By Kara Rubinstein Deyerin

Without having your whole story, you cannot have autonomy. Autonomy and decision-making go hand-in-hand. Autonomy, the ability to act independently and make choices based on one’s own judgment, relies on having a comprehensive understanding of the context and factors at play. If you do not know your true origin story, your ability to exercise true autonomy becomes limited or compromised. A fragmented or partial view of who you are may lead to misinterpretations, ill-informed decisions, and potential consequences that could have been avoided if you’d had the truth.

Barbie is a perfect example of how lack of information about the fundamental building blocks of your life and who you are can lead to an identity crisis when you discover the truth. Note to the reader: if you haven’t seen the movie, know that there are spoilers here. I highly recommend you see the movie and then read this article. Even if you don’t come back to read this, go see the movie.

Barbie lives in a world based on a fundamental lie—the belief that the Barbies have solved women’s equality problems in the real world. Because Barbie is a female president, doctor, physicist, and more, she believes women in the real world have this level of power too. How Barbie sees her world and herself and how she interacts with her friends and Ken is based on this being true. When she learns the real world is very different, it throws her relationships and her sense of identity into disarray.

People often have a difficult time understanding what the big deal is when someone has a DNA surprise and they discover that one or both of their parents aren’t genetically related to them. “What’s the big deal? You’re still you?” they’re often asked. The Barbie movie is a perfect example of “what’s the big deal.” Once Barbie’s fundamental truth about who she is toppled, she has an existential crisis. She’s forced to confront the fundamental purpose, meaning, and essence of her life and her own existence.

Perhaps through Barbie you can understand the aftershocks caused by a DNA surprise: how one sees oneself and their place in the world is no longer the same. Five years ago, after spitting in a tube, I learned I wasn’t genetically related to the man I thought was my father. I’d wanted to learn where in Africa his family came from. What I discovered was I had zero African DNA and was half Jewish instead. Everything about my life and who I was had been based on a lie. Enter an existential crisis that at times I still revisit.

When you have a DNA surprise, you are untethered from your past and sense of self. Your ethnicity might be significantly different, like mine. You can feel like an imposter in the culture and family you grew up in and also in your new culture and family. Your medical history is different, so how you’ve been caring for yourself may not be appropriate for your health anymore. This can be an awkward conversation with your doctor, and your kid’s doctor.

Your familial relationships are not the same. You have new family who may or may not want to meet you. And some of the family you grew up with may decide that because you aren’t blood you’re no longer family. How you see and interpret your past interactions with your family and the world is no longer true. You find yourself editing your memories in light of this new information. Even how you see yourself in the mirror is different.

At one point, after Barbie learns the truth, she wonders if she’s still pretty. Her looks haven’t changed but the lens through which she sees herself has. I recently told a good friend that even after five years, I am still surprised by who I see in the mirror. After explaining it wasn’t because 50 is approaching but because I grew up seeing myself as multiethnic—my lens was a woman with a European mom and an African dad. Those glasses were shattered by my DNA test. My new lens now sees a Jewish woman. My nose, my eyes, my smile—they’re all very different. Even now, after therapy and years of rebuilding my sense of identity, it can be disorienting.

With Barbie’s new information about her world and who she is, she must rebuild her sense of self and how she wants to be viewed in the world. She has an identity crisis. Ironically, this term was coined by psychologist Erik Erikson when he discovered in early adulthood that the man he thought was his father was, in fact, not his genetic father. This revelation had a profound impact on his sense of identity and led him to question his true origins, cultural background, and place in the world and of course to study the topic. Enter “identity crisis” into the lexicon.

Barbie is given a choice—whether or not to go back to how things were before, even a better improved version without the lies. She decides she cannot return to her old life. After the veil is lifted, most people can’t or don’t want to pull it back down. In fact, according to a survey of 605 individuals from Facebook misattributed parentage support groups, published in the Journal of Family History, 92% of those who’ve had a DNA surprise would not prefer to have never known the truth. As you’d expect, shock is the first word people use to describe learning their foundation isn’t what they thought, but the next strongest feeling is a better understanding of who they are.

I know Barbie felt this way too as she chose to move to the real world. Her first act of real autonomy—visiting her gynecologist. We must have access to the truth about our origins from birth. People have the right to their full story to develop a sense of self and their place in the world based on true information. You cannot have really autonomy if your life is based on lie.

The next time someone tells me they don’t understand why my DNA surprise rocked my world, I’m going to tell them to watch Barbie. If they can understand why it was impossible for Barbie to go back to who she was before, maybe they can understand why I can’t either.

Kara Rubinstein Deyerin is a non-practicing attorney and passionate advocate with almost a decade of dedicated nonprofit work. Her personal journey and professional expertise have positioned her as a prominent voice in the realm of DNA surprises, genetic identity and continuity, misattributed parentage, adoption, assisted reproduction, and non-paternal events (NPE). In 2018, her life took an unexpected turn when an over-the-counter DNA test revealed that she had zero African DNA and was half Jewish, which meant the man on her birth certificate could not be her genetic parent. This life-altering discovery sent Deyerin on an emotional rollercoaster, causing a profound loss of her assumed ethnic identity and leading her to question her roots and sense of self. Because there were few resources for people with misattributed parentage and a lack of legal rights, she co-founded Right to Know. She’s appeared on many podcasts, in multiple television interviews and articles, and is a frequent speaker and writer on her DNA surprise, the right to know, and the complex intersection of genetic information, identity, and family dynamics. Her dedication to empowering others and fostering societal understanding of these issues has made her a leading advocate for genetic identity rights and a powerful force in promoting truth and transparency in family building.

By Kara Rubinstein Deyerin

People with misattributed parentage, DNA surprises, and unknown origins have a lot in common. Many of us learn about being misattributed because we are byproducts of the direct-to-consumer DNA testing phenomenon. We bought into the commercial enticing us to learn more about our roots, or perhaps we were gifted a test, and then we received the shock of our lives—we are not genetically related to one or both of our parents. Some of us grow up knowing we have a different genetic parent(s) out there, somewhere, but aren’t interested in knowing them. However we get there, when we start the process of reunion, we all end up in a very similar emotional space.

