It\u2019s Trans Day of Visibility, and I\u2019m at an event space in the heart of New York City\u2019s Commie Corridor to learn how to become less visible online.The crowd gathered at the aptly-named Trans Pecos in Ridgewood, Queens is here for \u201c404: Deadname Not Found,\u201d a digital self-defense workshop which promises to teach trans people how to find and remove their sensitive personal information from the internet (and which also has no relation to this website). The vibe is giving OpSec rave happy hour\u2014attendees sip colorful drinks, groove to DJ sets, and huddle around laptops using online tools to track down their own digital footprints.The goal of the exercise is to find holes in your digital defenses, a practice cybersecurity folks call \u201cred-teaming.\u201d A slide deck guides participants through this \u201cself-doxing\u201d ritual, instructing them to use websites like IntelBase, PimEyes, and haveibeenpwned to find addresses, selfies, passwords, old names and aliases, and other personal info that might have been left sitting around on the open internet.It makes for great cocktail party banter. One participant raises their arms in triumph upon receiving a clean bill of health while checking if their information was leaked in a data breach. Others swivel laptop screens and compare notes on the various places their digital detritus had cropped up. In my case, I was lucky: I mostly found data brokers with incorrect information, a long-forgotten MySpace page, and a woman whose spam calls I\u2019ve been receiving for the past 10 years. Finally, participants are directed to various pages where they can request data to be removed, or sign up for discounted services like Kanary and DeleteMe that do the removals on your behalf.404 Media on Instagram: \u201cAs the Trump administration continues rip away trans rights and platforms like Elon Musk\u2019s X power doxing campaigns against queer folk, trans people are coming together to take their power back in an exercise in \u201cself-doxing\u201d. 404 Media contributor @janus.rose attended the event 404 Deadname Not Found on Trans Day of Visibility in New York City where participants came armed with laptops to see what they could find about themselves online together. \u201cIn this world of hyper-surveillance, I want to make sure all my stuff is safe and that no one is trying to harvest my data for anything,\u201d Anna*, a workshop participant, told 404 Media. Anna asked to use a pseudonym to protect her identity, which is not surprising given that the goal of the workshop is to make it harder to be doxxed. \u201cEspecially now that there\u2019s lots of incentives for the federal government to get into that business, I just wanna make sure all of that is under wraps.\u201d Like the event\u2019s name suggests, many attendees are looking for traces of their \u201cdeadnames,\u201d which is how some trans folks refer to the names they were given pre-transition. Trans people face a disproportionately high risk of being doxxed online, and deadnames and other sensitive info are frequently dug up on right-wing hate forums. There are specific reasons many trans people are anxious about their personal data and online presence these days. For one, trans identities often don\u2019t fit neatly into government boxes, and the name and gender they are assigned at birth may or may not match their government-issued IDs. Recently, a new law in Kansas resulted in hundreds of trans people being told that their drivers licenses and IDs had been invalidated overnight, forcing them to obtain new documents that revert to the sex marker assigned at birth. Read the full story at 404media.co\u201d107 likes, 0 comments – 404mediaco on April 8, 2026: \u201cAs the Trump administration continues rip away trans rights and platforms like Elon Musk\u2019s X power doxing campaigns against queer folk, trans people are coming together to take their power back in an exercise in \u201cself-doxing\u201d. 404 Media contributor @janus.rose attended the event 404 Deadname Not Found on Trans Day of Visibility in New York City where participants came armed with laptops to see what they could find about themselves online together. \u201cIn this world of hyper-surveillance, I want to make sure all my stuff is safe and that no one is trying to harvest my data for anything,\u201d Anna*, a workshop participant, told 404 Media. Anna asked to use a pseudonym to protect her identity, which is not surprising given that the goal of the workshop is to make it harder to be doxxed. \u201cEspecially now that there\u2019s lots of incentives for the federal government to get into that business, I just wanna make sure all of that is under wraps.\u201d Like the event\u2019s name suggests, many attendees are looking for traces of their \u201cdeadnames,\u201d which is how some trans folks refer to the names they were given pre-transition. Trans people face a disproportionately high risk of being doxxed online, and deadnames and other sensitive info are frequently dug up on right-wing hate forums. There are specific reasons many trans people are anxious about their personal data and online presence these days. For one, trans identities often don\u2019t fit neatly into government boxes, and the name and gender they are assigned at birth may or may not match their government-issued IDs. Recently, a new law in Kansas resulted in hundreds of trans people being told that their drivers licenses and IDs had been invalidated overnight, forcing them to obtain new documents that revert to the sex marker assigned at birth. Read the full story at 404media.co\u201d.InstagramBehind the fun and light atmosphere, everyone here knows the unspoken reality that drives tonight\u2019s activities: an unrelenting wave of discriminatory bills and executive orders that are rapidly demolishing trans rights across the US. \u201cTrans Visibility\u201d is a nice idea, but it turns out it really sucks to be visible in a fascist surveillance state where the highest levels of government are obsessively trying to destroy your ability to live.\u201cIn this world of hyper-surveillance, I want to make sure all my stuff is safe and that no one is trying to harvest my data for anything,\u201d Anna, a workshop participant, told 404 Media. Anna asked to use a pseudonym to protect her identity, which is not surprising given that the goal of the workshop is to make it harder to be doxed. \u201cEspecially now that there\u2019s lots of incentives for the federal government to get into that business, I just wanna make sure all of that is under wraps.