the only document I haven't updated, because I didn't know you could update that, but I also worry
or I was worried as well, because funny enough, when I did change my name and gender legally in 2016, going to the social security office to update everything they asked me do you have proof of citizenship? And I said what like a passport and they said yeah, and I said, oh I do it's just at home and they said oh it looks like when you got naturalized in 1994 nobody updated social security and told [00:25:00] us so I was legally I was a legal alien according to social security for twenty some odd years and I had no idea.
Now it says I'm a citizen, but it's funny that had I not transitioned that little hiccup and falling through the cracks within like bureaucracy that could have come back to bite me in a really bad way and the only reason I found out is because I transitioned so that's where I'm at with it.
Haley Radke: It's really mind boggling to me that in 2024 Adoptee citizenship is still such a critical issue, and adoptive parents really need to stand up and take responsibility for this issue and because there's so many deported adoptees.
They have no power in the United States to make change and [00:26:00] call for reform. They're not here anymore. Yeah, I know that's an aside, but I'm really disappointed with adoptive parents who don't take responsibility for that.
Sanjay Pulver: Oh, yeah, I'm right there with you.
Haley Radke: We have so much complexity in your story and I'm gonna ask you a question where I don't think these things are able to be separated.
Coming into your identity as an adopted person, unpacking the complexities of that, coming out of the fog, coming into consciousness, all of those things. And then, also, coming into your true gender identity. Can you talk about those things? You've said before they're intertwined for you. Were you processing them at the same time? What was that like for you? Can you share a little bit more about that?
Sanjay Pulver: I wasn't processing my gender stuff and my adoptee stuff at the same time. I think my [00:27:00] adoptee identity had been pretty solid as far as growing up, I was like, I knew I was adopted, I had a fairly consistent narrative from my understanding although, on the outside looking in, it seemed like I had a pretty cushy setup and life.
There were a lot of cracks in the stereotypical narratives that, we have around adoption. I saw those from a very young age, but I never really had the language to describe what felt off about it. And around, I'd say ten years old, I started realizing that, as far as my, my sexuality, my sexual orientation, I knew there was something slightly different about that.
I think that's when I [00:28:00] started questioning that, and I'd already been a tomboy for, since I was really little, and then in middle school middle school's just chaotic for everybody, regardless of your identities, it's just a bad time usually for everybody, because you're going through social changes, you have hormones running amok it's just, I wouldn't wish repeating middle school on anybody, and I will also say, especially going through a puberty that you don't want.
That's also a trip and a half, because technically, being on testosterone, I had to go through puberty again, so it's puberty 2. 0.
And there were moments where I would I asked one of my friends, I was like if I, if everything about me was the same, but I was a boy, would you date me? And, if that wasn't a big sign, I don't know what is, [00:29:00] but that just went right over my head. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but as I've continued on my journey as an adoptee, what I started realizing was that at the very beginning of my transition, I was talking to another trans person and I had said, oh, I want to get a tattoo of my name Sanjay and my birth name in Telugu, which is the language I would've heard growing up, had I stayed in India, and I wanted to get them in a band around my arm, to symbolize that even though these are two different names they are still me, and it is connected, and this other trans person told me, oh, I guess you're not really trans, and I was like, what do you mean by that?
And she's oh the fact that you're not rejecting every single part of [00:30:00] yourself that's feminine, you're not really trans. And that was just a really crappy thing to say in general, but also hearing it from another trans person also added another level of hurt to that. But then what I realized was to reject my identity prior to my transition was actually mirroring the invalidation of my experiences prior to my adoption.
Because growing up it was always like you're in the U. S. now, everything's fine now, you don't need to think about your life in India. India bad, U. S. good that's very reductive and very simplified. But that is what it boiled down to, and it feels disingenuous, for me. To [00:31:00] not acknowledge that I had twenty two years, twenty one and a half years of life experiences that have shaped me.
