A reminder that we do NOT individually advise Adoptees who are submitting their cases to TRC 3 in a paid setting. PLUS: An ASSIGNMENT for our critics.
A reminder that we do NOT individually advise Adoptees who are submitting their cases to TRC 3 in a paid setting. As we have clearly stated before, we will NOT be reviewing individuals’ TRC 3 submissions AT ALL. However, anyone who has been paying attention knows that we have been sharing information about the TRC 2 and TRC 3 investigations publicly and for FREE on Paperslip for years.
Since we were the first in history to submit any cases of Korean Adoptees to any TRC investigation, we have a vested interest in the TRC process. We first submitted case study summaries of switched Korean Adoptees to the head of TRC 2 on December 18th, 2020 — just 8 days after TRC 2 began on December 10th, 2020. We were able to do this, since we had been identifying and connecting with switched Adoptees since 2018. The official TRC 2 Investigation into Overseas Adoption did not begin until December 7th, 2022 — nearly two full years after our initial effort. TRC 2 eventually came to identify systemic switching as a human rights violation in its March 26th, 2025 Interim Report, owing largely to our advocacy efforts on behalf of this issue since 2018.
The TRC 2 Interim Report is additionally rife with evidence from KSS Adoptees in the form of the formerly secret KSS document called the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” — a document which we found in 2018 and which we coined as such in 2021. For years — from 2021-2025 — we helped hundreds of KSS Adoptees for FREE to request and obtain this document from KSS, prior to the July 19th, 2025 transfer of all former Korean Adoption Agency files to NCRC. KSS itself never told Adoptees about this document, nor how to request and obtain it. We relentlessly supported the TRC 2 effort behind the scenes, despite being ruthlessly cut out of the movement by supposed “Korean Rights” advocates who wanted credit for our work.
For nearly eight years, we have advocated for KSS Adoptees on multiple levels, in ways both seen and unseen. We continue that work in 2026 by providing FREE information about how Korean Adoptees can INDEPENDENTLY submit their cases to TRC 3.
For FREE information on submitting your case INDEPENDENTLY to TRC 3, please see:
PAPERSLIP BLOG: INFO HUB FOR TRC 3 AND IMPORTANT NEWS UPDATES
Do you see any paywall around this information? No? That’s because there isn’t one.
We ask this question in this sarcastic way because there is one Adoptee who seems unable to stop criticizing us for charging for our optional private Zoom consultations about birth family search — a MUCH needed service for which we will continue to charge, since (A.) these consultations greatly help Adoptees and (B.) that is our prerogative. Unfortunately, we cannot offer an hour of free time to each Adoptee who asks us a deep dive question about their personal birth family search.
To be clear, TRC 3 applications are NOT discussed in these private Zoom consultations. These consultations are focused on providing an Adoptees with an overview of the birth family search process. Birth family search is not inherently the purpose of TRC 3.
Curiously, this particular critic has never raised the same concern about other organizations that have charged Adoptees for services for years. This raises an obvious question: why has Paperslip, specifically, become the focus? We believe the answer likely lies in jealousy. This individual only recently began researching her own Korean Adoption Agency — years after Paperslip was founded in 2020. We have noticed that our most vocal “critics” are often those who try to follow in our footsteps, to try to do what we have already done. Imitation can be flattery, but not when it is paired with contempt.
Ideally, everyone working in this space could collaborate in good faith. Unfortunately, that has not always been the reality. When you blaze a trail for Korean Adoptees, not everyone will welcome it. Paperslip was founded in pursuit of truth in KSS Adoptees’ cases. In doing so, we have never sought to tear others down — though we will never hesitate to defend ourselves from unjust attacks. Yet our efforts appear to have sparked resentment in some corners of the broader Korean Adoptee community — a community that, unfortunately, has long struggled with lateral violence.
At any rate, anyone with half a brain will notice the ENORMOUS amount of FREE information that has been long been available on Paperslip. The driving purpose of the site has always been to help KSS Adoptees navigate the complex birth family search process free of charge. Since its launch in 2020, Paperslip has grown into an invaluable resource for Korean Adoptees from all Korean Adoption Agencies — not just from KSS. We know that thousands of Korean Adoptees from around the world use our site every year, that Korean Adoptees visit our site every day, and that our information has touched the lives of countless members of the Korean Adoptee community.
