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Toronto journalist Olivia Pratten is awaiting a landmark decision from a Canadian court on the disclosure of sperm donors’ records.

When she was younger, Alana S. used to experiment and tell people her dad died when she was a baby and that she didn’t really ever get to know him. She would get a sincere hug and a heartfelt, “I’m so sorry.” But when she told people the truth of her father’s whereabouts, she got a response mostly filled with confusion.

“When I tell people I’m donor conceived, God, the blank expression on their face,” Alana said. “They’re shocked, they’re paralyzed.”

The reaction propelled her to create AnonymousUs.org, a no-names online story collective for donor-conceived people, their families, donors, and medical professionals. “The goal is for it to be a healing resource, and also I want to find the patterns. I feel like I’m a tile in a big mosaic and I want to see other people’s tiles and get a big picture,” she said.

AnonymousUs.org is part of the growing online presence and increasing visibility of the adult children...