We Are A Snail

I would say it’s time for us to go, but we aren’t really going anywhere. We don’t have to leave the home we’ve built out of each other; we can move through the world without risking the elements.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, our little community is going to travel from Substack to Ghost.io.

If you’re curious about the motivation behind leaving Substack, here’s a good place to start, and here’s a good place to learn more. The short and diplomatic version is that Substack is doing some questionable financial business, and simultaneously isn’t protecting trans people the way it ought to.

There’s quite a lot I’d like to say about the situation, but for now I’ll leave it at this: the choice between protecting profit and protecting people feels like a difficult one, but in reality, it is a false choice. It’s easy to make that decision feel complicated, but it’s not. If there can be no profit without investment in exposing trans people to harm, then there should be no profit.

I think we’ll all be very happy at Ghost, and I know my heart will be quite a bit lighter once we’ve made the shift.

If you’re a subscriber, this move will require nothing from you beyond patience. Ghost is helping me handle the migration, lifting up the house we all hang out in and carrying it to a new neighborhood without so much as rattling the dishes in the cupboard. My posts will slow down a lot during the process of moving. You can expect the usual features to pick back up as soon as we’ve landed.

If you’re a paying subscriber, you don’t need to do a thing: your paid subscription will travel with you, and you’ll still have access to paid features as always. I’m not sure how commenting will work on the new platform. Please know that I am absolutely committed to preserving the community we’ve built together, even if we need to arrange ourselves a little differently; you can expect an update on that in the Friday chat thread. That will happen here, tomorrow, per usual. We can come together to say goodbye to this neighborhood before we head to our new one. I’ll also be sending out the third March installment of What We Share on schedule, likely still via Substack depending on the speed of the transition.

If you’re not a paying subscriber, I hope you’ll consider an upgrade when we land over at Ghost. First, because my expenses are increasing as a result of this move, and I rely on this newsletter to pay my significant healthcare costs and to keep my family fed. Second — and most important — because the paying subscriber community is truly my favorite place in the world. We share new experiences, we share moments of joy, and we help each other through hard times. Together, we form a stable foundation so that when there’s upheaval, like this move from Substack to Ghost, we can take our home with us, rather than being lost in the elements.

I’ll keep you all updated on how the move is going as necessary. In the meantime, care for yourself and the people around you. Believe that the world can be better than it is now. Never give up.

—Gailey