It's a Relaunch!

Still brown, but no longer sad…

Thank you for sticking with Sad Brown Girl during its recent hiatus while I recovered from the surgery I’ve needed my whole life. A lot of healing later, I’ve got a new wind in my sails and I’ve missed sharing my writing with you. I’m excited to announce the relaunch of this Substack to focus on deep dives into history with me as your personal guide. I feel strongly that transgender politics will only continue to fail as they already have. (I’ll have plenty to say about why.) But unlike doomers and gloomers, I’m also convinced that better ways forward are not terribly complicated. They require corrective doses of courage and realism, two things that history has in abundance.

As we start the new year, mark your calendar for January 17th, when Sad Brown Girl relaunches as The Long Transition.

I’ll be bringing you serialized dives into history that explain and reframe present-day problems. I want to pull back the curtain on my research, first and foremost. Along the way, I’ll unpack how ill-suited the worldview my next book terms transgender liberalism is for confronting anti-transgender politics—and how hollow its own precepts and track record are.

I’ll be publishing every two weeks in series arcs that chronicle the history behind some of what’s making headlines today. Think of them as seasons. You can pick up and read any individual post, but when you go from start to finish, it’ll be like joining me in the classroom and in archives. From time to time, I’ll also publish stand-alone posts digging into events like the upcoming Supreme Court case, West Virginia v B.P.J., or short essays on ideas and arguments of mine.

I’m excited to announce the first two seasons:

• Is There a History of Anti-Transgender Discrimination?Synopsis: US v Skrmetti (2025) put this question on the radar when Justice Amy Coney Barrett cast doubt on whether there were laws stretching back far enough to meet the legal definition of anti-transgender discrimination. This is ultimately a question of history. People are right to point to anti-crossdressing laws as something like the answer, yet next to nothing of their origin is known. This series will retrace the history of legal restrictions on dress since the Thirteen Colonies. We will figure out why anti-crossdressing laws were created, when they started to be enforced on people who transitioned sex, and what legal and political lessons they hold for today.
  

• The Populist Critique of TransgenderSynopsis: Almost every analysis of the place of anti-transgender politics in contemporary conservatism is self-flattering. Either transgender people are magically disruptive to repressive government, or conservatives are mindlessly ideological about gender. I wouldn’t bet on either. This series will dive into conservative political history, examining how the purpose of anti-transgender politics has been to charge a populist critique of neoliberalism. Transgender is a synonym for abstract elitism and social engineering from above, connected to real changes in the economy. Understanding this history goes far in demystifying the traction of anti-transgender populism today.

Thank you, as always, for reading and thinking with me. 2026 will be an important year, but I go into it without dread. I’m committed to bringing you work that doesn’t sentimentalize or fearmonger. I hope you’ll join me in studying the past to confront the present with honesty and resolve.

Yours,

Jules