Why Were There So Few U.S. Cases Submitted To The Second Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC / TRCK 2) Investigation Into Overseas Adoption?

Posted to Paperslip: August 23rd, 2025.

Spoiler Alert: It’s Because of DKRG’s Timing and Politics.

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PREFACE.

*Please Note: Below I use the terms TRC / TRCK / TRC 2 interchangeably. In my colloquial use, these terms all refer to the SAME thing: The Second Truth and Reconciliation Commission Investigation Into Overseas Adoption which started on December 7th, 2022 and ends in late 2025.

However, it should be understood that the Second Truth and Reconciliation Commission actually began on December 10th, 2020. The TRC 2 was not originally set up to investigate Korean Adoption cases at all. TRC 2 was established primarily in order to investigate the major concentration camps of S. Korea.

Before DKRG initiated the official TRC 2 investigation into Overseas Adoption, which began on December 7th, 2022, I was actually the first person to submit any cases of Korean Adoptees at all — on December 18th, 2020 — just days after TRC 2 began. However, TRC 2 had just begun at this time, and no formal investigation into Overseas Adoption proceeded as a result of my submission. DKRG didn’t even form until April or May 2022, and like everyone else, I only became aware of their efforts later that year.

As of this writing, there are currently no set plans by the Korean Government for a TRC 3, though Adoptees and other stakeholders are pushing for this to happen, since 311 of the original 367 cases of Adoptees submitted to TRC 2 were halted.

Adoptees should recognize the debt we owe to the Brothers Home survivors, whose years of relentless advocacy helped make TRC 2 a reality. Korean Adoptees only piggy-backed onto the Brothers Home survivors’ efforts—first in 2020 (with my own efforts), and then in 2022 (with the official effort by DKRG).

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SHORT SUMMARY:

The Second Truth and Reconciliation Commission Investigation which began on December 10th, 2020, was NOT originally set up to investigate ANY cases of Adoptees. It was originally intended primarily to investigate the major concentration camps of S. Korea — a topic which has definite links to that of Korean Adoption but which is its own separate topic.

I personally submitted the first cases of Korean Adoptees to the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) through a Korean contact on December 18th, 2020—just days after the Second TRC Investigation officially began on December 10th, 2020. At that time, the Danish Korean Rights Group (DKRG) didn’t even exist; they wouldn’t form until April or May 2022. As far as I know, no one else had considered submitting Adoptee cases to the TRC at that time. While the TRC did not launch an investigation into Overseas Adoption directly based on the cases I initially submitted, my work undeniably laid the early groundwork for the official inquiry later initiated by DKRG. I know that the TRC became aware of the practice of switching through the case summaries I provided. This practice was eventually recognized by the TRC as a human rights violation—an acknowledgment that owes an enormous debt to the research I had been conducting on the issue since 2018.

Most of the switched Adoptees I had connected with went on to submit their cases to the official investigation, which began on December 7th, 2022. To my knowledge, all of them received findings of human rights violations in their cases. I have no doubt that my own case would have received the same judgment, had I not been forced to withdraw it in March 2023 due to DKRG’s misconduct.

Despite my early involvement, few people are aware of the role I played. After DKRG was formed in April or May 2022, they reached out to me in August of that year, asking for my help in spreading the word to U.S. Adoptees about how to submit their cases to the Second Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Investigation into Overseas Adoption, which they had just formally initiated. I was eager to assist and did so.

However, without any explanation or apology, DKRG abruptly blocked me from all TRC-related forums on December 7th, 2022—just months after asking for my support. At that time, apparently they had no other U.S. Adoptees they could turn to for outreach. DKRG’s deliberate, baseless, and still-unexplained decision to exclude me—on the very day the official TRC 2 Investigation into Overseas Adoption began—is a major reason why so few U.S. cases were ultimately submitted to the TRC. As DKRG had blocked me on December 7th, 2022, I am not privy to the dates of any subsequent submission of cases through DKRG to the TRC.

