I would like to mark a personal milestone as a journalist. I wrote up a quick script about something nice CHEO is doing--providing pads and tampons for free and I received several complaints!

Not because of factual errors, just because the story existed. https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/teens-at-cheo-can-now-get-menstrual-products-for-free-1.4906996

One person suggested (while helpfully mentioning they were being sarcastic) that it must have been an "interesting assignment" for me.

It actually was! I think moves like this are really important. This is a biological need. Good on CHEO!

Another person wrote to me very upset that I used a photo of a tampon in the article. "Is nothing sacred?" they asked.

They swore they would never read anything by me ever again!

That same person also asked if I would report on condoms (not the same thing). Fun fact! I did so three years ago! https://www.iheartradio.ca/580-cfra/news/oph-reveals-2017-condom-wrapper-design-1.2275185

I even chatted about it on the radio with my good friend Evan Solomon. https://soundcloud.com/ted-raymond/talkin-bout-condoms

Rest assured, I think this is all kind of amusing. We chose to put the story online yesterday because we thought people would be interested. Wow, were they ever!

This all tells me we have a long way to go to normalize in our society something so many people go through.

I'm just happy to be noticed, frankly. I've spent much of my career just putting things out there with very little feedback from the public. It's good to know people are actually paying attention.