Opinion: Damning paper trail reveals scope of Andrew Bailey’s anti-trans crusade in Missouri
Art by Teddy Rosen
This opinion investigation draws on input from LGBTQ+ activists and trans and gender-expansive sensitivity readers to ensure accuracy and supports those affected by restrictive policies on bathrooms and health care. Michael McGrady Jr is a columnist for The Pitch.
After months of waiting, I now have access to over 900 pages of documents that outline the scope of the lawfare of former Attorney General Andrew Bailey that targeted transgender people in the state and throughout the country. Pursuant to an open records request, the Missouri Attorney General’s office provided me with documentation revealing that during Bailey’s short tenure, he engaged in one of the most odious campaigns against trans and LGBTQ+ people ever perpetrated by a politician. These files help tell a new chapter of that story.
I submitted an initial open records request to Bailey’s office in May 2025. After several “more time” letters that granted extensions for their inquiry, the parameters outlined in the request were not at all met, and the documents we do have were released to me at the end of January this year.
The Pitch also reported extensively on the escapades of the former attorney general, especially on the front of persecuting transgender and LGBTQ+ communities. I saw firsthand last summer a small but vibrant community among many queer Missourians who simply want to live openly.
From those experiences, which I reported for The Pitch in the four-part “Show Me Hate” series, I realized the need for a deeper understanding of the damage caused by Bailey and his office—and this is true of his former office’s obsession with Missouri’s transgender community. Upon initial review of the documents, we see a different perspective on various controversial events that led to Missouri being classified as one of the most dangerous places for trans people in the country.
Attorney General Bailey’s public pressure campaign against Washington University in St. Louis and the institution’s gender-affirming care clinic at St. Louis Children’s Hospital is covered in these files. You will recall that Bailey instigated legal and regulatory intervention, alleging that Washington University’s Transgender Center violated state laws and engaged in alleged medical malpractice. All of this stemmed from a whistleblower complaint filed in 2023 by former clinic staff member Jamie Reed, who would additionally write an unsubstantiated commentary column for right-wing digital news outlet The Free Press, founded by controversial journalist Bari Weiss.
A spokesperson for the office of Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway told The Pitch that the investigation and litigation against Washington University are ongoing. Hanaway, who replaced Bailey after he ascended to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in September of 2025, previously served on the board of trustees at Washington University. Her staff did not respond to our inquiry about whether Hanaway’s prior affiliation constitutes a potential conflict of interest.
Robert Fischer, a spokesperson for the statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights group PROMO Missouri, noted in an email, in response to the release of the documents, that they “begin to shed light on just how deep [the] coordination goes and raise more questions about how closely our federal government and state government are working together against LGBTQ+ people,” in the state. Fischer added, “The attacks on our trans and gender-expansive siblings have always been a coordinated effort across every branch of Missouri’s government. Regardless of the government’s efforts, LGBTQ+ Missourians will not stop until we can thrive and be valued, just like every other person in this state deserves.”
The Documents and a Clear Lack of Transparency
The obtained documents include email correspondence, court filings in federal cases concerning transgender rights, and materials related to the Washington University case. The Pitch reviewed all 924 pages of documents obtained through an open records request and open-source research.
917 pages of these documents are the open-records batch release, provided by the custodian of records for the AG’s office. Our analysis of the documents indicates significant inconsistencies and omissions in the results of our requests. Given the scope of this inquiry, a reasonable person would expect to receive exchanges that are not necessarily protected by attorney-client privilege.
For example, we requested all necessary email correspondence via a keyword search across the agency using terms and phrases related to the Washington University investigations and medical record demands. The documents produced contained no email correspondence between attorneys employed by the law firm that represents Washington University, Dowd Bennett LLP. Attorneys for Dowd Bennett, which has an office in St. Louis, would not be covered by certain privileges.
Emails transmitting drafts of court briefs were also not produced. There is no indication in the documents of the acceptable degree of privilege. Still, the Attorney General’s Office is required to disclose whether any documents were withheld on privilege grounds. That is missing in the documents we received. Further review also indicates the possibility of a significant number of missing documents that were mistakenly or intentionally omitted from the open records release.
But for what is lacking, there are even more questions to what is present versus in the furnished documents. For instance, some documents indicate that Attorney General Bailey sometimes used a private email address. The private email address “baileyagomo@outlook.com” appears in the documents several times. For example, Bailey was scheduled to appear on a far-right podcast via video to discuss the escapades of his office at the time, such as the Washington University case.