We are proud to have helped 45 KSS Adoptees reunite with their birth families between 2021 and 2025. One of those KSS Adoptees is currently in Korea meeting her birth family for the first time.
One KSS Adoptee whom we assisted in the early stages of her birth family search recently reunited with her birth family after her biological sister, who was raised in Korea, saw the 2022 SBS documentary about our co-founder’s case in Korea. As a direct result, she contacted KSS to ask about the Adoptee. About a year later, without knowing of her biological sister’s prior contact with KSS, the Adoptee herself reached out to KSS after discovering Paperslip online and contacting us via email. Today, the Adoptee is in reunion with her birth family in Korea. Our advocacy on both sides of the ocean is why this KSS Adoptee is in reunion. This is what LOVE can accomplish — and never HATE.
We also reunited a pair of Holt twins with their birth father in 2021, through a 23 and Me test which we administered to the birth father in Korea. That brings the total to nearly 50 reunions of Korean Adoptees in just four years in which we have had direct involvement. We are extraordinarily proud of this work.
Over the past several years, we have undertaken a significant and unprecedented effort to support members of this community — and we will continue doing so for the people about whom we care the most.
+
For our critics, here is an ASSIGNMENT, which you have 8 years to execute by the end of 2025.
Oh, and you must do all of the following for FREE!
Why the deadline of 2025?
Because that’s when all former Korean Adoption Agency files moved to NCRC and when TRC 2 ended. Early 2025 is also when FOIA ceased to be effective in the U.S.
(Oops! Looks like you have missed the deadline).
Below is your ASSIGNMENT — this is what WE accomplished on behalf of Korean Adoptees between 2018-2025 for FREE.
Could YOU do the same amount of work in less than 8 years for FREE? And if NOT — then WHY are you criticizing US?
Bring to international light a previously obscure systemic issue within Korean adoption.
Contribute substantially to the development of two major documentaries—one produced in South Korea and one in the United States—and help ensure that this systemic injustice is identified early enough to be brought before TRC 2 by December 18, 2020, and ultimately acknowledged in the TRC 2 Interim Report released on March 25, 2025.
Despite first alerting Associated Press journalist Tong-Hyung Kim — who would later be unexpectedly featured as the protagonist in the FRONTLINE / AP documentary that heavily focused on systemic switching, the very issue you had specifically brought to his attention and urged him to investigate in January 2021 — and despite talking to him about your and your twin’s separate cases for years, along with providing information and interview referrals to him from 2021–2024, you should be prepared to be almost entirely excluded from the final documentary and to receive NO credit in the documentary for these contributions.
Also be prepared to do all of this work without compensation — and to cover the costs yourself. This may include paying out of pocket for multiple trips to Korea to pursue your goals and to meet with the journalist who would ultimately prevent you from receiving credit in the documentary, as well as spending two weeks in a Korean government quarantine hotel (at your own expense) during Covid along the way.
For years, encourage as many U.S. Korean Adoptees as possible to submit free FOIA requests — before early 2025, when such requests effectively become useless. Make sure that your timing is fortunate enough so that you have already been doing this for years prior to the start of TRC 3 on February 26th, 2026. As a result, those sustained efforts to help Korean Adoptees file FOIA requests ultimately provide crucial evidence for TRC 3, which places particular emphasis on documentation from the U.S. side — records that can most readily be obtained through previously successful FOIA requests which were fulfilled prior to early 2025. Be sure to do this for free.
Become one of the few Adoptees from your Korean Adoption Agency ever allowed into your Agency’s file room. Do years of investigation based on what you found there. Share the fruits of your investigation with as many Korean Adoptees as possible through a website you create and for which you pay the yearly hosting costs, which is used by thousands of Korean Adoptees around the world. Pour thousands of hours into said website. Be sure to do this for free.
Within four years, reunite nearly 50 Korean Adoptees with their birth families. Be sure to do this for free.
Along the way, uncover a formerly secret document from your Korean Adoption Agency. Once you realize it’s significance, drop everything and spend the next four years — from 2021 to 2025 — telling everyone you can about it before the historic transfer of all former Korean Adoption Agency files to NCRC. Be sure to do this for free.
Help hundreds of Adoptees from your Korean Adoption Agency request and obtain this previously hidden document. Be sure to do this for free.
Answer hundreds of messages arriving at every hour of the day and night from Adoptees scattered across the world’s time zones. You can sleep when you’re dead. Be sure to do this for free.