It just feels disingenuous to, to ignore all of that and just pretend like none of it happened because I say this a lot, but living as a woman has made me a better man, and it's allowed me to navigate situations that I think a lot of cis men don't have the tools for and have not been raised to have emotional intimacy with other people a lot of parts of that the of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, those are not things that I was raised with, so I have an objective, a more objective view of it so I can see it, but I can also then say, hey, you can still be a man and [00:32:00] not ascribe to those things.
And I also realized that my relinquishment and my adoption are both based on the assumptions about who I was because of my assigned gender at birth. I was relinquished because we had another girl, we don't want you, and then my adopters were, in their applications, were like, we are writing this specifically because we want a daughter from India.
And they did. They had a daughter from India for about 21 and a half years. And now they have a son for the rest of their lives. So those things are too ver are always going to be entwined for me, and I will also say a small caveat that while obviously nobody is ever prepared to have a trans child, or a gender non [00:33:00] conforming child, that's not something anybody can prepare for, and while I don't believe that either set of guardians and parents that I've had over the course of my life are inherently transphobic as people the decisions that were made based on my assigned gender and the worth and value that were ascribed to those, and those decisions, those were absolutely transphobic. And granted this is just my own perspective on it, it's not necessarily gonna be how other trans adoptees feel about it, but the people might not have been transphobic, but their actions absolutely were.
Haley Radke: I appreciate you sharing that and I know you've done a lot of speaking and panels about your experience as a trans person with [00:34:00] of course your adoptee identity, a transracial and trans nationally adopted person. And this is the tricky part of being, what I see as being a member of the queer community who's often looked at adoption as a tool for family building. Can you speak into that as, you've got your foot in different worlds that do intersect, but as someone who has spoken out for family preservation and abolition of both the family policing system and the adoption industrial complex, those things. The queer community often is still using adoption as a family building tool.
Sanjay Pulver: I think the biggest thing that I would like to see is more honest and open conversations [00:35:00] and more transparency around family building for queer folks because I know you had other guests on here who've really talked about the history of adoption and the link to queer community before.
So I'm not necessarily going to rehash all of that. I know which episode folks should go listen to if they want to get that that history lesson.
Haley Radke: Okay. Sandra's
Sanjay Pulver: Dr. Sandra Steingraber. Yep. That's the one I was. Yep.
Haley Radke: Dr. Sandra Steingraber. Okay. Let me look it up for folks so they can,
Sanjay Pulver: I think just recognizing that we are not poster children for I guess being able to adopt children as queer people, we shouldn't be seen as like the gold standard of this is how you are a [00:36:00] successful queer person, like this is how you get it made. There are so many other ways to be in community, to have family, chosen family, found family that don't involve supporting harmful and oppressive systems.
And I think the biggest thing is being honest with the kids and making sure that they have access to the resources, namely therapy, and also any information about their biological parents or their sperm donor or their surrogate or, the egg donor, like whoever was involved, excuse me, involved in the creation of this child, being able to access that information so that as things come up and kids are growing and they have questions, those [00:37:00] conversations can happen honestly and in age appropriate ways, and then once the kids are old enough and if they have a desire to seek out these people, the ability to do so is there and it's not behind red tape and there's no gatekeeping for that. And interestingly, touching a little bit on genetics, it's very interesting being a trans adoptee in trans spaces because so much of the conversations regarding early transition and medical transition focus a lot on DNA and, people going what's my beard going to look like?
Am I going to go bald? Or, how much is my chest going to grow if I'm on estrogen? And like these sorts of things. And. a lot of the default answers are like, oh just go look at [00:38:00] pictures of your family. Go look at this or, and I have to sit there and keep my mouth shut because frankly, it's triggering and activating every single time somebody asks that question, which is pretty much always because new folks are going to be asking all the time.
And I, at least personally for me, don't feel like it's appropriate to be in those spaces and ask, hey, can you put a content warning or a trigger warning on talking about genetics? Or talking about family or talking about relationship to parents or like genetic mirroring because most often I'm the only one in those spaces or if I'm not I'm the only one who is not in reunion and has no information or photos or anything.
