In late 2012, Long moved to Cairo, Egypt. "The New York Times" reported that he was "researching a book about sexual politics." Although for nine years Egypt's law against "debauchery" had almost never been enforced, after the July 2013 military coup that brought General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to power, a new crackdown on LGBT people began. More than 150 people were arrested in the next 18 months. Long documented the arrests from the start, interviewing as many as possible of the victims and publicizing many accounts on his blog, "A Paper Bird". He stressed the role of gender (rather than sexual orientation) in the persecution, and the way that transgender women and "effeminate" men were especially targeted for arrest. Long worked on a legal guide for endangered LGBT Egyptians that was published, in Arabic, on his blog. He also published warnings, in both English and Arabic, about Internet entrapment and surveillance in Egypt and how to protect online privacy.