One thing I continue to hear as I speak with people experiencing these new discoveries is “I felt all alone.” I can completely identify with this sentiment. While each of our stories is unique,  many common themes flow through them. We are not alone. United we can help each other heal. We can educate others about how deeply we are impacted. And we can elevate each other’s voices to change societal perceptions and laws to reflect our most basic right to know who we are.

Untangling Our Roots is the first-ever summit to promote these principles and bring together adoptees, the donor-conceived, people with an NPE, their significant others, raising and genetic family, and the professionals who assist our communities–an event sponsored by Right to Know and the National Association of Adoptees and Parents.

The summit will take place in Louisville, Kentucky, March 30-April 1. Tickets include breakfast, drinks, lunch, and snacks Friday and Saturday, all entertainment, tai chi and yoga moments, six different presenter sessions, a keynote speaker panel, and a special plenary speaker as well as the chance to meet many authors, podcasters, and therapists. There’s nothing like being in a room filled with people who just get it.

The event kicks off Thursday night at 5:00pm with registration, open mic, and Cory Goodrich’s show Folksong about her NPE. It’s a musical memoir of love and longing, an emotional ballad of grief and forgiveness, an ode to self-discovery, and a heart-stirring look at the lengths to which a family will go to protect themselves and each other. A five-time Jeff nominee, Goodrich is an award-winning actress who’s performed on stages across the country and has been seen on many television shows and commercials.

Starting Friday morning, Pekitta Tynes will be the master of ceremonies. Tynes is a professional comedienne, an adoptee, a foster child, a foundling, and the author of the book titled Thank God I Was Adopted ‘Cause DNA Is No Joke! She uses humor to share her search experience and her journey to finding her biological connection despite life’s obstacles. The first session will be a keynote panel with Astrid Castro, an adoptee who started Adoption Mosaic; Christine Jacobsen, an NPE and author of Dancing Around the Truth; and Chrysta Bilton, a DCP who wrote Normal Family. discussing family dynamics with NPE Leeanne R Hay author of NPE: A Story Guide moderating.

There are three session periods: a speaker workshop, speaker panel, and creative & therapeutic workshop with each session having five options. One session will be specifically for significant others because a DNA discovery is an emotional time for everyone. The day ends with comedy from Tynes and Laura High, a DCP, New York actor, and comedian.

Friday evening entertainment will feature Brian Stanton’s @ghostkingdom at 8pm. Stanton is a Los Angeles-based stage actor best known for his original solo play Blank, the true story of his adoption and search for identity. @ghostkingdom, his most recent work, has been screened at film festivals as well as for adoption support and at educational conferences. The Love International Film Festival honored Stanton with Best Screenwriter and Best Actor awards.

Saturday morning’s plenary speaker will be Paul Joseph Fronczak, whose foundling story touches on what many with misattributed parentage feel. “Ever since I was a child, I had a feeling I was someone else.” There will again be three session periods: a speaker workshop, speaker panel, and creative & therapeutic workshop with each session having five options. A full agenda is available here. And the summit will close with an to reflect and rejuvenate with Amber Jimerson, Lesli Johnson, MFT, and Ridghaus.

There will be a quiet room where therapists will volunteer to help attendees should a topic, discussion, or comment raise uncomfortable or difficult feelings or memories.

See the full agenda here.

Tickets are $279 until February 14, when they will increase to $319. Significant other tickets for Thursday evening and all-day Friday are $119 until February 14 and will increase to $139. NBCC credit available for therapist attendees from an online class recorded from summit sessions. For questions or further information, write to info@UntanglingOurRoots.org and visit the summit website.

Kara Rubinstein Deyerin is a non-practicing attorney with an LLM in Taxation. In January 2018, she wanted to see where in Africa her father’s family came from. Her direct-to-consumer DNA test revealed she was 50% something, but she had zero African DNA. This meant the man on her birth certificate couldn’t possibly be her genetic father. She lost her bi-racial identity with the click of a mouse.Deyerin discovered she was 50% Ashkenazi Jew. The DNA pandora’s box she opened led to an identity crisis. Lack of resources, advocacy, and access to support led her to co-found Right to Know. She’s a passionate advocate for genetic identity rights.

Conceiving People: Genetic Knowledge and the Ethics of Sperm and Egg Donation, by Daniel Groll, is a fascinating exploration of attitudes about whether donor offspring are entitled to knowledge of their donors, but the issues and questions it raises are pertinent to adoptees and NPEs/MPEs as well. Comprehensive and academic in approach, it may be challenging to readers not well-versed in philosophical discourse, but it’s key reading for anyone with a stake in the debate over access to genetic knowledge. And although Groll ultimately stands against anonymity in donor conception, some NPEs and MPEs may take exception to some of the arguments that led him there. Therefore, we asked him to address some of those arguments, and he readily agreed.Severance was the target of a critical article last year in a publication called Real Life that accused it of numerous transgressions, including promoting bionormativity. It insisted that the magazine’s content poses genetic family as measured by DNA as “the norm against which all forms of family should be judged.” It further states that if we view the genetic family as something from which one can be severed, non-genetic family “will inevitably be understood as secondary, extraneous, and even pathological.” Additionally, it charges that those of us looking for genetic information are indicating that “biogenetic kinship is the most true, essential, and valid form of family” and that such a belief places queer families in “legally precarious positions but undermines the larger value of ‘love makes a family’ for all families.” The argument rejects the idea that there can be a desire to know one’s genetic history that is apolitical. Clearly, I don’t believe Severance makes any such assertions, and based on having heard hundreds of stories and experiences, it’s obvious that most of us grew up with non-genetic families. I, for example, was raised by a man who was not my father. He was my family. I didn’t wish to have another father, but I did wish to know who my biological father was. I didn’t imagine my biological family would be a better family, or a more real family. I simply wished, as I believe most people who lack this information do, to know from whom I got my genes. My question is, how does simply wanting that information valorize traditional families or diminish nontraditional families?