So I [00:39:00] just I just keep it to myself. And I just, I usually joke and say, I just look in the mirror, cross my fingers and hope for the best. So it can be very difficult at times to hold space for both when you know that you can't necessarily access the answers you want. Which also begs the question too of, is my twin trans?
That's a question I think about sometimes. And, we are fraternal twins, but if we both transitioned, did we just become fraternal twins in the opposite direction? Or, if my twin isn't trans, and I did, and then I did transition. Now do we look more identical? Do we look like identical twins now?
Those are questions I think about that I know I'm probably not gonna get an answer for. [00:40:00]
Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. So many things. Thank you for sharing. I know we're going to do recommended resources. I just want to ask you one more thing if you're open to it. You mentioned.
Sanjay Pulver: Sure.
Haley Radke: Trying out somatic therapy and is there anything you want to say about that?
Like for other adoptees who may have had some similar Circumstances, maybe being up for a long time in orphanage as you were mentioning about not being attended to your physical needs. Anything like that to encourage folks if they want to try that
out?
Sanjay Pulver: I'm very fortunate in that my somatic therapist is also a trauma therapist and specifically works from an attachment lens like I I hit the trifecta and somatic therapy can look a lot of different ways.
So I do talk therapy with my regular [00:41:00] therapist. I do EMDR, which personally has been a literal life changing experience for me. It's been amazing. And then doing somatic therapy for basically all the body work stuff that EMDR and talk therapy can't necessarily help process. And a lot of it is body work of just like being on the table and getting like like deep tissue massage and but also there's a lot of like restructure like actual restructuring of my physical being of moving muscles and realizing oh, never learned really how to hold my head up correctly because my lat muscles in my back never really activated so I'm using my neck and my shoulders to hold my head up and that's why I have so much tension in my shoulders and my neck and [00:42:00] learning that oh, I didn't really have a lot of core strength as a baby so learning how to stabilize my core or even learning how to stand, because that was the biggest surprise I had, because I used to stand with my legs pretty far apart, so I almost looked like a triangle, because, a triangle's a strong shape.
The first time I stood with my legs pretty much in a normal stance close together, my knees went wobbly, because they didn't know how to hold I almost didn't know how to hold my own weight standing without my legs being super far apart. But I was like I physically have changed everything about body mechanics and how I move to finally compensate for that time in the orphanage.
But I will also say the most recent appointment that I had with my somatic therapist, we didn't do any body work, but for the [00:43:00] majority of it, I was sitting and holding my somatic therapist's six week old baby. And it's funny because the baby and I, we actually share a birthday, which is a total coincidence.
But that created a bond and a connection because now, here is a baby with my birthday who is hitting all of these developmental milestones and I get to see a parallel process between when that baby was three weeks old, this is what was going on when I was three weeks old I was already relinquished, and seeing that very clearly was really profound, and then just being able to hold a baby that was that small, and I'm like, I was this small once?
And, the baby just slept through everything and was snoring, and there I was just like, sobbing and having a big giant emotional moment, and the [00:44:00] baby was just totally unaware of everything, which I feel like encapsulates that experience pretty well. I think somatic therapy can incorporate lots of different elements, depending on your own situation and your own needs and what you're hoping to get out of it, and not all of it will be lying on a table and getting massaged or getting body work.
Sometimes it's holding a baby and crying.
Haley Radke: Beautiful. What an amazing experience. I'm glad you were able to do that. Okay, let's talk about our recommended resources. So I'm just going to quickly mention the episode we were referring to was episode 240 with Dr. Sandra Steingraber. And I want to recommend another podcast today that it's only four episodes.
But [00:45:00] for people who are in the abolitionist mindset, it is with Dorothy Roberts, and she has a four part series called Torn Apart. Which is based on her fabulous book, Torn Apart. We're talking about the family policing system. And she talks with people who are adopted, fostered parents who have been visited by the, by CPS, all of those things it's really an incredible resource.
And for folks who the book is like kind of dense and you haven't gotten there yet this is a great primer into Dorothy Robert's work. So I will make sure to link to that. And then I mentioned earlier that you have been a guest on several panels for adoptees speaking about different things. Two with Adoption Mosaic, one where you're talking about [00:46:00] your twin experience, if people want to hear more about that.