Under open record regulations issued by the Missouri Secretary of State’s office, personal and private email accounts used for official business are subject to Missouri’s Sunshine Law. In the 2019-revised document titled “Missouri Secretary of State Records Services Division Electronic Communications Records Guidelines for Missouri Government,” private ownership of a device or email account does not negate the open record commitments. The document outlines, “E-mail accounts (business and personal) can be subject to a Sunshine Law request and legal discovery.”
“An agency should ensure that electronic communications are stored in a manner that retains all of the necessary information.” The document applies to all Missouri state agencies, including the office of the state Attorney General. Even if this email was used in any official capacity and was created as an Outlook.com email to facilitate communication and productivity for Bailey and his staff, no other disclosed document search matches our records request for such an email address.
Explicit Bias Against Trans People
Reed Dempsey, the former Assistant Attorney General of Missouri, was also captured in the open records batch emailing Bailey’s former solicitor general, Josh Divine, distributing and commenting on a piece published by The Free Press in February 2024 that advanced claims against gender-affirming care and is simply transphobic. In the email exchange, it was Divine disclosing to Dempsey that he was medically bedridden for an unspecified time from that year. Dempsey wrote, “Passing along the attached articles, which have come out over the last couple of days. The ‘FP’ piece is especially interesting,” referring to the articles in the email message.
The Pitch confirmed that The Free Press piece mentioned by Dempsey in his email to Divine was written by Tamara Pietzke, a social worker and counselor based in Washington state. The column by Pietzke is titled, “I Was Told to Approve All Teen Gender Transitions. I Refused.”
According to other reports, Pietzke was accused of disclosing HIPAA-protected information in the essay in a manner similar to Reed’s, and of being indiscriminately encouraged by Weiss and the outlet’s senior editorial leadership. This exchange is mentioned because it demonstrates an internal and systematic culture that significantly slants legal actions in the name of Bailey’s office against the transgender community across the country. Such findings prove contextual.
Divine also received an email inquiry in 2023 from an undergraduate journalist for Washington University’s independent student publication, Student Life. The student requested an interview with Divine regarding the investigation into the clinic; Divine instead referred the student to an official in Bailey’s press office. I confirmed with the student the exchange and that no one had followed up on their requests for comment or interviews, despite the emails’ innocuous nature.
Madeline Sieren, the former communications director for Bailey, also circulated among senior office leadership articles concerning “radical gender ideology” and the far-right’s response to that purported ideology, for consumption and for media appearances on programs such as the radio show hosted by the far-right anchor Bronson Woodruff of American Family News Radio.
Divine is also on record emailing John Ehrett, a former chief counsel for Sen. Josh Hawley’s office, about “the relevant filings” pertaining to the Washington University case with Bailey suing for access to medical records of transgender youth that could have significantly exposed families to further persecution from far-right activists. A state court blocked Bailey’s office for such demands in a noteworthy rebuke that he had no legal standing. Additionally, on January 16, 2024, a paralegal working for Divine shared a set of PDF documents related to the “Wash U Filing,” as indicated in the email chain’s subject line. Among the omissions not disclosed by the Attorney General’s office are the context and conversations surrounding the sharing of these documents. But what is present is a sobering and clear mapping of the coordinated efforts to target transgender people.
Sen. Hawley’s office didn’t return a request for comment addressing Mr. Ehrett’s presence in the documents we reviewed. Despite the radio silence, the documents indicate that Hawley was well aware of litigation against Washington University. In fact, he issued several official letters to the leadership of the university, demanding and then accusing them of noncompliance with demands to cease and desist from offering care to transgender youth. Sen. Hawley called it “child abuse.”
Coordinated and Manufactured Efforts
The documents add further perspective on multi-state efforts to counter trans rights in healthcare access, educational rights, sports, culture, and public life. Consider former Solicitor General Josh Divine once more as an example of coordination that yields clear downstream benefits, such as career growth and advancement. The documents released include amicus curiae briefs signed by state attorneys general in Republican-controlled states, indicating clear multi-state, multi-office coordination. Divine, as the solicitor general, was responsible for signing documents and filing on behalf of Bailey. For example, Bailey, through Divine’s prior service as solicitor general, has been attached to amicus curiae briefs in scores of legal cases, including United States v. Skrmetti.
Reed’s testimony and affidavit were referenced as an “authority” in amicus briefs in the federal proceedings, including before the U.S. Supreme Court. A Skrmetti amicus brief was led by Bailey, Divine, Dempsey, and Peter Donohue (the former assistant solicitor general and now general counsel for the Missouri Attorney General’s office under incumbent Hanaway). In the amicus, the attorneys had the gall to claim that the testimony of Jamie Reed is “unrebutted” in court at the time. However, that is no longer accurate, particularly given that the case is still ongoing.
