The purpose of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) is "...to protect the best interest of Indian Children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families by the establishment of minimum Federal standards for the removal of Indian children and placement of such children in homes which will reflect the unique values of Indian culture... "(25 U.S. C. 1902). ICWA provides guidance to States regarding the handling of child abuse and neglect and adoption cases involving Native children and sets minimum standards for the handling of these cases.

https://www.bia.gov/bia/ois/dhs/icwa

This law is literally to establish the MINIMUM requirements under which the State can remove indigenous children in order to promote keeping indigenous children with their families (which is far far far more likely to benefit the child than not btw). Indigenous children were quite literally STOLEN from their families & communities to give to white families in order to forcibly assimilate them.

He is “calling out the LGBT community” because he is LGB(T) himself! He is specifically discussing a major reckoning with the protections of indigenous people (of which he is also one along with being LGBT) coming up from the Supreme Court.

LGBT indigenous ppl will be affected. White LGBT ppl including “white gays” who are interested in adopting are generally complicit and ACTIVE in the process of pursuing the types of adoption that 1) uphold the white supremacist nature of indigenous cultural gwnocide & 2) SERVE AS A DETRIMENT TO THE CHILD.

You’re getting mad over a indigenous trans person expressing frustration over a major political moment and how whiteness, especially white gayness, still continues to damage his literal family & community.

Yes, LGBT people are often barred from adoptions due to homophobia & transphobia. That can be true while simultaneously discussing how certain “white gays” can use racial and class privilege to overcome these stereotypes AND turn around and actively steal indigenous children via “state sanctioned” “adoption” (it’s literally theft).

The important part is how we as white gay people need to be cognizant of how our limited cultural “acceptance” is allied specifically with upholding white supremacy that would rather steal indigenous children from their families via “adoption”.

I know this is hard, coming to terms with the fact that adoption as an industry is inherently damaging and STRONGLY racially & class biased to the extent that the Federal government had to implement minimum standards to prevent literal child theft. But it is vitally important. You are not exempt from this, we are not exempt from this, white LGBT people who are interested in adopting especially are not exempt from this.

But that's not the truth. Many white gay people adopt internationally or interracially - and they do so as an explicit expression of white saviorism. White gays use their gayness as a shield from criticism (something the commenter is blatantly ignoring). They ignore that many "orphans" have loving families who WANT to keep them, but who lose their children to the foster system due to racial prejudice or even more blatant kidnapping.* They ignore the pattern of countries opening their borders to adoptees only to close them when thousands of children go missing. Adoption is a pretty uniquely bipartisan issue (see: the reaction to the Haiti earthquake in the early 2000s), to act as if only Republicans can cause harm erases how Democrats & many leftists ENCOURAGE the dehumanization of babies of color for...political prowess.

TLDR: The history of white people STEALING BABIES from families abroad and from sovereign Indigenous nations does not end because the white people happen to be gay.

Reposting from my twitter here, but: you wouldn't prevent an adult from speaking to their friend or eating when they were hungry. In your personal life that's abusive behavior, in the work sphere a suppression of workers' rights. Other places these rights are violated include: prison.

In Education and Peace, Maria Montessori describes the culture of war and identifies it as originating, on a personal level, in the struggle between the adult and the child that begins as soon as the child is born. This is the very first conflict. The adult subjects the child to their own wants and needs and completely disregards the needs, development and personhood of the child. This struggle continues throughout childhood, between both parents and children and other adults and children:

“Both the adult and the child are unaware of their own characteristic natures. They fight one another in a secret struggle that has gone on for countless generations and is becoming more violent today in our complicated and nerve-racking culture. The adult defeats the child; and once the child reaches adulthood the characteristic signs of the peace that is only an aftermath of war—destruction on one hand and painful adjustment on the other—remain with him for the rest of his life.”

This conflict positions children and adults relative to each other as two distinct classes, one with power and one without. Of course, there are other conflicts at play here—race is a huge one, gender another. And that’s not to say children can’t have power over parents, etc. But one of the most fundamental class conflicts is between adults and children.