Be prepared to carry the weight of the anger, frustration, and grief of Korean Adoptees from around the world as they confront the often painful realities of birth family search. Be prepared, too, for moments when Adoptees direct their anger at you because you cannot be their 24/7 therapist—even though you have no training as one and have never claimed to offer professional counseling. Be sure to do this for free.
Crack the meaning of the secret first-digit codes used by your Korean Adoption Agency, something no one else has done previously. Collect hundreds of KSS Adoptees’ K-Numbers in order to do so. Use this list for years to try to connect KSS Adoptees on the forum for which you have been an Admin since 2018. Be sure to do this for free.
Navigate the years of aftermath when someone attempts to accept false credit for your research, and who takes an entire year to finally admit publicly that he had no role in your work — work deeply tied to your investigation into the case of your deceased twin sister, whose file you only discovered in 2019.
Do all of this while processing the grief of learning, decades later, that you had a twin sister who likely died at KSS in the mid 1970s.
Reunite a Korean birth father with his real twin daughters after administering a 23andMe test to him at your own expense — a reunion that occurred only after NCRC and Holt had willfully failed to reunite them for years. Be sure to do this at your own expense, costing you years of time and thousands of dollars for a trip to Korea in order to accomplish this. Be sure to do this for free.
Then discover that NCRC and Holt could have reunited this family years before you ever met them.
Take this Korean birth father’s case to the Korean National Assembly. Spend endless hours on international Zooms in order to make this happen. Be sure to do this for free.
Realize, through this experience, the extent of the permanent and willful incompetence within NCRC — and use that knowledge to WARN Korean Adoptees for fifteen straight months about the impending transfer of all former Korean Adoption Agency files to NCRC. Be sure to do this for free.
Make sure to still support the TRC 2 and TRC 3 effort, despite a supposed “Korean Rights” group blocking you from the movement, in order to try to take credit for your years of work on behalf of KSS Adoptees. Make sure to get a Danish KSS Adoptee her own documentary in Korea, and to get the stories of countless other Korean Adoptees into international media, which ultimately supports the TRC 2 Investigation into Overseas Adoption. Be sure to do this for free.
Provide FREE information about how to submit a case INDEPENDENTLY to TRC 3, knowing that you will be on the hook for doing so throughout the 3-4 year (or longer) period of TRC 3.
Do all of this despite spending three years excluded from TRC 2 by supposed “Korean Rights” groups — even though your case was among the first 34 accepted by TRC 2. Accept the deeply regrettable reality that this exclusion cost you the opportunity to obtain answers in both your own case and that of your deceased twin. And accept the bitter irony that this occurred despite (or because of) the fact that you have done more work to support the KSS Adoptee community than practically anyone else in time.
Pay for Korean Adoptee conferences out of your own pocket so that you can attempt to get vital information out to the community. Be prepared to have Korean Adoptee conferences reject your attempts to discuss systemic adoption issues and the pending NCRC file transfer, before it is too late. Accept the irony that your conference talk proposal is only accepted the year after the NCRC file transfer, once it is already too late.
Endure the biting criticism from envious Korean Adoptees who have not done even remotely comparable work, yet who still find the time to accuse you of profiting from your efforts — efforts that have required thousands of hours of unpaid labor, immense emotional strain, and tens of thousands of dollars of your own money. Note the irony of your critics’ OWN REFUSAL to do FREE work in reviewing case submissions for TRC 3.
Experience extreme burnout from doing nearly a DECADE of FREE WORK. Then turn around to get promptly hammered online by the criticism of ignorant non-KSS Adoptees who accuse you of attempting to profit from the wholly optional paid Zoom consultations which we offer to Korean Adoptees, since many Korean Adoptees desperately NEED private guidance.
Pay for your own therapy. Enjoy the irony that you pay your therapist FAR MORE than you are ever paid by Korean Adoptees.
The efforts described above have cost us an ocean of blood, sweat, and tears.
Yet for the most part, it has cost Korean Adoptees NOTHING.
Dear critics, when you have completed your ASSIGNMENT, please DO let us know.
+
Post-Script:
Ironically, the second largest donation to Paperslip’s GoFundMe was an incredibly kind $500 donation in 2022 from a KSS Adoptee whom our free assistance had helped reunite with his birth family. We promptly gave this donation in its entirety to our translator in Korea, who has helped us for years. We’re clearly terrible people… 😉