Ironically — just days after DKRG blocked me from all TRC related forums — my case became one of the first 34 accepted by the TRC. This is undoubtedly due to the abundance of documentary evidence (paperwork) in my case — something most Korean Adoptees sadly lack. Ironically, in the lead-up to the March 26th, 2025 release of the TRC’s Interim Report, DKRG was scrambling to collect additional evidence and struggling to reach many TRC participants — likely because they had arbitrarily blocked so many of them from their forums over the years. Absurd. In a twist of karmic irony, Boonyoung Han and Peter Moeller ultimately received no judgments in their TRC cases, due to their own lack of documentation.

I made every effort to contact DKRG after they blocked me, but to this day, they have never responded. What’s even more troubling is that they went on to spread a series of malicious and patently false rumors—not just about me, but also about others who had merely disagreed with them on their forums. I’ve never encountered such toxic and disgusting behavior in my life. It took me a long time to fully grasp the kind of personalities I was dealing with in the so-called “leadership” of DKRG.

Ultimately, U.S. Korean Adoptees were given mere months — between late August 2022-December 9th, 2022 — to file their cases with the TRC through DKRG. To my knowledge, DKRG, who successfully sought to be the TRC’s sole mouthpiece, never let anyone know that they could have filed their cases independently with the TRC.

When I first agreed to support DKRG’s efforts in August 2022, I didn’t know Peter Moeller at all, and had only met Boonyoung Han once—during a dinner in Korea in 2021. At that time, we got along well, and she even tried to convince me to move to Korea to become an activist. We had no disagreements then or afterward—until I was suddenly and inexplicably blocked from the movement by them on December 7th, 2022. Their actions came as a complete shock. Looking back, I deeply regret having met and become involved with them at all.

DKRG has *developed a now well-known pattern of “using and losing,” blocking, ghosting, and gatekeeping within the Korean Adoptee community. This behavior has only become more visible in their current roles as leaders of the NGO KoRoot. While it's true that DKRG has made meaningful contributions, they have also caused significant and lasting harm. Without greater community awareness of their conduct, it’s inevitable that this harm will continue.

*It’s important to note that this pattern of behavior appears consistent with Peter Moeller’s prior misconduct and fraudulent activities in Denmark—which I did not know about when we first met via Zoom.

Many Danish Korean Adoptees endured DKRG’s abuses in silence to allow the TRC to proceed without disruption. However, since the TRC released its Interim Report on March 26th, 2025, more are beginning to speak out. Despite being excluded from DKRG’s TRC-related forums, I continued my longstanding efforts to assist KSS Adoptees in requesting and obtaining the once-secret KSS document I uncovered in 2018 and formally named the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” in 2021. My efforts allowed hundreds of KSS Adoptees to obtain this formerly secret document from KSS prior to the July 19th, 2025 transfer of ALL Korean Adoption Agency files to the Korean Government Agency NCRC (the National Center for the Rights of the Child).

It is no coincidence that the TRC’s Interim Report is filled with “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” evidence related to KSS—despite Holt being a much larger Korean Adoption Agency and despite KSS ceasing adoption operations in 2012. While of course DKRG did not credit my work, numerous Paperslip contributions are evident in the TRC’s Investigation into Overseas Adoption.

In short, had DKRG not delayed including U.S. Adoptees in the TRC movement—and had they not baselessly excluded me on December 7th, 2022—it’s likely that more U.S. Adoptees would have submitted cases to the TRC 2 investigation into Overseas Adoption. While I wasn’t directly handling U.S. cases, I was actively circulating an instructional video I had created to help U.S. Adoptees navigate the submission process. I know for certain that several Adoptees were able to meet the original September 11th, 2022 deadline because of that video—they told me so themselves. By waiting so long to include U.S. Adoptees and by sidelining me, DKRG effectively denied an unknown number of U.S. Adoptees the opportunity to pursue justice through the TRC 2 investigation.

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THE LONGER STORY:

Many U.S. Adoptees have asked: why were so few American cases submitted to the Second Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Korea (TRC / TRCK 2) investigation into Overseas Adoption? To answer that, I have to go back to my own story, which I began investigating in 2018.

