It's Receipts Week!

From my vast collection of spiked articles and turned-down pitches.

Many of my regular readers know that I spent four years incessantly trying to break the full story of the scandal of youth gender medicine in the mainstream and liberal media. New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Yahoo, CNN, Time, New Republic—I could go on, but I pitched them all. As I mentioned recently, Emily Bazelon’s 2022 story came after I pitched a feature on how the field had shifted: from not letting mentally ill youth transition, to thinking transition would cure mental illness. Needless to say, they did not give me the story. Many of these outlets either wouldn’t let freelancers write about the issue or wouldn’t assign it to liberals who would pierce the protective forcefield of the left-versus-right framing.

I’d forgotten about some of these pieces and pitches but was made aware that many people at these outlets are now going through what I’ve sent over the years. Maybe that’s because we’re hearing about the various folks who brought attention to this story, or maybe they’re doing some CYA. At any rate, I’m not usually listed among the important writers on the subject, simply because I could not get these articles published—despite the fact that I have never tried harder at anything in my whole life.

I’m so glad that the issue is finally getting the daylight it deserves, but this week I’m going to offer some of my receipts. They can’t say they didn’t know, because I told them.

I invite you to put your own rejected letters to the editor, article pitches, or any other receipts in the comments—or, if you are interested, we can put them up in this series. Let’s make sure that people know how often our voices were silenced, no matter how many or how loud.