About Switch Hitter

Hi, I’m Julia Serano. I write about gender, sexuality, science, and social justice, with an emphasis on trans, queer, and feminist issues. I’ve authored five books, including Whipping Girl, Excluded, Sexed Up, and the award-winning bi-themed novel 99 Erics. My writings have also appeared in The New York Times, TIME, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, Salon, AlterNet, The Advocate, Out, and Ms.

While I occasionally write for mainstream media outlets, their format isn’t especially well-suited for me, as they tend to only publish “101”-level LGBTQ+ and social justice pieces, whereas I prefer sinking my teeth into “201” and “301”-level topics. Also, I like to write more lengthy, thoughtful, and nuanced pieces, whereas Internet-driven media is more geared towards quick responses and cut-and-dried opinions.

On top of all this, we are now in the midst of a growing anti-trans moral panic. Mainstream media outlets have largely fallen asleep at the wheel, or worse, helped to promote trans-skeptical talking points. I’ve spent much of the last eight years countering this anti-trans propaganda and disinformation via thoroughly researched and referenced essays (examples below), and have made them all free and accessible online for trans people and allies to share with others.

I plan to continue all this work here on Switch Hitter. This won’t be your standard Substack newsletter that comes out on a daily or weekly basis. Rather, over the course of a year, I’ll probably publish about 8–16 high quality essays here.

If you’re interested in what I have to say, feel free to subscribe for free! And if you appreciate the work I do and wish to support that, you can subscribe here at one of the paid tiers. And/or you can also support my work on Patreon.

Examples of my work

You can access all of my previous online articles and essays via my writings webpage. Here are a few examples to give you an idea of the kind of work I hope to create here:

Countering the anti-trans backlash:

• Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth Is Neither New nor Experimental: A Timeline and Compilation of Studies

• Transgender People, Bathrooms, and Sexual Predators: What the Data Say

• Spotting Anti-Trans Media Bias on Detransition

• Understanding the Anti-Trans Parent Movement

• Anti-Trans “Grooming” and “Social Contagion” Claims Explained

• Debunking “Trans Women Are Not Women” Arguments

• Making Sense of Autogynephilia Debates

On gender, sexuality, and social justice:

• How to Write a “Political Correctness Run Amok” Article

• Penises, Privilege, and Feminist & LGBTQ+ Purity Politics

• Sexual Dystopias and Utopias

• Rethinking LGBTQ+ Visibility

• Masculinity, Femininity, and Meanings

• Leftist Critiques of Identity Politics

• Refusing to Tolerate Intolerance

Why the name “Switch Hitter”?

An early step in my coming-out-as-transgender process occurred in 1999, when I wrote and first performed (with my band Bitesize) a song called “Switch Hitter”—it was a semi-autobiographical tale of an adolescent who decides to change their sex during their little-league all-star game (I tell the whole story here).

When I eventually transitioned in 2001, I created a coming out website called Switch Hitter, where friends and acquaintances could find out more about my trans identity and history without me having to explain it over and over again. The following year, when I began performing trans-themed spoken word, I released my first two chapbooks under the moniker “Switch Hitter Press.”

I have continued using the name Switch Hitter for my publishing & recording imprints over the years. It resonates with me even more since coming out as bisexual in 2008, not to mention the fact that I am an avid baseball fan. So it just made sense to call this Substack publication Switch Hitter as well…