I’m a Korean Adoptee, born in 1975 and adopted to the U.S. in 1976 through a partnership between Korea Social Service (KSS) in Korea and Welcome House in the U.S. In 2018, I discovered that my adoption file had been deeply falsified. Then, in 2020, to my shock I discovered that I had a twin who likely died in Korea around 1975—and whose adoption case was also deeply falsified. These stunning revelations drove me to investigate not only KSS, but the broader system of Korean Intercountry Adoption. That journey led me to co-found Paperslip.org in 2020.

In 2018, I joined a forum for KSS Adoptees, eventually becoming an Administrator. When I first joined, I didn’t know that KSS only adopted to the US, Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland between 1964-2012 through a specific list of Partner Western Adoption Agencies. On the KSS Adoptee forum, I found others whose cases were similarly falsified, and many of them were Danish KSS Adoptees. Around the same time, I moved to Italy and a few days later flew to Denmark to meet several of these Danish KSS Adoptees with similarly falsified cases as mine in person. I created a private forum for us, and began collecting information from members and sharing my research openly within that group.

Despite the fact that she does not have a similarly falsified case as myself and the others, I invited Boonyoung “Tina” Han, a Danish KSS Adoptee and longtime activist in Korea, to join the private forum as an “observer”—based purely on my scant knowledge of her activism in Korea and my hope to one day bring broader attention to our issues in the public. Although she never contributed to the forum beyond a response to my welcome message, Boonyoung was a member of the forum when I submitted case summaries (including those of other members) through a Korean contact to the head of the TRC on December 18th, 2020—making me the first Korean Adoptee in history to submit any falsified adoption cases to the TRC. This preceded by two years the official TRC 2 Investigation into Overseas Adoption, which began on December 7th, 2022. The official investigation was initiated by a then much larger DKRG founding group of around seven members. Around five original Danish founding members of DKRG were eventually pushed out by Boonyoung and Peter Moeller, who would later get married.

Boonyoung also contributed her own KSS K-number to my ongoing research into KSS K-Numbers, which I had initiated as part of the investigation into my twin’s case in 2020. In addition, I participated in her Korean Intercountry Adoption (KICA) study and referred all the Adoptees from the private forum I had created to take part in her study as well. Thus Boonyoung hoovered up my personal adoption documents and my research into specific falsified adoption cases into her own study. After later blocking me from the movement for no reason, she and Peter would eventually go to the press to talk about the types of falsified cases I had been researching since 2018—without, of course, mentioning me or Paperslip.

When the Danish Korean Rights Group (DKRG) first formed around April or May 2022 and began to appear in the news, I was genuinely excited. At the time, I didn’t realize that Boonyoung was in a relationship with Peter Moeller (whom at that point I only had heard of through the news)—they would later get married. So when Peter Moeller reached out to me based on Boonyoung’s referral in August 2022, just 15 days before the first TRC submission deadline on September 11th, 2022, I gladly agreed to DKRG’s request to help spread the word to U.S. Adoptees about how to submit their cases. I dropped everything I was doing to record a Zoom session with Peter Moeller and Peter Knudsen of DKRG, walking viewers through the TRC submission process. I then shared that video widely across Adoptee forums. Without that effort, it’s likely even fewer U.S. Adoptee cases would have been submitted to the TRC by the first deadline of September 11th, 2022. At that time, I had no knowledge that there would be future deadlines for submission of cases to the TRC.

During our very first Zoom meeting, DKRG asked me to take on ALL U.S. TRC cases. In contrast, at that time, Denmark’s cases were being handled by multiple individuals. It’s not difficult to see how significantly more demanding it would be for one person to manage the entire U.S. caseload—especially with less than two weeks remaining before the TRC deadline. Given the lack of adequate notice, my full-time schedule, and my deep involvement in a major project—a documentary with Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) about my own case, filmed across two U.S. states and S. Korea during the Fall of 2022—I had to respectfully decline. I had spent a year preparing for that project and had little capacity for additional responsibilities. That said, I still supported DKRG’s efforts by sharing information and promoting TRC advocacy within Adoptee Facebook groups. I assumed that DKRG would find someone else to handle the US cases, or handle them themselves. I didn’t know (because they didn’t tell me) that they didn’t know anyone else in the US to ask.

