The full story of how I came to gather so many adoption documents is one for a book, not a post like this. I’ll save it for my novel.
For now, suffice it to say that I have a metric ton of adoption documents — for both myself and my likely deceased twin sister “Baby A” — and that I have done a metric ton of research in both of our separate adoption cases, starting in 2018 and 2020 respectively for our separate cases.
How did I organize my documents and information for my TRC 3 submission? Find out below.
Please note: the steps below may not have occurred in this exact order—life tends to be a lot more messy than a simple list.
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Document Acquisition Step 1:
I spent years of time returning repeatedly to my Korean Adoption Agency, KSS (Korea Social Service) in Seoul, prior to the transfer of all of its files to NCRC on July 19th, 2025.
I visited KSS in Seoul in 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2023.
In 2023 I visited KSS twice during the same trip.
(FRONTLINE / AP filmed my visit to KSS in 2023, but this was cut out of the final documentary, in which I was given zero credit despite my having referred to them the majority of their interview subjects).
I have also visited Korea without visiting KSS in 2022, 2025 and 2026.
I photographed “my” entire KSS file at KSS in Seoul in 2018.
I photographed the file of my likely twin, “Baby A”, at KSS in 2019. At the time, and for over one year, I thought that “Baby A” was me, and that I had found my REAL file.
I did not realize until 2020 that “Baby A” was NOT me, and was my likely twin sister. It appears that “Baby A” — whether she was my twin or not — passed away at KSS between late 1975 - early 1976.
I will say that in the pursuit of truth in my and my likely twin’s separate adoption cases, it has helped me to be a pushy person. I honestly did not know that I had this in me to push as hard as I have over the years. But I have PUSHED. And for me at least, I am fortunate in some ways that this has yielded results.
I’ve also had remarkably “lucky” timing. Many of the resources that proved most helpful were available only within a narrow timeframe, and I happened to access them while they were still available. The timing of the start of my case investigation feels especially striking — it began before the transfer of all former Korean Adoption Agency files to NCRC on July 19th, 2025, and before the TRC 2 investigation into Overseas Adoption began on December 7th, 2022. Had I started my investigation into my own case any later than 2018, I never would have found my likely twin’s file at KSS in 2019. I seriously doubt that TRC 2 would have come to have acknowledged Switching as a human rights violation on March 26th, 2025 in its Interim Report without my significant efforts to organize switched Adoptees, which began in 2018. Overall, I can’t help but feel that the timing of my investigation into my and my twin’s separate adoption cases was strangely fortunate, given how everything ultimately unfolded. I sometimes joke that I have “yin-yang luck up the yin-yang,” because my life seems to be shaped by an almost absurd blend of both good and bad luck.
Several birth family search experts have told me that, amongst Korean Adoptees, I have more paperwork than anyone they’ve ever seen. This is the result of relentless and brutal hard work on my part, a one-in-a-million mix of both good and bad luck, and the care my adoptive parents took in preserving so many records from my adoption process.
I have carefully preserved the photographs I have taken and documents which I have collected over the years in various digital formats. These have naturally found their way into my TRC 3 submission on March 27th, 2026.
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Document Acquisition Step 2:
I was fortunate to file a successful FOIA request around 2019 or 2020 when it was still safe and meaningful to do so.
I received nearly 90 pages through a free FOIA request. These mostly relate to the U.S. side of my adoption.
I do NOT recommend filing a FOIA request right now without consulting an attorney. Please read the information on the FOIA link above for more information.
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Document Acquisition Step 3:
I am fortunate in that I get along well with my adoptive parents, and that they have saved all of my adoption documents. In 2018, I asked them to find them so that I could seriously look at them for the first time.
I am fortunate that my adoptive parents have good memories, and could fill in the gaps of the adoption process from their end in which I did not previously have an interest, nor understand.
Since first becoming interested in my adoption history in late 2017, I have picked my adoptive parents’ brains over the years to try to better understand the adoption process from their end.
I have taken notes, interviewed my adoptive parents, filmed my interviews of them, etc. It helps that I like to take notes and am generally pretty organized. The information I have gathered from them has greatly helped to inform my overall understanding of the proxy adoption process to the US. This in turn has informed my TRC 3 submission.
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Document Acquisition Step 4:
A few years ago, I took over my original adoption documents from my adoptive parents. This felt like a big deal, and a big responsibility.
I finally put on my big girl pants and bought a fireproof / waterproof safe to put them in last year.
However, the documents remained in just one big stack until I began to prepare for TRC 3. Truthfully, I hadn’t looked at or read all of them, and I still haven’t read every single document. However, preparing ALL of my documents for TRC 3 helped to give me insights into my adoption process that I did not have before.