Before I answer this, I just want to explain my connection to the issue of donor conception since people inevitably wonder about it. I am a known donor to close friends who have two children. The children know both who and what I am in relation to them. Our families are in regular contact. From the get-go, everyone agreed there would be no secrets and that we all need to be open to how their children understand their experience and let that guide us. Maybe the fact that I’m a donor will cause some of your readers to stop reading, but I hope not.

On to your question! One thing I want to make clear is that I think people who create children with donated gametes should not use an anonymous donor. So I am totally with you: I don’t think that wanting genetic knowledge—as I call it—necessarily or always or even usually valorizes traditional families or diminishes nontraditional families. One thing I try to do in my book is to make exactly this case. There are really good reasons for taking people’s desire for genetic knowledge seriously without committing ourselves to the view (which I don’t subscribe to) that biological parents are normally the best parents or that the traditional family form—of a man and woman and children that are genetically related to both parents—is somehow the best kind of family.

Having said that, I think it’s worth taking seriously the idea that an interest in genetic knowledge is not apolitical, if that means that it floats free from, or exists independently of, the contingent cultural norms, practices. and institutions that shape our desires. I want to be really clear: this isn’t a point about the desire for genetic knowledge in particular. Rather, I don’t think we should see any desire as obviously apolitical. Even what we might think of as our most basic desires—for sustenance or for social connection—take the particular forms they do as a result of the culture they are embedded in. We might put it this way: all of our desires are filtered through, or suffused with, the culture (the norms, the values, the practices) they are located in.

As a result, I think it is always worthwhile to ask two questions about our wants, desires. and interests: 1. “In what ways have they been shaped by our cultural milieu?” and 2. “Is that shaping a good or a bad thing?” In the book, I talk about certain gendered desires – like, for example, a boy’s desire to not cry in front of his friends—as examples of desires that are a) clearly shaped by our cultural milieu and b) a bad thing.

Now, I don’t think the desire for genetic knowledge is like that. I’ve already said that I think we should take people’s desire for genetic knowledge seriously and that doing so leads to the conclusion that people shouldn’t use anonymous donors. But I think it’s undeniable that we live in a culture that highly valorizes genetic connectedness and often tells simplistic, reductive stories about family resemblance, genetic ties, the significance of “blood” etc. I think it’s worthwhile for everyone—not just donor conceived people or others who lack genetic knowledge—to interrogate their commitments about the significance of genetic ties in light of the culture we’re in. We should all ask, “Why do I, or do people in general, care about this so much?” and “Is it a good thing or a bad thing?” I try to give an account in the book about why many people care about genetic knowledge in a way that shows how it can be a source of meaning. But I also try to show that, oftentimes, people’s reasons for being attached to genetic knowledge are shaped by forces that do unjustifiably valorize the biogenetic conception of the family.

Why can’t I uphold the rights of people who wish to create nontraditional families and still want my genetic information? Why is it an either/or? Why is it not acceptable to honor and uphold nontraditional families and at the same time say that genetic knowledge also matters?

I think it is acceptable! Indeed, that’s the position I try to carve out in the book: we shouldn’t see the interest in genetic knowledge as ineluctably bound up with biogenetic normativity. One can do exactly what you say: honor and uphold nontraditional families and at the same time say that genetic knowledge matters.

A problem emerges, however, when people put an emphasis on the significance of genetic knowledge—and genetic ties— that automatically downgrades the status of non-traditional families to “second best.” I’ve seen this attitude on display in a number of contexts. Sometimes the idea is that someone who isn’t raised by their genetic parents is (usually, though not always) worse off for it. Sometimes the idea is that a life without genetic knowledge is necessarily and seriously deficient. Sometimes the idea is that contributing gametes for the purposes of procreation without the intention of raising the resulting child is, by itself, morally unacceptable (equivalent, perhaps, to abandoning one’s child). I take all of those ideas to downgrade—if not outright reject—non-traditional family forms. So to the extent people’s attachment to genetic knowledge goes through those ideas, then I think there is a tension between caring about genetic knowledge and honoring non-traditional family forms. But again, I have no objections whatsoever to your way of thinking about things.

It seems that the objection to wanting genetic knowledge asserted by some individuals creating nontraditional families has to do with the fear that their children will be somehow less connected or see their parents as somehow less than traditional parents when I believe there’s no research or even anecdotal experience to suggest that is true. Is that right?

I think you’re right. Certainly, parents who do not want their donor conceived children to know that they are donor conceived sometimes cite as the reason that they’re worried the child will be less connected to their non-genetic parent. One thing seems clear: when people find out later in life they are donor conceived, that very often does cause a rupture. But the issue there seems to be mostly about secrecy and deception, and not about the fact of genetic non-relatedness itself. As far as I know, there is no evidence that people who are donor conceived and have never been led to believe otherwise are generally less connected to their non-genetic parent. Part of the issue here, though, is that we would need a better of understanding of what “less connected” even means. One thing I would definitely want to reject is that “being connected” is a zero-sum game so that if a donor conceived person forms a connection to their donor they are thereby less connected to their social parents.

It’s important to note here that it’s only some families that can realistically keep their donor conceived child in the dark, namely heteronormative families that can “pass” as “traditional” families (i.e. families where children are genetically related to both parents). I think doing so is, generally speaking, deceptive and wrong. I think oftentimes a parent’s worry that their child will not connect to them in the same way if they (the child) know they are donor conceived reflects the parent’s own preconceptions about the significance of genetic ties as well as, sometimes, shame about not being able to conceive (particularly for men).

At some point in Conceiving People you say that people can be influenced or educated to believe that genetic history is not as significant as some would have us believe. There seems to be no evidence to assert that genetic information is unimportant. On what basis can that claim be made?

This is a great question. One thing to say up front: clearly genetic information can be super important for medical reasons. I do not want to deny that! Nor do I want to suggest that we should try to “educate” people to believe otherwise. But the medical reasons for wanting genetic knowledge are not—for many donor conceived people—the whole story: if it were possible to get the relevant medical information without knowing who your genetic parents are, many donor conceived people would still want to know who their genetic parents are. So, when I suggest that maybe we can move people toward caring less about genetic knowledge, I don’t mean that people should care less about the medical reasons for wanting genetic knowledge. I mean, rather, that perhaps people can be moved to care less about genetic knowledge for the reasons that go beyond the medical reasons.

