We talk with the people and makers of Adoptees Crossing Lines, a “not so feel-good podcast” created by three Black adopted women who meet every other week to talk about their diverse lives and experiences.
Date: February 16, 2023
Time: 3pm Pacific/5pm Central/6pm Eastern
Place: Zoom (Register here)
We’ll discuss all things adoption, including podcasting, reunion, adoption tropes, transracial adoption, and growing up in same-race Black adoptive families. Facilitated and moderated by Adoptees United’s Erica Babino. Please join us for this important event.
About Adoptees Crossing Lines
We are 3 people with 3 very different experiences of being adopted. In this podcast we deconstruct the romanticism holding up the adoption industry and expose the lies, abuse, and pain that gets silenced. We’re here to unwrap the shiny bow around adoption and speak our truths as adoptees. In doing so, we explain what it means and what it feels like to “come out of the fog”. This isn’t your feel good podcast, we are angry, healing and honest adoptees.
Registration
This event is completed. A recording of the event will be published to YouTube once it is available.
Panelists
Dr. Noelle Chaddock
Dr. Noelle Chaddock is a black, transracial, domestic adoptee. Chaddock was born in El Paso, Texas, and raised by a white adoptive family in Upstate New York. Chaddock has been in reunion with maternal and paternal relatives for the last three years. Chaddock’s adoption focus is on the trauma of adoption and the right to original documentation.
Lia Epps
Board Member
Lia Epps is a Black same race adoptee. She spent time in foster care before being adopted. She is the founder of Adoptees Crossing Lines, a podcast where she has honest conversations about being an adoptee and the adoption industry as whole. Lia is an abolitionist. She is passionate about social issues and using her voice to amplify marginalized communities. When Lia is not working, she enjoys traveling, photography, trying new cuisine, and spending time with her friends. You can learn more about Lia here.
Tosha Gillon
Tosha Gillon is a co-host on the Adoptees Crossing Lines podcast who is eager to share her experience to help others. Adopted at birth into a same race family, she has dedicated her adult life to learning about the adoption industry and figuring out what it means to be an adoptee. Tosha is in ‘Reunion’ but hasn’t met her biological family in person. Her journey continues as she grows within the adoptee community while spreading awareness about adoption traumas.
Moderator
Erica Babino
Board Member and the Adoptees United Leader of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIB)
Erica Babino was born in New York City and adopted in Texas. She is the former legislative chair and board member of the American Adoption Congress and Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Chair of Adoptees United. She has been active in adoptee rights for more than 20 years. Erica is a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Mediator/Conflict Management Coach for more than 25 years. She is the author of Rolling into Peace: Speaking in Green, the first in a series of children’s books on the subjects of peer mediation, resolving diversity conflict, and respectful speech. She is an in race adoptee.