Why I’m on Substack Now

photo by Caryn Morgan from Pexels

Not so long ago, I had a simple routine for my online writing: I wrote essays on Medium (which was free and accessible to everyone back then), promoted them on Twitter (the social media platform where I had the largest following), and encouraged people who appreciated my work to support me on Patreon (for as little as $1 per month).

I am still active on all those platforms, but my routine is now in flux. Medium has increasingly shifted to a subscriber-only model and gotten rid of their 3 free articles per month (forcing me to demonetize all my past essays). Elon Musk has instigated a mass exodus from Twitter (now “X”), so now I have to additionally promote my writings on Mastodon, Bluesky, Tumblr, Threads, and other social media sites that people are fleeing to. Patreon continues to be great (seriously, consider supporting me there!), but the only way people can find out about my Patreon is if I can promote it on other websites.

As much as I hate being spread out over so many platforms, it seems clear that, in this new enshittified social media landscape, I need to meet potential readers wherever they are. And a lot of people are on Substack. So here I am.

There was a time a few years back, when I was vocally opposed to Substack, mostly because they platformed numerous hardcore anti-trans activists who had been suspended from other platforms like Twitter, plus they also gave lucrative deals to several high-profile pundits who had expressed trans-skeptical positions in the past. While I still oppose those decisions, many of those same anti-trans activists have since been unsuspended from Twitter/X, and many have joined newer platforms like Threads. Even Medium—who has been very supportive of my work and trans writers more generally—also platforms numerous “gender critical” writers.

If I refused to participate on any platform that allows or enables transphobia (or other “isms,” as they are all interconnected, especially as the tech billionaires who run these sites increasingly lurch toward fascism), I wouldn’t have too many options available.

So that’s why I’m here, despite said reservations.

If you’d rather *not* follow me here, no worries, you don’t need to! For the foreseeable future, I will cross-post my essays to both Substack and Medium, so you can read them wherever you prefer. You can subscribe to my posts on either site for free. And if you subscribe to my Patreon, I will send you links to both versions as soon as they come out.

If you do choose to financially support my work, feel free to subscribe here on one of the paid tiers—I’ve purposely set those fees as low as Substack allows. And if you want to kick more or less money my way, there are many more options available on Patreon (like I said, for as little as $1 per month).

For those of you who are not already familiar with my work and wish to learn more about what I plan to write about here, please check out my About page.

Note added after publication: A follow up addressing concerns that some people have about Substack, entitled On Being an Artist, Author, and Activist in a World Where All the Major Online Media Platforms Suck, was published on 12-4-23.