What do I mean when I say that perhaps people can be “moved” in this way? To answer this question, let me lay out one key idea I argue for: while genetic knowledge can provide a rich source of meaning in answering the question “Who am I?”, I don’t think it is either the only source or a necessary source. I think there are ways of telling a rich and truly complete story about who you are as a person that doesn’t put a lot of emphasis on genetic lineage. Now combine that thought with one I discussed above, namely that we live in a society that puts a lot of emphasis (in my view, undue emphasis) on the significance of genetic ties. These two thoughts together suggest one way that we might move people—everyone!—to care less about genetic knowledge, namely by working to make society less bionormative overall, where that means we try to change our cultural schema so that lacking genetic knowledge isn’t necessarily seen as having this massive void in one’s life. That’s a tall order (as are all calls to effect change at a societal level). I don’t have anything particularly insightful to say about how to go about doing that.

At the individual level, one thing I say in the book is that people have a choice about how to construct their identities, about what parts of their life to treat as important and which to treat as comparatively unimportant. In retrospect, I would have not put things in terms of “choice” because I don’t think it’s really possible to just make up your mind to either care or not care about something. What I was trying to convey is that I don’t think there is a fact of the matter about who we, as individuals, are. There’s not a single answer to the question “Who am I?” out there, waiting to be discovered. Rather, there are many different rich, full answers to that question and not all of the answers require having genetic knowledge. So, it’s not about “educating” people, but rather creating a culture, a climate, where there is less pressure—from all avenues of life —to pursue what I call the “genetic route” to answering the question, “Who am I?”

Crucially, I think one of the ironies here is that insisting that genetic knowledge doesn’t matter at all or withholding information from people is not the way to create that climate. Quite the opposite: I think practices of secrecy and anonymity function to heighten the perceived significance of genetic ties. I think honesty and an openness to what the philosopher Alice MacLachlan calls the “abundant family”—a notion of family that extends beyond the typical notion parents and children—are more likely, over time, to put genetic knowledge in its proper place as a source of identity determination, but not an absolutely necessary source.

What about truth? How can wanting to know truth be dismissed as somehow unethical or immoral? How can truth be immoral? Couldn’t it reasonably be argued that trying to deprive someone of their birthright—of information most other humans have—is deceptive and unethical or immoral?

Let me tackle the second question first! I think it is indeed deceptive and, generally speaking, unethical to not tell a donor conceived person that they are donor conceived. What about not giving people access to genetic knowledge by, for example, using an anonymous donor? The central argument of the book is that that too is, in general, unethical (I wouldn’t call it deceptive, though, unless it’s paired with non-disclosure).

I’ve almost answered your second question, but not quite, because you put things in terms of people having a “birthright” to genetic knowledge and I didn’t use that term in my answer. I don’t use the language of “birthright” for two reasons. First, just as a philosophical matter, I’m not entirely sure what I think about natural rights in general, so my thinking just doesn’t tend to run in the direction of explanations that appeal to natural rights. But even if it did, I think it’s well worth asking what makes something a right in the first place. In other words, I’m not satisfied with saying, “Well, it is my right to have this information and there’s nothing more to be said.” I think rights call for explanations, so even if I did want to put things in terms of rights, I would still want to go on to do all the stuff I do to explain what gives rise to the right.

Your first question—about whether truth, or wanting the truth, can ever be immoral—is super interesting. I don’t think truth, as such, is either moral or immoral. It’s just the truth! Facts are neither moral nor immoral. But I think that wanting the truth can be immoral. Suppose I want to know some embarrassing fact about you so that I can blackmail you. My wanting the truth, in that case, would be immoral.

Now, wanting genetic knowledge is not at all like that. I’m just giving a case where it seems pretty clear that wanting the truth can be immoral. My point is just that if someone wants to defend the right to genetic knowledge, it’s probably not best to make that case by claiming that it is never wrong to want the truth. We need to know why people want the truth…and that returns us to some of what we discussed about interrogating the source of the desire for genetic knowledge.

Who benefits and how do they benefit by wanting to discourage the gaining of this information?

This is a great question, and it’s not one I take up in the book, at least not in detail. I think there are four broad communities that benefit from practices of anonymity. The first community is heteronormative parents who want to pass as a “traditional” family and don’t want anyone—least of all their child—to know that they have a donor conceived child. I think this interest is often born out of a sense of shame about being unable to conceive, combined with the kinds of worries you mentioned above (e.g. that a child who knows they are not genetically related to one of their parents will, as a result, love them less).

The second community is non-heteronormative families—gay and lesbian couples for example—whose status as parents has been, and to some extent still is, legally and socially tenuous. Living with the prospect that the donor might swoop in and claim parental rights—and that the law might side with the donor —is profoundly unsettling. A friend of mine describes it as living with a feeling of “terror,” and recent developments in the legal landscape in the United States—like the recently “Don’t Say Gay” law passed in Florida, the legal attacks across the country on reproductive rights, and the legal attacks in some states on trans people—show that that feeling is not remotely unfounded. I think those of us that have not lived with the prospect of having your family torn asunder—or your whole identity targeted—by the law can have trouble understanding the force of this concern. It’s understandable—to put it mildly—why, in that context, people might care that the donor is anonymous.

The third community, of course, is the fertility industry which has a massive interest in ensuring a supply of donors and avoiding limits on how many offspring can be conceived with the gametes of one donor.

The fourth are prospective donors who donate to make money and also to help people who cannot conceive, but do not want any involvement at all with their genetic offspring.

How much should we care about these interests? Let me start with the fertility industry. I am not an expert on the fertility industry (and, I’ll add, I have absolutely nothing to do with it), but I have little-to-no sympathy with their set of concerns. The same goes for prospective donors who want to be anonymous—I argue in the book if you’re going to donate, you shouldn’t be an anonymous donor. I can understand, of course, why a donor would want to be anonymous. But I argue that those interests really don’t count for much at all.