\u201dLike the event\u2019s name suggests, many attendees are looking for traces of their \u201cdeadnames,\u201d which is how some trans folks refer to the names they were given pre-transition. Trans people face a disproportionately high risk of being doxed online, and deadnames and other sensitive info are frequently dug up on right-wing hate forums like KiwiFarms and social media sites like Elon Musk\u2019s X, where harassment campaigns and hate speech are allowed and even encouraged.\u201cWe have to protect ourselves,\u201d said Ryan, who also used a pseudonym. \u201cIt\u2019s great to know how to find stuff like this, because you never know what\u2019s still out there.\u201dImani Thompson, a digital security trainer who organized the event as part of her series Cache Me Outside, says she started hosting the free workshops at queer bars in Brooklyn a year ago, after noticing trans and intersex friends who were noticeably shaken by the opening salvos of the second Trump administration.\u201cI hadn’t seen cybersecurity events that looked like they would attract or resonate with the crowds I felt needed this information the most,\u201d she told 404 Media. \u201cI wanted to make this fun and un-intimidating and doing digital security training at the bar is kind of silly and fun and gives us a built-in VPN and protection from sensitive convos being recorded.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are specific reasons many trans people are anxious about their personal data and online presence these days. For one, trans identities often don\u2019t fit neatly into government boxes, and the name and gender they are assigned at birth may or may not match their government-issued IDs. Recently, a new law in Kansas resulted in hundreds of trans people being told that their drivers licenses and IDs had been invalidated overnight, forcing them to obtain new documents that revert to the sex marker assigned at birth. Journalist Marissa Kabas later reported that the 300 trans IDs in question had been flagged and not immediately invalidated, but the goal of the law and its ensuing chaos was clear: requiring trans people to have IDs that don\u2019t match their appearance or lived reality, forcing them to out themselves and introducing friction and discrimination into their everyday lives.The same Kansas law also implemented the first state-level \u201cbathroom bounty,\u201d making it a crime for trans people to use appropriate bathrooms and changing rooms and promising rewards to random passersby who feel \u201caggrieved\u201d by someone they think might be trans. Lawmakers in Idaho have passed an even harsher bill, which would charge repeat trans bathroom-users with a felony and up to 5 years of jail time. These bills threaten not only trans people, but anyone whose appearance might fall outside of someone\u2019s normative expectations of \u201cmale\u201d and \u201cfemale.\u201d And they are especially dangerous at a time when facial recognition can near-instantly identify someone with a quick search.Thompson also worries about the information that queer folks can reveal while asking for help online. Trans people experience unemployment, housing insecurity, and violence at exponentially higher rates than cis people, and it\u2019s not uncommon to see Gofundme pages and Venmo accounts flooding social media feeds. These posts will sometimes include personal details like a person\u2019s name, face, transition status, location, immigration status, and even how much they have in their bank account\u2014great for getting donations, but not so great for the doxable breadcrumbs they leave behind.You Can\u2019t Post Your Way Out of FascismAuthoritarians and tech CEOs now share the same goal: to keep us locked in an eternal doomscroll instead of organizing against them, Janus Rose writes.404 MediaJanus Rose\u201cI think the risk is tenfold for the dolls and Black trans siblings because of disproportionate scrutiny in light of these bathroom bills and also how we do mutual aid,\u201d said Thompson. \u201cWhenever I see a mutual aid request being reposted or processed it makes me nervous, because we’re basically doxing our most vulnerable friends.\u201d To reduce risk, she recommends people take down mutual aid posts as soon as needs are met and set their Venmo activity to private. \u201cI feel like the intention in listing off how all these systems of oppression impact our friends are meant to create a sense of urgency and care, but then months later it’s still floating around and is a goldmine for someone who wants to claim they were made to feel unsafe in a bathroom so they can claim $3k or further an agenda.\u201dThe privacy attitudes on display at the event contrast with the dominant media narratives about trans communities a decade ago. Fresh off the Supreme Court victory in Obergefell vs. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage, many at that time were convinced that trans visibility would pave the way to equality, as glossy magazine covers featuring stars like Laverne Cox declared a \u201cTrans Tipping Point.\u201d But while conditions for some trans people marginally improved, we all know what happened next: a wave of reactionary anti-trans state laws, culminating in the re-election of Donald Trump and a series of executive orders aimed at destroying trans peoples\u2019 access to healthcare, sports, bathrooms\u2014essentially the ability to live a normal life.At the same time, protection can\u2019t be a retreat back into the closet. \u201cIt\u2019s still important for trans voices to be heard in online spaces,\u201d said Anna. \u201cIt\u2019s not like I wanna go into the shadows or anything. I just don\u2019t want people to know my personal data, my personal records, any of that.\u201d\u201cBeing Black, I also understand the distinction between visibility and hypervisibility and the precarity and lack of agency that hypervisibility creates,\u201d said Thompson. \u201cIt’s tricky to find language around digital security that doesn’t imply queerness is something to hide or a shameful thing, because of course it’s not. I think having agency and purpose in how we can show up online and interact with tech as well as literacy around how technology and surveillance operates makes us better equipped.\u201dJanus Rose is New York City-based journalist, educator and artist whose work explores the impacts of A.I. and technology on activists and marginalized communities. Previously a senior editor at\u00a0VICE, she has been published in digital and print outlets including\u00a0e-Flux Journal,\u00a0DAZED Magazine,\u00a0The New Yorker, and\u00a0Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"