Note: I definitely did NOT submit all of the documents that I have to TRC 3. I did, however, SCAN most of them.
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Research and Advocacy Steps:
I dug up the entire history of KSS and co-founded this website, Paperslip.org in 2020. Paperslip has been a labor of love, and I am very proud of what has been accomplished through it.
I decoded my Korean Adoption Agency KSS’ formerly secret K-Number codes between 2020-2021.
My KSS K-Number research was conducted over years of time since 2020 specifically as part of my investigation into my deceased twin sister’s case. On January 1st, 2023, after having blocked and ghosted me for no justifiable reason on December 7th, 2022, DKRG gave FALSE credit for my research to a non-Adoptee on a forum from which I was blocked, and could therefore not defend myself. I immediately received a flurry of messages from Danish KSS Adoptees who had directly witnessed my work over years of time. Those Danish KSS Adoptees who spoke up in my defense were later blocked by DKRG, even though they had active TRC 2 cases.
I had to spend a significant amount of time and emotional energy for over one year wresting back the false credit which was egregiously given to the non-Adoptee for my work by DKRG. I really did NOT need this extra emotional aggravation on top of having to investigate my and my deceased twin’s separate adoption cases. It literally felt as though the twin which I had only just discovered in 2020 had been STOLEN from me again, when DKRG gave the non-Adoptee who had NOTHING to do with my work false credit for my years of highly personal research.
Ironically, the non-Adoptee who was given false credit for my work, and who refused to even privately confess for over one year that he had played no role whatsoever in my research — he only came forward to admit that he did not have any role in my work whatsoever after I was able to call him out publicly — is now no longer on speaking terms with DKRG. I’m sure that he himself has now been blocked from the DKRG groups, like so many countless others.
Let those who have EARS listen — and learn something from these transgressions. You may pretend to be a crusader for the truth of others — but you helped cost me my chance at mine.
On December 18th, 2020, I was the first Korean Adoptee to submit any cases of Adoptees to TRC 2, when I submitted case study summaries of around one dozen switched Adoptees to the head of TRC 2 through a Korean contact. While this submission did not initiate the later official investigation into Overseas Adoption which began on December 7th, 2022, it did precede it by two full years. This is how TRC 2 first became aware of systemic switching.
This along with the years of work I had been doing since 2018 with switched Adoptees ultimately paved the way for Switching to be acknowledged as a human rights violation in the March 26th, 2025 TRC 2 Interim Report.
In 2022, I was able to get a major SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System) documentary made about how my investigation into my and my twin’s separate adoption cases resulted in the reunion of a Korean birth father with his real twin daughters.
In 2021, I first reached out to Associated Press (AP) reporter Tong-hyung Kim, to ask him to write a story about systemic switching. My years of correspondence with Tong-hyung (2021-2024) ultimately resulted in the 2024 publication of an AP article about my case, and the 2024 FRONTLINE / AP documentary, “South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning”. Egregiously, the Director of the documentary, Lora Moftah, and Tong-hyung failed to give me a SINGLE line of credit in the film, despite my having referred to them the majority of the film’s interview subjects, and having first brought systemic switching to the attention of Tong-hyung in 2021. It would have cost them nothing to do so, but both patently refused to do the right thing by giving me even a single line of credit in the documentary.
In Lora’s case, it reflects yet another instance of a white-adjacent individual claiming ownership over the narrative of a person of color. In Tong-hyung’s case, it represents a stark and troubling lapse in ethical judgment.
Despite the transgressions of FRONTLINE / AP in utterly failing to give me any credit in the documentary, my goal of bringing systemic switching to public light was accomplished through the 2022 SBS documentary and the 2024 FRONTLINE / AP documentary and associated articles and interactive.
Significantly, both documentaries — the SBS production and the FRONTLINE/AP film — were released prior to the March 26th, 2025 TRC 2 Interim Report, which formally recognized Switching as a human rights violation. My contributions to raising public awareness of Switching, though at times uncredited, played a significant role in advancing global understanding of this issue, which had not previously been recognized as a systemic problem within Korean Adoption. This work stands as part of the legacy of my deceased twin sister.
I discovered a formerly secret KSS document in “my” file in 2018, which I coined as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” in 2021. I helped hundreds of KSS Adoptees request and obtain this document from KSS for free, between 2021-2025, prior to the closure of KSS.
Since TRC 2 heavily focused on Danish Korean Adoptees, and KSS was just one of two Korean Adoption Agencies which adopted to Denmark (the other one was Holt), my volunteer assistance between 2021-2025 in helping hundreds of KSS Adoptees to request and obtain their formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” from KSS, prior to the July 19th, 2025 transfer of all former Korean Adoption Agency files to NCRC, meant that the KSS Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary became the evidentiary backbone of many Danish KSS Adoptees’ TRC 2 submissions. Indeed, the March 26th, 2026 TRC 2 Interim Report is rife with examples of the KSS Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary.