I am, however, sensitive to the interests and concerns of the first two groups I mentioned. Crucially, I don’t think such concerns win the day. In the book, I consider why prospective parents may prefer to use an anonymous donor and—while I understand where those preferences come from—I find them wanting when compared to a donor conceived person’s interest in having genetic knowledge.

I’ll also add that I think I think the best way to address the legitimate concerns of the first two communities is not by upholding practices of anonymity—which, as we all know, are increasingly impossible to uphold in the world of 23andMe etc.—but rather to transform the cultural norms and beliefs about the nature of families so that, for example, infertility is not a source of shame, the bionormative family is not seen as the “gold standard” (to borrow a phrase from Charlotte Witt) of family forms, and the law provides protections for non-traditional family forms.

You stop short in your book of weighing in on the right to know. Could you look at this and comment not as a philosopher but as a person with curiosity. Reverence for ancestors has been communicated since the beginning of time. Genealogy is the world’s leading hobby. People have always and will continue to want to know where they come from. If the vast majority of people in the world, now and apparently in all time and all cultures, were able to know who their parents are and that knowledge mattered to them, is it reasonable to think it isn’t a problem for those of us who are deprived of that information? Perhaps reduce it to an absurd point. Say, bread isn’t necessary for life, but if 95% of the people in the world want bread and are allowed to have it and you can’t have bread, wouldn’t you be upset, and might you not wonder why you are not entitled to have bread, even if it weren’t vital to your life? Why are all the philosophical arguments you construct necessary if, as the studies you cite suggest, the majority of donor conceived people feel that genetic information matters? Why is their lived experience not enough to demonstrate that, for whatever reason, they feel impoverished by not having the same genetic information others have?

I want to reject the dichotomy between looking at things as a philosopher and looking at them as a person with curiosity! For me, philosophy is all about being curious and trying to get to the heart of things. To be sure, I don’t think it is the only or the best way to be curious or to get at the heart of things: music, poetry, art, fiction, creative non-fiction, not to mention all the other academic fields of study, are also conduits for curiosity and thinking things through. Philosophy is just one way. But it’s a way that speaks to me. There’s not “Philosophy me” and “Here’s what I really think me.” It’s all just me!

So, when I consider your fantastic questions as a person with curiosity, I unavoidably take up a philosophical perspective. And when I do, it seems to me that it’s not enough to note that lots of people want something in order to conclude that they should have it or are entitled to it. Now: it’s definitely relevant. Indeed, my whole argument against anonymity is centered on the fact that the majority of donor conceived people want genetic knowledge. But—at the risk of sounding like a broken record—I think all desires, all wants, are candidates for critical scrutiny. We should scrutinize the forces that generate the wants, desires, interests, and aims that people have. Sometimes we’ll see that the forces are benign or even positive. Other times we’ll discover that they’re not positive. And still other times, we’ll discover that it’s a mix.

The point is just that we shouldn’t treat people’s desires, interests, or aims as beyond scrutiny and as the thing that settles the matter of what people should have or be entitled to. We need an account of what is behind the interests, desires, etc. I try to provide such an account when it comes to the desire for genetic knowledge—among the population at large, not just among donor conceived people. And I try to show that even if certain problematic cultural forces are in play, the desire for genetic knowledge is nonetheless worthwhile and should be respected. Anyway: that’s why I spill so much ink on this topic.Daniel Groll is an associate professor in the philosophy Department at Carleton College in Northfield, MN and an affiliate faculty member at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. He writes on a variety of issues in ethics and is currently spending time thinking about the nature and significance of family resemblance. When he’s not doing philosophy, he’s probably making music for kids with Louis & Dan and the Invisible Band. Get a 30% discount on Conceiving People with the code AAFLYG. Find him on Twitter @dang_pigeon.

By Maegan Bergeron-ClearwoodFirst, if you feel called to read this essay, then you belong here. Welcome. Do you belong in the Jewish community? Are you a part of this religion, culture, and peoplehood? Are you actually technically Jewish at all? To give a very Jewish answer: yes, no, maybe. It depends. But this journey of exploration and curiosity—of questioning and wrestling—is absolutely yours for the taking. So welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Not everyone along the way will greet you with such open arms, so I want to make sure that mine are stretched extra wide.

An NPE* discovery is complicated enough, but when compounded by an ethnicity discovery—a Jewish ethnicity discovery especially—the complications are magnified. And Jewish identity is complicated enough, even for people who were raised Jewish. DNA testing may be new, but the question of “who counts as a Jew” is as old as Judaism itself. Judaism is an ethnicity, as you may have just learned unexpectedly, but it’s also a culture, a spiritual practice, a community, a set of laws, a set of holy days, and unendingly more. How many of those boxes must a person tick in order to be counted among the tribe? The answer remains: it depends.

There’s a beloved aphorism: for every two Jews, you get three opinions. Judaism is far more concerned with asking questions than it is with answering them. So if you came to this article asking “Am I Jewish?” be forewarned: you won’t get a clear answer. But you will, I hope, get a solid footing for the start of your journey, should you choose to embark.

The Rabbinic Answer

Let’s start with the answer you’d be most likely to get if you googled “Am I Jewish?” Or, let’s say you told a rabbi: “I just found out that I’m biologically half Jewish because the dad that I thought was my dad isn’t my dad and my DNA isn’t what I thought it was—what does that mean?” First, the rabbi would probably respond the same way most people do: a polite “please slow down because I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” or something of that ilk. Then, the rabbi would likely say that, according to halakha (Jewish law), you must be born to a Jewish mother or have entered the faith through conversion. For an NPE, then, this sounds like a resounding no: you are not, by law, a Jew. A reform or reconstructionist rabbi (these are the more socially progressive and halakhically creative of the four main Jewish denominations: learn more here) would tell you that patrilineal Jews count, but only if they’re raised Jewish—so you’re still out of luck.

Don’t take any of this to mean that rabbis are unfeeling jerks who won’t empathize with your situation, or that you shouldn’t seek out a rabbi with a curious heart, or even that all rabbis follow this halakhic law. But “Welcome to the tribe” might not be the first words out of a rabbi’s mouth when they hear your story, no matter how desperate you were to hear them said.

