By Cassandra Gonzalez, Rise Magazine, June 15, 2022
Power Dynamics and Systemic Oppression
I vividly remember walking into a visit at the foster agency with my girlfriend, bringing clothes for my son. Twice, I corrected a worker who was misgendering my partner, calling her “he” and not “she” because of her attire.
I saw LGBTQIA-friendly signs up at the agency. My son was with a foster mother who dressed the same way as my partner—but her gender was said appropriately. It’s hard seeing foster parents get more acceptance than “birth parents.”
Where do I, as an Afro-Latinx nonbinary and pansexual person, fit in the world of systemic oppression? Objectivity, power hoarding, submission, justification.
The real reason the worker treated us differently is because the foster parent can make a fuss—and as a “birth parent,” your objective is your child. You can’t say anything about anything else, for the system spins what you say.
They use the phrase “in the best interest of the child” a lot, but I don’t believe what they do is in the best interest of the child—sometimes the foster system is worse than what’s going on at home.
But as “birth parents” separated from our children by the system, what voice do we have but visits—and an eyeball in everything we do?
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