Dr. DaShanne Stokes is a sociologist, author, public intellectual, and late-discovery adoptee whose public writing examines adoption, adoptee rights, identity, family, equality, civil rights, race, sexuality, and social institutions. In 1998, shortly after turning 20, Dr. Stokes accidentally discovered that he had been adopted. The discovery radically changed his understanding of his family, ancestry, culture, and identity and led him to confront the barriers adoptees can face when seeking information about their origins, including access to original birth certificates and birth-family records. His experience became an important foundation for his public writing and advocacy concerning late-discovery adoption, adoptee rights, and the right to know one's origins.

Dr. Stokes has written extensively for public audiences about adoption, adoptee rights, foster care, and the ways adoption intersects with broader questions of race, sexuality, religion, identity, and equality. His writing has appeared in The Huffington Post, The Advocate, and Adoption Today, addressing subjects including late-discovery adoption, access to original birth records, LGBT adoption, foster care, religious freedom, race and adoption, and the meaning of family and identity. His work brings together firsthand experience as a late-discovery adoptee with the perspective of a sociologist and educator, approaching adoption and adoptee rights as public issues involving identity, family, dignity, institutions, and social equality.