Once I learned in January 2024 that ALL Korean Adoption Agency files — including those of KSS — would be transferred to NCRC starting on July 19th, 2025, I dropped everything in my life to spend 15 solid months warning the KSS Adoptee community, as well as the broader Korean Adoptee community, about the then pending file transfer.
I hope that as many KSS Adoptees as possible were able to obtain their Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary from KSS prior to the file transfer to NCRC, but I know that some will have missed the boat, and will now have to wait in the long line — along with all other Korean Adoptees — for NCRC.
Meanwhile, DKRG has never ONCE mentioned Paperslip — the first and only site by and for KSS Adoptees worldwide — nor the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” in its extensive press coverage. Doing so would require acknowledging that meaningful work in this area has been carried out by others besides themselves.
Had they EVER chosen to mention Paperslip, many more KSS Adoptees might have been able to request and obtain their formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” from KSS, prior to its closure. Now KSS Adoptees, like all Korean Adoptees, must stand in line for NCRC.
Meanwhile, DKRG continues to sic their international minions on me for continuing to tell the truth about their transgressions. But as a Danish KSS Adoptee friend has joked, “You can only be excommunicated once.” So I will continue to tell the truth about how DKRG treats Adoptees. Some Adoptees who have encountered DKRG can no longer speak for themselves.
I also coined the term “English Adoptive Child Study Summary” at the same time as coining the term “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” in July 2021, and have used Paperslip extensively ever since to educate KSS Adoptees about the differences between these documents.
Based on my research and advocacy, I helped 45 KSS Adoptees in the initial stages of their birth family searches who eventually found their birth families. I’ve assisted countless others in their overall search requests to KSS.
In short, my years of effort played a significant role in driving the movement — even after DKRG pushed me out and FRONTLINE/AP journalists egregiously failed to acknowledge my contributions in the documentary AT ALL.
I would like to sincerely thank SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System) for honoring my story with such care and for recognizing the role I played in it.
My years long research and advocacy for KSS Adoptees has significantly helped to inform my TRC 3 submission.
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My case was one of the first 34 accepted for TRC 2, but I was egregiously blocked out of the movement by DKRG on December 7th, 2022 — the very day that the TRC 2 Investigation into Overseas Adoption began. This was despite (or because of) the fact that DKRG was well aware of my years of work with KSS Adoptees.
I applied for TRC 2 on September 11th, 2022 — the two year anniversary of when I had first realized that I might have had a twin — and my case was among the first 34 accepted by TRC 2 in December 2022. However, without explanation or apology, I was subsequently blocked and ghosted by DKRG — the group that has presented itself as a “Korean Rights” organization and has acted as a representative for both TRC 2 and TRC 3. I had originally submitted my case through them, and they still retain my adoption documents.
Their actions appeared to be an attempt to claim credit for my years of independent research into KSS history and practice, of which one of DKRG’s two remaining founders — there were other original founders who got pushed out — had been aware since 2018.
I endured prolonged mistreatment, including DKRG attributing my KSS K-Number research to a non-Adoptee and interfering with a scheduled meeting I had arranged with TRC 2 investigators. This interference ultimately forced me to cancel my trip to Korea.
Ultimately I withdrew my TRC 2 case in March 2023. As a result, I lost the opportunity to seek justice for both myself and my twin through the TRC 2 process.
Having been sidelined from TRC 2 for inexcusable reasons by DKRG, I have been forced to wait three long years for TRC 3 to begin.
Please Note:
While DKRG would love to claim total credit, the TRC 2 and TRC 3 commissions are mostly thanks to the work of Brothers Home victims. Brothers Home victims pushed for there to be a TRC 2 investigation for YEARS — with one Brothers Home victim even going on a hunger strike in front of the National Assembly building in order to get TRC 2. In 2017, Brothers Home victims walked 446.44 km to the Blue House to demand a TRC 2 investigation. This preceded the December 10th, 2020 launch of TRC 2.
These videos show what it took for the Brothers Home victims to get TRC 2 (the current TRC):
Video 1
Video 2
Korean Adoptees owe a debt of gratitude to the Brothers Home victims for pushing to get TRC 2 in the first place.
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In March 2026, I traveled to Korea, at my own expense and in the midst of extreme turmoil in the U.S., to submit my TRC 3 case in person at the TRC office in Seoul — because I will be damned if I trust any non-lawyer intermediary with my case THIS time.
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This brings us to:
Practical Steps For Preparing Your Documents For TRC 3 Submission.