Additionally, Divine rose to prominence on the right and was appointed to the federal bench for the Eastern District of Missouri, also based in St. Louis. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate, thanks to the support of Sen. Hawley, during the summer of 2025. Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, told the HuffPost that his vote for Divine was a “mistake” because of the extensive opposition to Divine’s appointment from LGBTQ+ rights organizations. Sen. King said that he was asked “nicely” by Hawley to vote for Divine, despite his Christian nationalistic and anti-queer beliefs.
Divine’s success isn’t unique. Barring the clear example of Bailey, several of the people from the released documents have progressed in their careers due, in part, to their roles in the Washington University case and the persecution of trans people through Missouri and the United States. For example, Dempsey is now employed as a senior associate attorney at Cooper Masterman PLLC, a Washington, D.C.-based plaintiffs’ law firm. Dempsey’s new firm ambulance-chases clients to push the concept of prenatal acetaminophen exposure and ostensible links to causing autism in children.
In the case of Ehrett, he is now chief of staff and “attorney advisor” to Mark Meador, one of only two current commissioners on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Note that the FTC hosted a workshop on the alleged consumer harms of trans healthcare for youth during the summer of 2025. Though he didn’t speak during that workshop, Meador was in his position at the time. Meador previously worked at the Heritage Foundation, which led the far-right Project 2025 effort.
Records also indicate that Sieren is currently the deputy communications director for Sen. Hawley’s office, which again failed to provide comment to The Pitch.
Evan Urquhart, a trans journalist and founder of the GLAAD Media Awards-nominated online news outlet Assigned Media, spoke with me about the findings of this investigation. Urquhart is one of the leading investigative journalists in this field, having probed the efforts of Reed and Bailey’s office, which were central in the Washington University case.
Urquhart explained to me in an email, “The wild allegations of wrongdoing from former clinic staffer Jamie Reed, some of which have been shown to be false and none of which have been substantiated, singlehandedly shifted the dynamic in the Missouri legislature.” Urquhart referred to attempts to outlaw gender affirming care for minors in the state of Missouri. There are proposals currently in the legislature.
“The [Washington University Transgender Clinic] was one of [only] a handful of gold standard trans youth care clinics connected to major hospitals in large U.S. cities,” explained Urquhart. “To this day, there has been no finding of any wrongdoing on the part of the clinic or its trans supportive staff, and no patients have ever come forward to describe coming to harm due to the clinic’s practices.” This is not a blind spot Urquhart harbors. No evidence of wrongdoing by the accused or of medical malpractice has been demonstrated, according to a university internal investigation and highly credible journalism that challenged the narratives of Reed and Bailey.
Erin in the Morning, an award-winning Substack newsletter reported by a journalistic team led by trans journalist Erin Reed, further mapped out coordination tied to Jamie Reed and Bailey. A body of reporting by Erin Reed effectively challenged Jamie Reed’s claims that Bailey utilized as the basis of his investigation and the basis of Hawley’s obsessions with the ongoing investigation.
For example, Erin Reed reported in October 2023 that the transphobic medical worker appeared to have lied about a transgender kid she outed in testimony to Bailey’s office. She referenced the reporting of St. Louis-based CBS affiliate KMOV 4, which broke the story of the inaccuracy. The only reason to account for Reed and Bailey still being taken seriously by mainstream news media outlets, such as The New York Times, is the power they hold in the public eye.
For Urquhart’s work, the reporting is expansive, revealing glaring inaccuracies in Reed’s claims.
“The frustrating thing about covering trans youth healthcare in recent years is that the science hasn’t changed at all,” he shared. “Politicization has changed public perceptions of the science. It is a beat where conventional wisdom agrees there’s a scientific debate about the efficacy and legitimacy of youth treatments, but it’s like climate change or smoking causing cancer; there’s no real scientific debate, just a political debate being presented by bad actors as a scientific one.”
Awarded for Being a Dedicated Culture Warrior
After winning reelection in 2024 with a split endorsement from President Donald Trump, Bailey said he would step down from the position of attorney general in September 2025 to serve under Kash Patel, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as the co-deputy director of the agency.
As ProPublica’s St. Louis-based reporter Jeremy Kohler reported in September, some observers who followed Bailey’s career viewed his ascent to the national stage as a form of performative sycophancy meant to inflate the Trump administration and the president himself. Do note that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News Digital, around the time Bailey was appointed to the position of co-deputy director, that he would be a crucial part of Trump’s so-called “law and order” agenda. Bondi referred to Bailey as a “distinguished state attorney general” and said “his leadership and commitment to [the] country will be a tremendous asset as we work together to advance President Trump’s mission.” And Patel shared in the same report that then-AG Bailey was among “the greatest talent this country has to offer.” Of course, that “talent” is interpretative.