As NPEs, we are no strangers to rejection. We get it on all sides: from the families that raised us, for stirring up trouble; from our new biological families, for daring to exist; from our friends and partners, for being so damn depressing all the time. It’s particularly devastating, then, to seek refuge in our newfound ethnicity only to be turned away. These DNA results were what pushed us off the path of seeming normalcy to begin with, and now we’re being told that our DNA is not enough? If I’m not who I was before and I’m also not Jewish, then what am I?

So before you disavow rabbinic law entirely, a bit of context. The fact that Judaism exists in the 21^st century is a miracle. There’s a joke about Jewish holidays: They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat! And it’s true: on paper, Jewish history is bleak, what with the exiles, plagues, forced assimilation, slavery, to say nothing of the literal genocide—for a people who make up less that one percent of the world’s population, our existence is nothing short of miraculous. But it’s not a Chanukah kind of miracle, where God intervened to make sure oil lasted for eight impossible nights. It’s a miracle of resilience.

For more reasons than I can go into here, Jews don’t proselytize (learn more). Instead of growing in numbers, we grow in connection; Judaism isn’t about breadth, but about depth. Across hundreds of generations, Jews have passed along laws, traditions, and maybe most importantly, texts. Some of these inheritances seem ridiculous on paper (Why is God in the Torah such a jerk? Why don’t we light fires of Shabbat? And what’s the deal with shellfish?), but they’re the fibers that connect a peoplehood across the span of thousands of miles and thousands of years. This doesn’t mean that Orthodox and other more “traditional” Jews are more Jewish than Reform or Reconstructionist Jews or even than agnostic or atheist Jews, (because yes, you can be a Jew and not believe in God). To be a Jew is not to follow every single tradition. But intentionally changing or even rejecting a tradition can be an act of keeping those threads of connection alive.

In many synagogues you’ll see a sanctuary lamp, or Ner Tamid: eternal flame. It represents the menorah of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem, which was meant to burn continuously, across the generations, a symbol of God’s constant presence among the Jewish people. It sounds impossible, to keep one fire lit for thousands of years, but that’s the miraculous part: it’s still burning. In synagogues and on Shabbat tables around the world, the fire burns.

So yes, you have Jewish DNA. That means that your ancestors were part of this unending, miraculous chain of lights. What a beautiful discovery! Mazel tov! But if you knock on a rabbi’s door asking if you’re Jewish and they tell you “It depends,” or even “No,” they aren’t slamming the door back in your face. They’re just meeting your knock with a bit of healthy skepticism: your ancestors kindled the fire, true, but are you willing to do the same?

Because being Jewish is about so much more than DNA.

In fact, being Jewish isn’t about DNA at all.

The Ancestry Answer

 But it’s literally about DNA! Genetics are what got me into this reality-shattering mess to begin with! Science says that I’m Jewish, so I have to be! Right?

Yes. And no. It depends. But I would argue, that when it comes to this answer in particular, it’s mostly no.

Which is strange for me to admit, because if it weren’t for discovering my genetics, I wouldn’t be where I am today, and I love where I am today. My NPE journey is still, overwhelmingly, a hot, stinking, miserable mess of family drama and emotional upheaval. But becoming Jewish? That’s made it all worthwhile.

When I first started telling people about my NPE discovery, this was the most common response: “I always thought you looked Jewish!” My hair apparently, is a dead giveaway. So are my eyebrows. My “dark features.” My nose. Or I just give off the right vibes. “Yeah, I can see that,” people would respond. Gentiles and Jews alike, it seems, have read me as Jewish long before I knew that I had Ashkenazi parentage. Intellectually, I was always wary at of these responses. Surely there’s no way to “look Jewish,” is there? Isn’t that what the Nazis used to say to justify murdering six million of us?

And yet—it was also strangely comforting. My NPE discovery had fractured so much of what I thought to be true about myself, and this was the affirmation I craved: yes, you are different; no, you’re not crazy; yes, you belong.

The whole reason that Eastern European, or Ashkenazi, Jews show up as an ethnic group on DNA testing sites is because of a population “founder effect”: we descend from a small number of culturally isolated ancestors who rarely intermarried, so we share enough common genetic markers to classify us as distinct. Other Jewish ethnic groups, like Sephardi or Mizrahi, don’t show up with that kind of specificity. The attempt to genetically quantify “who is a Jew,” therefore, centers Ashkenazi Jews at the expense of so many other ethnic groups, Jews of color in particular (learn more about Ashkenormativity here).

And on an even more fundamental level, this quantification implies that ethnicity is a core component of Jewish identity, when in fact, the Jewish people have always been a “mixed multitude”: as far back as our exodus out of Egypt, the Jewish nation has transcended ethnicity, borders, and ancestry. To rely on a DNA test as proof of one’s Jewishness, and to equate being Jewish with looking a “certain way,” dismisses the beautiful spectrum of Jewish peoplehood, including Jews who have joined the tribe through marriage, adoption, or by choice.

The overarching implications of linking DNA to identity, however, is not only reductive and exclusionary: it’s downright dangerous. No matter where you land on the “Am I Jewish?” question, you have to tread carefully. Race isn’t biological. It’s an organizational tool for constructing social hierarchies based on difference and otherness. Jews have historically been racialized for this very purpose, across geography and time. The most glaring example is the pseudoscience of Nazi Germany, which made claims of supposed genetic markers to prove the existence of racial imperfections and justify the eradication of entire populations of people – Jewish, but also Black, Romani, the disabled, the list goes on. Genetics, both the science and the language around it, have been weaponized against Jews and other racialized groups for centuries. In these strange times of mainstream genetic testing, if I read someone’s search history and saw “Jewish ethnicity DNA,” I wouldn’t know if they were a neo-nazi or just curious about their ancestry. Which should terrify us. (Learn more about race, Jewishness, and DNA testing here.)

Technically, sure, you can call yourself Jew-ish based on DNA alone—but you run the risk of replicating some wildly dangerous rhetoric in doing so. As someone who ended up choosing to be Jewish after finding out about my Jewish ancestry, I’ve become much more familiar with the insidiousness of antisemitism, and the potential misuses of mainstream DNA testing frankly scare me. Ironic, that DNA testing is what led to my becoming a Jew in the first place, but true.

