Down the Rabbit Hole: The Fight for Texas Adoptee Rights Then and Now
About this Event
This event takes place in person at the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, and the full program is also livestreamed. Livestream tickets do not require travel.
Join us on Friday, November 6, at the Bullock Texas State History Museum. A night about the fight for Texas adoptee rights. Celebrating the release of WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption out Nov. 3 from Unsolicited Press. The evening pairs a live stage performance with a panel discussion to raise awareness about the fight for Texas adoptees' right to their own original birth certificates.
As lights come up on a kitchen in Texas, a scene from WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption unfolds live on stage. Featuring local Austinite and Zach Scott veteran Brian Coughlin, alongside other actors from Austin community theatre.
What follows is a panel on the fight for open records for Texas adoptees.
The panel covers everything from the black market to birth certificates, and brings together Joellen Peters of Support Texas Adoptee Rights, Marci Purcell of Adoption Knowledge Affiliates, Renee Gelin of Saving Our Sisters, and Patricia of the National Association of Adoptees and Parents. The conversation is led by journalist Emily Ramshaw, co-founder and CEO of The 19th.
We are going to talk honestly about the history of adoption in Texas, the black market and the Baby Scoop Era, where adoptee rights in Texas stand today, and what needs to change.
Texas adoptees have been asking for their own birth certificates for more than twenty years, and bills have failed in seven straight sessions. In 2027 we go back. Seventy-seven percent of Texans are already on our side.
Patricia was handed over along that curb in a black market deal brokered by a shady attorney. No judge. No agency. No paperwork at all. She was not his only one. Years later she found a biological cousin he had trafficked, too. A sealed record is not just a document withheld from the person it belongs to. It is a paper trail nobody can follow, which sows the seeds of secrecy, corruption, and greed. She was 47 before she held a legally obtained birth certificate. Some adoptees find their birth parents through DNA. Many never do, and for them the record usually stays shut.
The paperwork has changed since 1970. The secrecy has not.
Come be in the room. Stay for the reception, meet the people in the book, and get your copy signed. Or watch from anywhere in the country, free.
SCHEDULE
5:45 PM bar opens
6:00 PM doors
6:30 PM program begins
7:45 PM program ends, reception and signing begin
9:00 PM ends
Drinks are permitted in the theater.
LOCATION
Texas Spirit Theater, Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, 1800 Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas 78701
HOW TO JOIN US
Watch from Anywhere. Free. The full program, livestreamed. Link sent before the event.
Attend in Person. Free. A seat in the Texas Spirit Theater for the stage piece and the panel.
Attend in Person + Reception. $25. Everything above, plus the reception, the book signing, and a print copy of WONDERLAND. Limited to 80 people.
Watch from Anywhere + Audiobook. $20. The livestream, plus the audiobook, narrated by Patricia.
Support the Panel. $50. The livestream, the audiobook, and a signed copy mailed to you after publication. US shipping only.
Seats in the theater are limited to 180. The livestream recording stays up afterward.
COMING IN FROM OUT OF TOWN? Email Patricia at [email protected] about a room share list of people willing to share a room.
A NIGHT BENEFITING KEY ADOPTION ORGS
This is a not-for-profit event, held during National Adoption Awareness Month #NAAM. Net proceeds will be donated to the National Association of Adoptees and Parents, Saving Our Sisters, and Adoption Knowledge Affiliates.
ABOUT THE BOOK
In 1970, Patricia Knight Meyer was trafficked along a Texas hospital curb in an illegal, attorney-brokered adoption with no judge, no paperwork, and no questions asked. Patricia grew up celebrating a made-up birthday, haunted by nightmares of "The Dark Man." Her parents, blackmailed by the attorney they hired to skirt a discriminatory adoption system, faced an impossible choice: go to the police or pay up. Navigating her mother's violent alcoholism and caring for her disabled father, Patricia spent her childhood trying to save her saviors, unaware of the lifelong threat that haunted them: at any moment, someone could come back for their child.
