What is a "transracial adoption"?

What is a "transracial adoption"?

Jennifer Perry (Executive Director, Children's Action Network) gives expert video advice on: Who can adopt a child?; What would make me ineligible to adopt a child?; Which is adopted more - boys or girls? and more...

Transracial adoption is an adoption in which the adopting parent or parents is a different race from the child they're adopting. The policy surrounding transracial adoption has changed markedly over the last twenty years. There was an act passed called MEPA, the Multiracial Ethnic Placement Act, that stated that it's actually unlawful to discriminate in adoption based on the race of the adopting parent. It is okay to place a child of a different race in an adopting family, and that has changed the way adoption has taken place.