Separately, back in October 2021 I had assisted a Korean birth father, Mr. Park, in filing a petition with the South Korean National Assembly during their annual National Audit. The petition criticized Holt and NCRC for their failure to reunite him with his twin daughters—whom I had located through giving Mr. Park and his son each a 23andMe DNA test. By pure chance, his real twin daughters had already taken 23andMe and I located them in the US within 21 days of processing Mr. Park’s DNA test. Unbeknownst to me when I first tracked down Mr. Park on Jeju Island in 2021, both Mr. Park and his real twin daughters had been in touch with the SAME Holt social worker for three years—since 2018—who willfully failed to reunite them, despite the fact that she later admitted suspecting they might be related. Mr. Park had also been in touch with NCRC since 2018, but when I contacted NCRC about Mr. Park’s listing on the KAS website in 2020, NCRC took six months to reply to my email, and they denied having his contact information. It was for this reason that I was forced to track down Mr. Park myself on Jeju Island at my own personal expense in 2021, after doing a two week quarantine in Seoul in the midst of Covid. A DNA test would eventually confirm that Mr. Park and I were not related, after which I obtained two 23andMe tests for Mr. Park and his son to take—this is what ultimately led to his reunion with his twin daughters—NOT Holt or NCRC. This sensational case became the central focus of the SBS documentary, which aired in Korea on December 24th, 2022.

Just days before the SBS documentary about my case aired on on December 24th, 2022 — on December 7th, 2022, DKRG blocked me from ALL TRC-related forums without any warning or explanation. We had never had a single argument. I was completely blindsided, especially since I had previously signed over my legal representation to Peter Moeller—whom I mistakenly believed was a lawyer, thanks to his lying to me and in multiple international press outlets about being one—as my TRC representative. I had also submitted my private adoption documents to DKRG in good faith.

Despite multiple attempts to reach out, DKRG has never once responded to me since ghosting me in 2022. This, despite the fact that my case was among the first 34 officially accepted by the TRC. I would later come to learn that Peter Moeller has a long history of fraudulent behavior in Denmark, documented in multiple articles in the Danish publication Politiken, amongst several others.

Later, DKRG purposely blocked me from meeting with the TRC investigators in Korea, even though I had paid my way to Korea for that purpose — I had to cancel my trip, losing a significant amount of money in the process. DKRG also egregiously gave false credit for my research into KSS K-numbers to the non-Adoptee Dutch son of two KSS Adoptees who both admit to witnessing my research taking place. It took over a year—and significant effort on my part to call him out—for this non-Adoptee to finally admit that my KSS K-number research was not his work. I had to do so through a forum where I was not blocked by DKRG, since they had shut me out of all others they managed. Ironically, as a non-Adoptee, this descendant of a Korean Adoptee (DoKad) remains a member of all of DKRG’s forums while I — a Korean Adoptee stakeholder in the TRC 2 investigation — was permanently blocked. (Unfortunately I was far from the only Adoptee with a TRC case who was blocked from DKRG’s TRC related forums). Due to the treatment by DKRG and the DoKad to whom false credit was assigned for my work, I was NOT able to get justice for myself or my twin through the TRC. After much anguish and deliberation, I ultimately withdrew my TRC case in March 2023 due to the deeply troubling treatment by DKRG and the DoKad who continued to accept false credit for my work for over one year.

Because (unbeknownst to me) DKRG had NO other U.S. contacts after blocking me, they scrambled to form the awkward hybrid AUSKRG (Australian / US Korean Rights Group) in order to submit a second round of cases to the TRC, following the first deadline of September 11th, 2022. It was only MUCH later that DKRG formed the USKRG (US Korean Rights Group) which didn’t exist until September 23rd, 2024, which was long after the December 9th, 2022 deadline to file a case for TRC 2. The USKRG group had nothing to do with submitting cases to the TRC 2 Investigation. Many Adoptees have noticed and criticized how it is Danish DKRG Adoptees (basically, Peter Moeller and Boonyoung Han) who are running the supposed “US” Korean Rights Group.

