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 critic/s.
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 switched Korean Adoptees 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, has anyone noticed the enormous amount of FREE information that has been available on Paperslip since our founding in 2020? The entire purpose of the site has always been to help KSS Adoptees navigate the birth family search process at no cost. Since its launch, Paperslip has grown into an invaluable resource for Korean Adoptees from all Korean Adoption Agencies. 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 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 contact with KSS, the Adoptee herself reached out to KSS after discovering Paperslip and contacting us. Today, the family is in reunion. 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. 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.
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For our critic/s, here is an ASSIGNMENT, which you have 8 years to execute by 2025. (Oops — looks like you have missed the deadline).
Bring to light a previously obscure systemic issue within Korean adoption.
Contribute significantly to the creation of two documentaries — one produced in Korea and one in the United States — so that this systemic injustice becomes identified early enough to be brought to the attention of TRC 2 by December 18th, 2020 and ultimately acknowledged in the March 25th, 2025 TRC 2 Interim Report.
For years, make sure that as many U.S. Korean Adoptees as possible make a free FOIA request, prior to early 2025 when such requests essentially became useless. 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.
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. Be sure to do this for free.
Navigate the moment when someone attempts to take credit for your work — work deeply tied to 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 died, and whose identity was switched with someone else’s.
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.
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 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.
Create a website for which you pay the yearly hosting costs, which is used for FREE by thousands of Korean Adoptees around the world.
Endure the occasional scathing criticism from some Korean Adoptees who have not done even remotely comparable work, yet who still have the audacity 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.
Blood. Sweat. Tears.