Genetics Commentator
Appearances
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
Honestly, this whole question around the distinction between biological and non-biological family and roots and identity, it's everything to me. You know, I think it's so intrinsically connected to sort of existential questions around how we're formed and who we are and how much is free will and how we get to decide what to be. Has this changed the way you think about family for yourself?
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
Yes, definitely. I mean, spending so much time talking to people who don't have a genetic connection to the families that they were raised in, it's really interesting to hear just how much the pull of that genetic family has over you.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
We also, in our family, were able to connect with ancestors in Sweden and then we traveled there and were able to like connect with a modern day second cousin of my dad going back a hundred and something years from when, you know, our relative had emigrated. And that to me made the world seem so much smaller and so much more accessible. intimate and it made history feel present to me.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
It's often easy to start with the person you're finding there on the relatives list just because they're the immediate connection. But if you're finding a half-sibling or and you know that's because you share a father in common, a lot of search angels will recommend that you start with the father first.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
So there's this whole world of genetic genealogists and search angels who have dedicated their lives, sometimes for pay, sometimes on a volunteer basis, to help someone find their family. So very often people are advised to start with
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
Sort of the person at the center of it, because they're very often wanting to sort of have agency over their own narrative and connecting with that person first can be a respectful way to start if you're able to make a connection with that person.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
When I was writing The Lost Family, I talked to people who did do that, who did show up on someone's doorstep or make a phone call. And it can be quite challenging and disruptive. So you want to sort of do it on the terms that allow the other person as much control as possible. Just because in this situation, very often there's a kind of a disconnect of knowledge, right?
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
And so very often the best possible way is to write a letter. And when you're writing a letter, the tone of that letter is, you know, something that you want to think really carefully about because there's different ways you could go.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
You could sort of flood the person with a lot of emotional connection right away because you feel like you already know them or you feel like you are so eager to get to know them. And a lot of search angels that I've talked to and interviewed will say, like, Don't do that, right? But you could share a little about yourself, share a little bit about what you're looking for.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
And then if there's something concrete that you can ask for, like, I would love to see some photographs of my grandparents. You could start small and build a relationship from there, but you're not saying right away, hey, want to have Thanksgiving together.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
So I've found that very often in a family, there's somebody who is willing to serve as more of an ambassador, right? For instance, there might be one sibling that she's connected with who's open to getting to know her, and very often that person can act as a conduit to the rest of those siblings. And sometimes it's really sped up.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
If you just met someone after a few months of texting and talking on the phone, you might not decide to take a trip to Austin with them, but you might if they're your long-lost half.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
sibling right yeah and because there is often an intimacy and such a desire and willingness to be close on the part of both people so it is often much more speeded up than other relationships because there's this sense that you're making up for lost time I think there's also this question of you know how do I ask my dad like why didn't you ever come see me without like scaring them or coming off too intense you know like you want to build this relationship and not yeah yeah how do you how do you approach that
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
It takes a really long time to build a relationship where somebody can explain something like that. I interviewed a woman who, she was adopted. She wasn't told she was adopted. She didn't find out until she'd had some life-altering surgery that it turned out she might not have needed if she'd known her full medical history. Wow.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
When she finally did find out the identity of her biological father, she reached out to him a number of ways. He was not terribly responsive. And then she finally called and got him on the phone. And he was so dismissive. He could not at all give her what she wanted. He would not even confirm that he knew for sure that she was his daughter or that he'd even dated her mother. Wow.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
And the facts were right there on the screen. So she knew it was him. She cried a lot when we spoke. And it was because she had these questions that could not be answered. The biological mother had passed away a few months before she discovered her identity. Wow. And the real question she wanted to ask her biological mom was, did you ever look for me? Did you ever think about me?
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
I mean, but it very much matters what the secret is that is the heart of your own identity story. Because the nature of that can alter people's willingness to embrace that you exist.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
I want to see someone else whose face looks like mine. I want to see someone else whose eyes look like mine. I want to have the experience of looking... And seeing myself, the way I see myself in a mirror, in somebody else. And if you're adopted, you may never have had that experience. It's profound.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
Absolutely. The danger of... the promise of DNA testing when it's used like this can be that we interpret it in a really sort of simplistic way, right? That we think, okay, DNA is destiny. But then on the other hand, you know, those of us who've grown up in, like,
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
like the birth family that we were born into, like it can be hard for those of us to appreciate what it feels like to live in the absence of that and what it feels like to like have someone understand you almost like on like a gut level because they share something with you that is so deep and rooted and that maybe we don't fully understand and completely explain at this point through science.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
I talked to a lot of people who were seekers, and some managed to do this intentionally. Really well. And the people who described it best said that it's incredibly reductive to think about this as like a nature versus nurture thing, right? So you can have your daddy and your dad tucked you in at night.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
And he sang you songs and he put you to bed and he was there and he like fathered you and he still fathers you and that's your dad, right? There's another man out there though and to him you owe half your genetic data and he's your biological father and we don't have the language for that.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
Like, our actual language has not caught up with this technological era that we're in of consumer DNA testing. And so people who've successfully navigated it have managed to maintain those relationships with, say, their dad and say, like, you still matter to me so much. You'll always be my dad. I just, I also want to know about, you know, where half my DNA came from.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
And that depends a lot on their relationship with their existing parents, whether they can manage that.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
people, I think, are just starting to understand the degree to which this is all governed by business contracts, not by federal regulation. And that means that a company that takes your data is going to do what is best for the company, and that may not be what's best for your data. So, I mean, do I think it can be used in a positive way if it's maybe better regulated in other places? Absolutely.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
And my own family's success story of finding relatives, both in Sweden and in Ukraine, which is amazing on my Jewish side, Like, you know, it could make me cry just, like, thinking about the way in which the past is not lost to us.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
The power of this information in myself and the idea that I can connect with my own history, that I can see it written out, that I can trace it in the lives and faces of other people who look like me. Mind-blowing, okay? But if it's not regulated... If it's not controlled, it's starting to scare me quite a bit more than it used to.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
I have to say I've deleted my data from a number of places that it used to be.
Today, Explained
The drama and trauma of 23andMe
Is your genetic information really private? DNA is not destiny, but man, is there something to be said for the power of genetics, right?