It should also be noted that DKRG never informed Adoptees that they could have submitted their own cases to the TRC 2 Investigation independently of DKRG. To my knowledge, only a few Korean Adoptees submitted cases independently of DKRG for TRC 2 — mainly because no one knew this was possible.

Ultimately, I withdrew my TRC case in March 2023 after enduring repeated punches and gatekeeping by DKRG. Regrettably, it took me a long time to fully understand what was happening, since I just couldn’t imagine people behaving in such a way—but now the truth is clear: DKRG wanted full credit for my work and total control over the movement. They sidelined the very person whose research had laid the foundation for investigations into KSS and early TRC engagement—simply to monopolize media attention and consolidate power over a movement that should be centered on Adoptee Rights!

Ironically, the TRC 2 Investigation into Overseas Adoption focused on both Holt and KSS—the largest and smallest, respectively, of Korea’s four major adoption agencies. Yet despite numerous media opportunities, DKRG has never once mentioned Paperslip.org—the only website created by and for KSS Adoptees—nor have they mentioned the formerly secret KSS document called the "Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary." I discovered this document in the back of my KSS file in 2018 and, by chance in 2021, realized how others could also request and obtain it from KSS. DKRG's silence is telling: they couldn’t take credit for Paperslip or for the discovery of the Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary, and thus chose not to amplify either. It’s staggering to consider how many more KSS Adoptees might have accessed their formerly secret Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary—a document that can sometimes contain birth parent information, even when their “English Adoptive Child Study Summary” states they were “abandoned” and found with a “paper-slip” or “memo” in their “clothings” (sic)—had DKRG truly upheld the “Korean Rights” portion of their name they claim to represent, and amplified this important information in the media. Had they been able to do so without my knowing and speaking out, I am sure they would have tried to take public credit for more of my discoveries.

That same controlling pattern by DKRG and some of its supporters is still visible today. A longtime non-Korean Adoptee supporter of DKRG recently attempted to gatekeep Adoptees from attending independent events organized by long-standing Adoptee legal advocates / actual lawyers—the very people who could help Adoptees finally achieve justice—underscoring just how deeply this bad behavior of DKRG and its loyal acolytes runs.

The reason so few U.S. cases were submitted to the TRC isn’t because of apathy or disinterest on the part of Korean American Adoptees. It’s because the one person who was approached to help mobilize the U.S. community at the very last minute—me—was blocked from the process by the very group claiming to lead it. Ironically, the fact that any U.S. cases were submitted to the TRC at all is largely due to the August 2022 video I recorded and distributed on Korean Adoptee forums. And yet, I was brutally erased by DKRG from the movement — all so they could claim credit for my work and monopolize the media spotlight.

I never could have anticipated that DKRG’s “leaders” and supporters could behave so ruthlessly.

This is the truth behind the low number of U.S. Adoptees represented in the TRC 2 Investigation into Overseas Adoption (2022–2025). The truth may be hard to hear—but I will continue to speak it. At the very least, my deceased twin sister, who was egregiously denied justice, deserves that.

I feel deep sympathy for the U.S. Adoptees who were never given the chance to submit their cases to the TRC 2. But the responsibility for that lies squarely with DKRG. Their recent actions have only confirmed what I’ve been saying all along. I no longer need to work so hard to expose DKRG and some of their loyal acolytes—they’re doing that all on their own—by actively trying to block Korean Adoptees from seeking justice through any path they don't control.

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I Was Not Alone In My Negative Experiences With DRKG.

Korean Adoptees With TRC Cases Who Were Blocked From DKRG / TRC Related Facebook Groups Respond About Their Experiences With DKRG:

Shared with Paperslip on March 23rd, 2025 -

One of the many TRC Participants who was deliberately and maliciously blocked from DKRG / TRC related Facebook groups by DKRG leaders Peter Møller and Boonyoung Han during the 2022-2025 TRC Investigation wrote in response to DKRG’s behavior:

“I received several reminders from TRC. Although it was past the deadline, I managed to complete and send the remaining information to them. But I am very discontent with the fact that I've been blocked from the DKRG groups, which makes it impossible for me to know what's going on. I don't understand why P&B (Peter Møller and Boonyoung Han) have the need to play rulers of the world and ban people from these groups, just because they dare to question their behaviour. And without us willing to contribute, where would those two be today? After all, we're on the same side regarding the adoptions and trying to find the truth about ourselves. It's appalling!”