So if you’re new to this journey, I recommend doing a bit of reading: a) on antisemitism, particularly racial antisemitism, both historically and as it appears today; and b) on the incredible diversity to be found throughout the Jewish people. It’s critical that we expand our conception of what it means to be Jewish and who “counts” as a Jew; we need to recognize the glorious mixed multitude of peoplehood, of which genetics are barely a part, if at all. And we need to be careful with our words, particularly in this age of rampant xenophobia, racism, and antisemitism.

Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t explore your roots or disavow the physical traits that you inherited from your newfound Jewish ancestors—by all means, learn about your heritage and honor where you come from, if you feel called to do so. Many NPEs describe their experience as one of uprootedness, and delving into one’s Jewish ancestry can be a beautiful way of becoming re-rooted. Ashkenazi culture has so much to offer, from food and music to literature and language, so dive in! Eat, sing, read—savor it all.

Over the past four years, I’ve fallen in love with the stories of Sholem Aleichem, enjoyed lectures on theater and history the Yiddish Book Center (a wonderful resource for learning more about Ashkenazi culture), and, after some trial and error, managed to bake a few decent loaves of challah with my partner. I’ve also come to love my hair and nose in so many unexpected, tender ways, even as I remain wary of what it means to give off “Jewish vibes.”

Being visibly and genetically Jewish was my entry point into becoming Jewish, but that’s all it was: an entry point. An invitation. An awakening to new possibilities.

In a way, Jewish NPEs are weirdly lucky: we may feel hopelessly lost at family gatherings or when we look in the mirror, but at our fingertips, there’s a rich cultural roadmap for living with deep, interconnected roots. The tricky part being: we can’t just read the map. We have to actually make the journey.

Choosing an Answer

I wish I could say that discovering Jewish ancestry means that your identity suddenly makes sense. If you’re reading this article, then you’ve already been through enough emotional upheaval for a lifetime: wouldn’t it be a relief to have some simple answers for once, to just know who you are once and for all?

But remember: two Jews, three opinions. Simple answers are not, unfortunately, in the stars.

These days, you’ll probably hear the descriptor “Jew by Choice” more often than “convert to Judaism.” It’s a language choice that’s meant to recognize the activeness of the person’s journey into Judaism. It’s meant to be affirming, empowering even.

When I first started considering conversion, I bristled at this phrase. None of this was a choice. I didn’t choose to be born with this parentage; I didn’t choose to have my ancestry kept a secret; I didn’t choose to learn about my heritage in such a traumatic way. My Jewishness was thrust upon me, along with so many other complicated revelations about my identity and family history. I didn’t ask to be Jewish—I didn’t ask for any of this.

But when I look over the past four years, I realize just how many choices I’ve made along the way. When I got that email from 23andMe, I could have slammed my laptop shut and moved on as if nothing had changed. But I chose to let myself be transformed by the discovery. I chose to ask questions, I chose to do research, I chose to feel uncomfortable, and ultimately, I chose to be a Jew. I chose to light that candle, and I choose every day to keep it alive.

This article was clearly written by a Jew, someone who loves their peoplehood and religion. But I recognize that not everyone reading this is ready to seriously consider being Jewish in such an all-encompassing way. So let me frame things differently.

Recovering from trauma is all about crafting narratives. Something totally outside of your control just happened to you. Reality has become unreal. The story of your life has ripped to shreds. And the only way to unfreeze yourself, to feel in control again, is to rewrite the story, with you at the center. You didn’t choose to discover you were suddenly Jewish, but you can choose what that discovery means.

For me, becoming Jewish was a way to craft a healthy narrative. There’s a beautiful adage in Jewish mysticism, that every single Jew was present at Sinai when Moses delivered God’s commandments, when the covenant between God and the Israelites and was sealed and a united peoplehood was born. The soul of every single Jew, across history and geography, Jews of choice included, was there at the base of the mountain, being called to their place in history.

This narrative brings me comfort. Was I really at Sinai, standing alongside every single member of this sprawling, interconnected family? Is that why I felt called to respond to my Jewish ancestry discovery—because my soul was Jewish all along? Is that why all of this exhausting, traumatic family secret nonsense happened to me?

Yes. No. It depends. Chances are, I like the Sinai story because it helps me make sense of a senseless thing. It isn’t my DNA that brought me to the base of that mountain; I’m there because I choose to be. And this act of choosing doesn’t make my presence at Sinai any less true–my soul was there because I believe it to be there, and that belief is realer to me than any DNA test.

If you want to make sense of your newfound ancestry, if you want to answer the question “Am I Jewish?” once and for all, you absolutely do not have to convert to Judaism. But you also can’t just ask a rabbi or trace your genetic family tree. You have to answer the question for yourself—you have to decide whether being Jewish fits into your new narrative of personhood. Making that decision requires curiosity, energy, introspection, and lots and lots of books.

It also requires patience. You may have discovered that you had Jewish ancestry overnight, but discovering your Jewish identity will take time. It’s taken four years and counting for me, and it’s been a boundlessly radical process. It may take even longer for you. It may be wildly transformational or not a huge deal at all—but that’s not for me, a rabbi, or anyone else but you to find out.

Exploring Judaism is one of many ways to heal and construct new narratives out of an NPE experience. You’re no less valid a Jewish-ancestry-NPE if you decide against such an exploration. But if you feel called to journey, if you really need to know whether being Jewish is part of your story, then welcome.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

*NPE: not parent expected, nonpaternity event, nonparental event — discovering that a person you believed to be your parent wasn’t your genetic parent

Severance is not monetized—no subscriptions, no ads, no donations—therefore, all content is generously shared by the writers. If you have the resources and would like to help support the work, you can tip the writer.