Part detective story, part searing family portrait, part historical reckoning, WONDERLAND exposes what happens when maternal desperation meets need and greed. A tumble down the rabbit hole of America's baby trade, this is very much a Texas story.
WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption is published by Unsolicited Press on November 3, 2026.
QUESTIONS
Contact Patricia at [email protected]
PANELIST BIOS
PATRICIA KNIGHT MEYER, Author, WONDERLAND
Patricia Knight Meyer is an author, speaker, and adoption reform advocate. Trafficked as an infant along a Texas hospital curb in 1970, and never legally adopted. Her road to true identity began at 39, when, with no original records, no known birth name, and no confirmed date or place of birth, she identified the attorney who sold her and uncovered a biological cousin trafficked by the same man. Reuniting with both of her birth parents, she received her first legal birth certificate at 47.
She tells this story in her debut memoir, WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption (Unsolicited Press, November 3, 2026). The book won the INDIEREADER Discovery Award in True Crime and placed as a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, the Storytrade Prodigy Award, the IndiesToday Memoir Award, and the Next Generation Indie Award in memoir. Patricia also narrates the audiobook, released through her imprint YAYDNA Press.
She serves on the board of the National Association of Adoptees and Parents, where she hosts the NAAP Happy Hour on the third Friday of every month. Her blog, My Adopted Life, reaches a booming community of adoptees, birth parents, and advocates. She keynotes adoption conferences and camps, leads memoir writing workshops, and has appeared on Al Jazeera's The Stream and HuffPost Live. Her essays have been published in Ms. Magazine, Severance Magazine, Magpie Zine, Narrative Arc, and Kinsmen Quarterly. She is a graduate of the journalism program at the University of Texas at Austin.
MARCI PURCELL
Marci is a passionate advocate for peer support, education, and equal rights for adoptees and foster care alumni. She currently serves as a peer support facilitator at Adoption Knowledge Affiliates (AKA). She is also a past president and board member of AKA. She is a founding member and past president of Support Texas Adoptee Rights (STAR) and currently serves on the advisory board. Marci holds a degree in Psychology, and certificates in Mediation, Peer Support, and Psychological First Aid.
RENEE GELIN, Saving Our Sisters
Renee Gelin is the Founder and President of Saving Our Sisters (SOS), a national nonprofit dedicated to family preservation and ensuring expectant parents have access to unbiased information, resources, and support before making permanent decisions about adoption. Through SOS, Renee has helped build a network that has supported more than 1,000 families across the country, including parents facing financial hardship, housing instability, adoption pressure, and questions about their rights.
Renee is also a longtime advocate for adoption reform, informed consent, adoptee rights, and greater transparency and accountability within private adoption. Her work includes public education, legislative advocacy, policy work, and supporting families navigating some of the most difficult moments of their lives.
Outside of SOS, Renee is a strategic business transformation professional and consultant. She is also a wife and mother, roles that deeply influence her commitment to keeping families together whenever safely possible and ensuring families are treated with dignity, honesty, and respect.
JOELLEN PETERS, Support Texas Adoptee Rights, Advisory Board Member
A clinical psychologist with more than twenty years of private practice in Austin, who works with every member of the adoption constellation. Past board president of Support Texas Adoptee Rights and Adoption Knowledge Affiliates. She is an adoptee in reunion who has testified before the Texas Legislature on access to original birth certificates.
EMILY RAMSHAW, moderator, The 19th
Emily Ramshaw is the co-founder and CEO of The 19th, the nation's first independent nonprofit newsroom at the intersection of gender, politics and policy. She was previously editor in chief of The Texas Tribune, home to the largest statehouse bureau in the nation, and began her career as an investigative reporter at The Dallas Morning News, where she broke national stories about sexual abuse inside Texas youth lock-ups. She is the youngest person ever named to the board of the Pulitzer Prize, serving a nine year term, and was named to Fortune's 40 Under 40 in 2020.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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