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Shared with Paperslip on March 26th, 2025 -

”Early on, I chose to support the newly founded DKRG because I thought they had a purpose that I wanted to support.

However, I quickly learned that when adoptees came up with criticism or critical questions, DKRG became very aggressive in their rhetoric. In case of disagreements, adoptees were verbally slapped or were excluded. This pattern of exclusion got worse and worse, and many who had been a great help to DKRG in the beginning were excluded from their Facebook group. DKRG also set up a website where the phone numbers of adoptees who had not given their consent were listed.

DKRG has also pretended to have done a lot of research work, which is huge work that mainly other adoptees have done, including Adoptionspolitisk Forum, (other) researchers and Paperslip.

One of the founders of DKRG ( Peter Møller) has even pretended to be a lawyer, which I see as an opportunity to gain people's trust, which is of crucial importance in terms of getting people to send their documents to DKRG.”

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Korean Translation via ChatGPT:

2022-2025 TRC 조사 동안 DKRG 리더인 Peter Møller와 Boonyoung Han에 의해 DKRG / TRC 관련 페이스북 그룹에서 의도적으로 악의적으로 차단된 많은 TRC 참가자 중 한 명이 위 DKRG의 발표에 대해 다음과 같이 썼습니다 (강조는 우리의 것입니다):

“TRC로부터 여러 차례 알림을 받았습니다. 마감일이 지났음에도 불구하고, 남은 정보를 완료하여 그들에게 보낼 수 있었습니다. 하지만 DKRG 그룹에서 차단된 사실에 매우 불만입니다. 이로 인해 무슨 일이 일어나고 있는지 알 수 없습니다. 왜 P&B (Peter Møller와 Boonyoung Han)가 세상의 지배자로 군림하고, 자신의 행동에 의문을 제기하는 사람들을 이러한 그룹에서 금지할 필요가 있는지 이해할 수 없습니다. 우리가 기여할 의지가 없었다면, 그 둘은 오늘날 어디에 있을까요? 결국, 우리는 입양 문제에 있어 같은 편이며, 우리 자신에 대한 진실을 찾으려고 노력하고 있습니다. 정말 끔찍합니다!”

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”초기에는 newly founded DKRG를 지원하기로 선택했는데, 그들이 내가 지원하고 싶었던 목적이 있다고 생각했기 때문입니다. 그러나 나는 입양인들이 비판이나 비판적인 질문을 제기할 때 DKRG가 매우 공격적인 태도를 보인다는 것을 빨리 알게 되었습니다. 의견 불일치가 있을 경우, 입양인들은 언어적으로 비난받거나 배제되었습니다. 이러한 배제의 패턴은 점점 심각해졌고, 초기에는 DKRG에 큰 도움을 주었던 많은 사람들이 그들의 Facebook 그룹에서 배제되었습니다. DKRG는 또한 동의를 하지 않은 입양인들의 전화번호를 나열한 웹사이트를 만들었습니다. DKRG는 또한 많은 연구 작업을 수행했다고 가장했지만, 이는 주로 다른 입양인들, Adoptionspolitisk Forum, (기타) 연구자들 및 Paperslip이 수행한 방대한 작업입니다. DKRG의 창립자 중 한 명은 심지어 변호사인 척 하기도 했는데, 이는 사람들이 DKRG에 문서를 보내도록 하는 데 있어 매우 중요한 신뢰를 얻기 위한 기회로 보입니다.”

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Another Factor In The Lack Of US Cases Submitted To The TRC In 2022: The Lack Of Focus On Right To Origin By U.S. Korean Adoptee Groups.

While I lay the vast majority of the blame for why so few U.S. cases were submitted to the TRC in 2022 at the feet of DKRG, there is another factor that contributed.

An inconvenient truth about Korean Adoptee organizations in the U.S. is their lack of focus on the Right to Origin. While these non-profits do an incredible job of building community—through conferences, dinners, and other events, completely on a scale I could never organize myself—they have in some ways neglected organized advocacy around Korean Adoptees’ fundamental right to know their origins.

