TITLE: Adoptees & Cults

DESCRIPTION

This upcoming We the Experts features adoptees who were raised, indoctrinated, or coerced into a cult or new religious movement (NRM). Our panel of speakers will share their personal experience with the complex intersection of cults and adoption.

Topics of discussion will include:

• In what ways has your journey through and out of a cult influenced your understanding of family and community, particularly as an adoptee? 

• With cults being a rising topic examined in docu-series and media, does your story as an adoptee feel represented?

• How did your experience as an adoptee shape your search for belonging within a cult/NRM, and how do you view that dynamic now?

• How did your experience within a cult impact you and how did you navigate those beliefs as you grew older?

PANELISTS

Sara Easterly (she/her) is an adoptee-author of books that include her award-winning spiritual memoir, Searching for Mom, as well as Adoption Unfiltered: Revelations from Adoptees, Birth Parents, Adoptive Parents, and Allies, co-authored with birth parent Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard and adoptive parent Lori Holden. Her essays, articles, and book reviews have been widely published. She is Founder of Adoptee Voices, where she supports other adoptees in sharing their stories, and a trained course facilitator with the Neufeld Institute. Additionally, Sara is co-host of the Adoption Unfiltered podcast. She is looking forward to participating on this panel to help spread awareness about adoptee susceptibility to high-demand groups and cults, and to normalize conversations about this sensitive subject by bringing in a focus on attachment and adoption dynamics.

Cherish Asha Bolton (she/her) is a transracial, intercountry adoptee from India to the USA. She has experience as a researcher and academic in colonial history which enables her to understand the complexity of intercountry adoptee identity formation. She is now a mental health therapist, certified Brainspotting practitioner, and social worker, and her primary interests are sex therapy and religious trauma, particularly people experiencing estrangement from their families, processing religious fundamentalism, and/or those engaging in alternative lifestyles. Cherish regularly educates on the effects of religious trauma, and she is passionate about exploring the intersection of religion and adoption.

Sariah Baker (xe/xem) is a transracial, ex-Mormon adoptee. She was adopted in 1996 from Shanghai, China to a White American Mormon family in the USA. She's posted on YouTube and TikTok about her unique adoption story including her struggles with Mormonism, mental health, and her sexuality. She's been a guest on multiple podcasts from Once Upon a Time in Adopteeland, Unraveling Adoption, The Adoption Journey Podcast, and ABC Adoptees Born in China. She is happy to be on this panel to share her experience of being “Sariah the Obedient” to “Sariah the Apostate”. Sariah wanted to be on this panel to share her experience of her cult life in Mormonism, while also sharing the journey that happens after leaving her cult.

Kimberly Phipps (she/her) is a domestic, same-race adoptee from the pre-Roe baby-scoop era. She was born in Chicago and raised in Texas, but spent most of her adult life in Los Angeles. After searching for her birth mother for several years while the internet was still young, she has worked at being in a reunion relationship with her for 22 years. Upon meeting her alleged birth father many years ago, she found out that she is also an NPE. Four years ago, she found her true paternal birth family through Ancestry DNA, but is still attempting to navigate that process. She currently lives in Houston, TX where she teaches Computer Animation after working many years in the entertainment industry. She is excited to be on this panel to connect with other adoptees, offer support, and strengthen our community.

Alternate Panelist - Linda Campbell Pevac (she/her) is a U.S. domestic, same-race, baby scoop-era adoptee who was relinquished and adopted in Denver, Colorado, in 1962. Her adoption was a closed file adoption. Linda is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor's in Journalism and has completed master's level course work in psychology. After she searched for her biological family, she authored two memoirs: THE GATHERING PLACE: AN ADOPTEE'S STORY and A FIRE IS COMING. Her next book, CHOOSING TO BREATHE, will be out in fall 2025. Linda is dedicated to bringing more awareness to the susceptibility of adopted people to high-control groups and other forms of coercive control.