Find the author on Venmo @ottertarot.Maegan Clearwood (she/they) is a writer and theater-dabbler based out of Western Massachusetts. As an essayist and theater critic, their work has been published in The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, OnStage Blog, Howlround Theater Commons, and Everything Sondheim. They earned an MFA in Dramaturgy from UMass Amherst, with a graduate certificate in Advanced Feminist Studies, and a BA in English and Theater from Washington College. Find them on Twitter @maeganwriteson and Instagram @ottertarot.Do you have a story about discovering a new ethnicity, religion, or culture? We want to hear it. Read our submission guidelines and get in touch!

By Kara Rubinstein DeyerinIt’s what those of us with misattributed parentage like to call “sibling season”—the time when people who received an over-the-counter DNA test for Christmas are getting their results. When you have a DNA surprise and learn the person who raised you is not your genetic parent, you are plummeted into a world of confusion, doubt, and shock. You feel all alone in your experience. You are likely thinking it is impossible that anyone else could have had such a crazy thing happen to them. And so when you turn to a professional—a licensed therapist—for help, the last thing you want to hear after explaining your situation during your first session is “Wow. That’s incredible. I’ve never heard of that before!”

We estimate that 1 in 20 people have misattributed parentage—that’s 16.6 million Americans who may innocently spit into a tube and discover they’re not who they thought they were. People have a misattributed parentage experience (MPE) from a variety of circumstances: they discover they’re adopted or that they were conceived through assisted reproduction or as a result of an extra-marital affair, rape, or other sexual encounter. Regardless of why someone has an MPE, the news is traumatic for many.

“After I told my therapist about my MPE, she said she had no idea how a person should respond to being told such a story.” Lisa

In Right to Know’s 2021 Survey of MPEs[1], 39% of those surveyed responded they’d sought help from a licensed therapist. Of those who saw a therapist, just only 18% felt their therapists had sufficient training in misattributed parentage issues to assist them. This needs to change.

“Today I had a therapy session with yet another new therapist. Every time I have to educate my therapist on what an MPE is, how we feel, how our situation is life altering, how we have an identity crisis, and how we search for family….” Michelle

Right to Know is a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for people with a DNA surprise and misattributed parentage and promoting understanding of the complex intersection of genetic information, identity, and family dynamics. To promote this goal, we now offer the first misattributed parentage education platform providing educational information on MPEs and the impacts of DNA surprises to professionals and the public. With this initiative, we aim to tackle one of the most important aspects of the MPE discovery—the need for training for licensed therapists and information for those affected by an MPE and the public at large.

“During my first visit to a therapist, she admitted this was all so new to everyone and she had no experience with this specific trauma, that there was no handbook on how to handle my feelings. She told me my mother had every right to lie to me, that it was her body.” Dan

When a person makes a discovery of such a potentially traumatic magnitude, properly trained licensed professionals can provide essential mental health support. We offer four core introductory courses for continuing education credit on Identity, Grief and Loss, Psychological and Ethical Impacts, and Reunion, with more classes coming soon. Learn about the CE courses at www.MPE-Education.org, and use coupon code 15%OFF on your first CE course. Right to Know has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7181. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Right to Know is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. Not a therapist? We also offer these courses without education credits at a discounted price.

“After telling my therapist about my MPE, he kept calling my father that raised me my ‘stepdad.’ I cringed every time he said it; it made me uncomfortable hearing him referred to in this way.” Susan

Identity confusion can be a major part of an MPE. Identity & MPEs, taught by Jodi Kluggman-Rabb, MA, LMFT, PsyD, covers identity formation and the dimensions of identity, genealogical bewilderment, and the psychological impact of an MPE identity crisis. This class provides an overview of what an MPE is and the terms associated with a non-paternity event (NPE).

People with an MPE may be dealing with disenfranchised grief and ambiguous loss. Cotey Bowman, MA, LPC Associate, teaches Loss & Grief in MPEs through the lens of an NPE. He reviews the foundational concepts of loss and grief, discusses how this can complicate healing from an MPE, and compares treatments including artistic creation for loss and grief for people with an MPE.

Some common psychological concerns of people with an MPE include complicated grief, complex PTSD, attachment issues, identity and existential confusion, family secrecy, depression, and anxiety. Psychological and Ethical Implications of MPEs offers therapists an understanding of the themes associated with MPEs, psychological concerns and diagnoses, as well as the ethical and advocacy considerations of MPEs. Lynne W. Spencer, MA, LLP, RN, illustrates these issues from the perspective of donor conception and reviews the terms associated with assisted conception.

The prospect of deciding whether to reach out to new genetic family is daunting, especially when considering all of the possible outcomes. Leslie Pate Mckinnon, MA, LCSW, in Navigating Reunion with MPEs, takes therapists through the steps of reunion from an adoption perspective. She provides an overview of adoption terms and history, discusses the innate desire for people to know their genetic identity, and offers tips about the nuts and bolts of reunion.

These classes are just the beginning. Classes on helping parents talk to their children about their unique conception and understanding genetic sexual attraction are also in the works. If you’re interested in having Right to Know sponsor a course on a certain topic or if you’d like to teach a course, send a message to info@RightToKnow.us.

And to all our new siblings out there, we got you! We’re working hard to ensure you have access to the information and resources you need to process your MPE. If you are looking for a therapist, Right to Know maintains a list of therapists with experience working with misattributed parentage on our MPE Counseling Directory. If you need help with your DNA surprise, call 323-TALK MPE. We’re here to listen, help you identify your genetic family, find an experienced therapist in your state, and provide a mentor—all for free because no one should ever feel alone with such life-changing news.

[1] 2021 MPE Survey, Right to Know and the DNA Discussion Project (600+ respondents).Kara Rubinstein Deyerin is co-founder and CEO of Right to Know. She is a non-practicing attorney with an LLM in Taxation and an MA in trade and investment policy. In January 2018, she wanted to see where in Africa her father’s family came from. Her over-the-counter DNA test revealed she was 50% something but it wasn’t African. This meant the man on her birth certificate couldn’t possibly be her genetic father. She lost her bi-racial identity with the click of a mouse. Deyerin discovered she was 50% Ashkenazi Jew. The DNA pandora’s box she opened led to an identity crisis. She’s a passionate advocate for genetic identity rights. It is a fundamental human right to know your genetic identity.