Instead, the central political focus of U.S. based Korean Adoptee groups has been on securing Adoptee Citizenship. This is, of course, a fundamentally critical issue—but it has left little space for collective action around Right to Origin. In my personal search for my Korean roots, which began in 2018, I’ve encountered resistance in Korean Adoptee spaces when trying to address the darker aspects of adoption. I was even prevented from speaking at a major Korean Adoptee conference—presumably due to concerns about upsetting sponsors. Yet I believe the issue runs deeper than just sponsorship politics.

In 2024, I played a key—though again uncredited—role in the FRONTLINE documentary South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning, which helped catalyze a shift in the Korean Adoptee conversation. Despite this momentum, the U.S. Adoptee community still lacks a coordinated movement around the Right to Origin.

Geography is often cited as a barrier—after all, the U.S. is far larger and harder to organize than many European countries where such movements have gained traction. But geography alone doesn’t explain it. I believe there are deeper, more fundamental reasons why this issue continues to be sidelined in U.S. based Korean Adoptee spaces.

I put the question below to ChatGPT, which gave me some great answers:

What are the deeper, more systemic reasons why this issue continues to be sidelined in U.S. based Korean Adoptee spaces?

ChatGPT said:

”The sidelining of the Right to Origin in U.S. based Korean adoptee spaces is rooted in a number of deeper, systemic factors—beyond just geography or logistics. Here are several key reasons:

1. The U.S. Adoption Narrative

The dominant American narrative around adoption centers on gratitude, rescue, and assimilation, particularly with international adoption. Korean adoptees have often been framed as "lucky orphans" saved from poverty or abandonment. This narrative leaves little room for critique—especially of the adoption system itself—and discourages discussions that challenge its moral foundation, such as the right to origin.

2. Nonprofit and Funding Pressures

Many adoptee organizations rely on funding from institutions or individuals with ties to adoption agencies or broader pro-adoption networks. Speaking openly about the darker sides of adoption—coercion, falsified records, or identity erasure—can jeopardize funding or sponsorships. This creates a form of soft censorship where advocacy is shaped by financial survival, not justice.

3. Focus on Citizenship as a "Safer" Issue

Adoptee citizenship is undeniably urgent and important. However, it is often framed in terms of legality, fairness, and American identity—concepts that are palatable and politically viable in the U.S. In contrast, the Right to Origin opens a Pandora’s box of uncomfortable truths: unethical adoption practices, corrupt agencies, and governmental complicity. It's less "safe" and far more challenging to organize around in mainstream U.S. contexts.

4. Lack of Structural Support for Search and Origin Rights

The U.S. has no legal framework that guarantees international adoptees the right to access their birth records or investigate their origins. This stands in contrast to several European countries, where origin rights are part of broader child rights frameworks. Without institutional support, it’s difficult to mobilize political action or gain traction in public discourse.

5. Cultural Discomfort with Trauma Narratives

American adoptee communities often emphasize healing and positivity, which—while important—can become toxic when they exclude or silence trauma narratives. Individuals who speak out about loss, pain, or systemic injustice may be seen as "negative" or "divisive," which deters open conversation about origin rights and accountability.

6. Internalized Pressure to Conform

Many adoptees, particularly those raised in white families and communities, experience intense pressure—spoken or unspoken—to conform to white-centered expectations of gratitude and assimilation. This socialization can lead to discomfort or even hostility toward topics that challenge the foundations of transracial adoption, including the right to know one's origins.

7. Fragmentation of the Adoptee Community

The U.S. adoptee community is geographically dispersed and ideologically diverse. Without a unifying platform or political infrastructure, it’s difficult to build momentum around any single issue—especially one as complex and emotionally charged as the Right to Origin.”

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On The Discomfort Of Inconvenient Truths.

People naturally yearn for peace within their communities, but in that pursuit, they often silence the voices that speak inconvenient truths. Later, they’re left puzzled by their lack of understanding. The truth is, comfort and truth rarely walk hand in hand — sometimes, clarity only comes when we’re willing to endure discomfort.