The Pitch requested reactions from the Federal Bureau of Investigation on behalf of Mr. Bailey. A spokesperson for the FBI declined to issue a comment.
Transphobic Media Empires Rising
For the figures who initially circulated Reed’s claims, the intention would appear fiscal. Bari Weiss is the founder of The Free Press, the first publication to feature Reed’s viral commentary. Weiss benefited from this virality, along with other controversial contributions, and received praise from pro-Trump billionaire media executive David Ellison. He is the son of Larry Ellison, one of the co-founders of Oracle Corporation (another Trump ally), and serves as chairman and chief executive officer of Paramount Skydance Corporation, the parent company of CBS News.
In a purported “symbolic” gesture to Trump, Ellison and his board appointed Weiss as the chief of the CBS News broadcast operation in a $150 million deal, under which The Free Press would be absorbed into a legacy news media organization with a history of holding power accountable.
But Weiss, who is also a former New York Times opinion contributor, is not only considered by her critics, like me, to be unqualified to manage an international news organization but is also too invested in winning far-right accolades to be a legitimate leader in the newsroom. In many cases, this is true. Central to the selling point for Weiss receiving such an infusion of millions was the circulation of transphobic and anti-LGBTQ+ messaging.
‘Show Me’ Transphobia
Despite the ongoing nature of the Washington University investigation, the grass is greener for the so-called “whistleblower,” Jamie Reed. Her most recent escapades included her sitting on the aforementioned FTC panel in the summer of 2025, along with fellow “whistleblower” and The Free Press contributor Tamara Pietzke. During that FTC panel, both repeatedly stated that they are “progressives” and not ideologically driven to oppose longstanding sentiments grounded in scientific evidence supporting gender-affirming care for youth and young adults. According to a transcription of the event that the FTC still has available on its website, Reed called the care of gender-expansive people a “racket,” alluding to organized crime, and called this realm of care the “gender industry.” Do note that the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society have recently filed suit against the FTC, challenging its investigations into the “gender industry.”
Reed’s claims have been found to be unsubstantiated and misinformed, and to involve alleged violations of federal privacy laws protecting medical patients. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Missouri Independent investigated Reed’s claims and found inconsistencies, including those identified by outlets such as Erin in the Morning, Assigned Media, Media Matters, Washington University’s Clark-Fox Policy Institute, American Oversight, and several civil society groups.
Overwhelming academic evidence considers “gender ideology” as a rhetorical trope to attract notions and forces against several elements of bodily autonomy, including gender identity. In Missouri’s General Assembly, the terminology has circulated extensively, given the GOP’s one-party rule over the legislature.
For example, the Missouri Senate Education Committee recently held a hearing on Senate Bill (SB) 1085, a proposal by Republican state Sen. Joe Nicola. According to the bill’s language, SB 1085 would make it illegal for teachers and staff in K-12 public schools throughout the state to refer to minor students by their preferred pronouns and chosen name in an attempt to deny social transition. The bill was favorably received by the majority of the committee, which is chaired by far-right state Sen. Rick Brattin, who made remarks at the beginning of the hearing about preventing “furries” in schools. Jamie Reed was present at this hearing, representing the LGB Courage Coalition, a lobbying organization she and other “gender critical” and transphobic individuals had organized in 2023 (originally called the LGBT Courage Coalition). It was originally a Substack blog for anti-trans activists and conservative trans people, who were ousted from the organization due to the Trump administration’s trans erasure push, including the censoring of transgender identity at the Stonewall National Monument in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan.
But Reed marshalled the organization into an LGB separatist hate organization, bringing such a flair and pseudoscientific nonsense to statehouses across the country, including in Jefferson City this past month. She testified in favor of Nicola’s bill, alongside other hate organizations such as Alliance Defending Freedom and Do No Harm. Organizations that opposed Nicola’s bill formed a countering coalition comprising the American Civil Liberties Union, the teachers’ and school counselors’ unions, the LGBTQ+-inclusive advocacy group IN-TACT, PROMO Missouri, and the National Council of Jewish Women. I do digress, however. The committee advanced the bill in short order.
Even in the annual State of the Union, President Trump relies on anti-trans screeds, proposals, and slogans that are propagated by the Andrew Baileys of the world.
Complicity is present, as evidenced by the Bailey emails and his platforming of a pseudo-progressive “concerned” citizen. The harms done by these people are astonishing, sobering, and obscene.