And then I also really enjoyed listening to you on the Adoptees United panel, the Rainbow Adoptees, Intersection of Queerness and Adoption. And so if folks want to hear more from you. Those are a couple of great places where they can hear your advocacy work, and I'm going to link to those in the show notes as well.
What did you want to recommend to us today?
Sanjay Pulver: I think you've already mentioned it before but the podcast Rescripting the Narrative, which is hosted by previous guest Lina Vanegas and Sol Yaku, is a great podcast. I think they have one or two episodes out currently, but it is a podcast really talking about making adoption narratives more adoptee centered talking about the connections to imperialism, colonialism, an extension of, white supremacy culture and [00:47:00] really deconstructing the adoption industry and how we can reform it, abolish it as far as like plenary adoption is concerned and that's, even just those two episodes are fabulous, and the other resource I wanted to mention as well is the Adult Adoptee UK movement, and that was actually started by the host of the Zoom call where we met, as it turns out, and while a lot of their advocacy is UK based their website and their blog posts are open to all adoptees to share their experiences and I think a lot of folks can find good writing there and things that resonate with them and I know I think they do some I think they do some Meetups [00:48:00] and things like that, and I think they are going to try and expand and I think they might also be working with Adoptees United Executive Director Greg Luce on a couple of things, so I want to plug that because if it hadn't been for that zoom call and that group of folks, I wouldn't actually be sitting here having a conversation with you. So
Haley Radke: I don't know, do you think.
Sanjay Pulver: I don't know, I,
Haley Radke: We've connected in other ways, but yes,
Sanjay Pulver: I feel like we would have eventually,
Haley Radke: Yes I'm so appreciative of Vic and their work and we will link to adultadoptee.org.Uk in the show notes as well. So folks can find that. And they have been doing a lot of forward, a lot of forward momentum has have been happening there with the government and yeah, lots of things in the last couple of years.
Thank you so much for sharing part of your story with us. And talking about some things that, a lot of [00:49:00] people don't really know much about. I really appreciate that. Where can folks connect with you online and hear more from you?
Sanjay Pulver: As far as adoptee stuff goes my Instagram, which is just my name.
So it's just @Sanjay.Pulver on Instagram. That is the only social media that my adopters don't have any presence on, either one of them, so that's the main place where I feel the most safe to just post candidly about my experiences, I guess we'll say. I do use Twitter occasionally, if I really feel like I want to post something for folks I know through that platform, which again is just It's @PulverSanjay, with first and last name capitalized.
Those are the main social medias that I use for Adoptee related stuff. And, yeah, really am appreciative of you letting me come and run my mouth for about an hour, [00:50:00] and
Haley Radke: Sanjay, you're someone that I have linked other trans adoptee folks to, because I know you're a safe person for them to go to, and you have open doors for them to go to other support group spaces and things.
So I really appreciate having you as a resource for me when I don't know the right thing to say. And I'm really thankful for that. Thank you for your service to other adoptees in that way. I really, I do really feel grateful. Trigger word. How about that?
Sanjay Pulver: And I'll say, I'm very thankful. Other trigger word that, I, that that I'm able to be a resource and help our community in various ways it's really been an honor to be on here. Thank you so much.
Haley Radke: Thank you
I feel so deeply honored and grateful to be able to share [00:51:00] stories like this with you and I trust as always that you as a listener will be honoring and respectful to my guests and thank them for sharing their story and being vulnerable with us. It takes a lot of courage to share your story in such a public way.
And please make sure you thank our guests for how they are able to share with us so that we can feel seen and validated in our own experiences as well. It is, it's a real honor to be able to hear these stories. And I couldn't share them without our Patreon supporters. So thank you so much for those of you who support the show monthly or yearly.
It just is a huge deal to me and I really appreciate it. If you want to join them, you can go to adopteason.com/community. We would love to have you over there. [00:52:00] Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again soon.
