Just one more pain and expense for migrants documented and undocumented face now under ICE. The goal is to make it so horrible that they will agree to self deport. Such hatred for another people simply due to skin color and language / accent is so foreign / alien to me that it seems like something out of reality. And who pays for these monitors? The immigrant who cannot afford it or the US tax payer. If the taxpayer meaning the government is paying for the costs is this just a way to enrich a private company on the taxpayers backs / dime. Yet all reports are that this is driven by Stephen Miller who is so shrill and over the top demanding that he put one commander in the hospital three times with his harassment and demands, and he is said to have driven ICE to attack protestors claiming that the public would be on the side of ICE if they could show that the protestors were dangerous thugs. Hugs
Agency uses devices, which are uncomfortable and interfere with employment, to push people to self-deport, advocates say
Critics say that ankle monitors impose psychological, economic and physical harms on the people required to wear them. Illustration: Guardian Design / Getty Images
For five years, an asylum-seeking woman attended routine check-ins with immigration authorities without issue. At her most recent appointment in October, she was unexpectedly ordered to strap on an ankle monitor, according to her attorney, Deepa Bijpuria.
Bijpuria, a supervising attorney in the immigration unit of Legal Aid DC, described the client as a single mom who fled her home country because of severe domestic violence, escaping while pregnant with her young daughter.
“[The order] was just such a shift after she’d been complying for years while waiting for her asylum application to be heard and decided,” she said.
Bijpuria said the working mom, who declined an interview and requested anonymity due to her vulnerable situation, lost at least one job after receiving the ankle monitor.
Bijpuria’s client is not the only immigrant to be blindsided by ankle monitor requirements. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses electronic monitoring through its Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program, which was formally implemented in 2004 to ensure that immigrants comply with legal obligations while their cases proceed without being placed in detention.
ATD compliance methods also include mobile apps and telephone check-ins. But Evan Benz, a senior attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, said there had been a “marked shift” towards utilizing ankle monitors following a June 2025 internal ICE memo directing officers to place the devices on anyone enrolled in the ATD program.
ICE is using smartwatches to track pregnant women, even during labor: ‘She was so afraid they would take her baby’
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The number of people in the ATD program with ankle monitors nearly doubled in subsequent months, even as overall enrollment in the program remained stable. The total grew from about 24,000 at the time of the memo, a figure reported by the Washington Post, to roughly 42,000 last month, according to a February fiscal year 2026 ICE report.
The increase has not been evenly distributed across the country. The February ICE report revealed that enforcement varies by region, with the DC area having the highest number of people required to wear ankle monitors in the country.
“If you’re in the area of the Washington DC field office, which covers Virginia and the city of Washington DC, then you’re drastically more likely to be subjected to ankle monitoring,” Benz said. “But it’s not really clear exactly what the reason is for regional variation.”
In an email to the Guardian, an ICE spokesperson said that the ATD program used “individualized determinations” to tailor supervision levels on a case-by-case basis, allowing ICE to escalate or de-escalate oversight as needed. The spokesperson added that decisions were based on criminal history, compliance record and “any other relevant factors” when determining whether to keep someone in detention during ongoing proceedings.
Bijpuria said uneven enforcement highlighted the “arbitrary” nature of ankle monitor assignments, recalling many clients who were fitted with the devices despite having complied with their legal obligations. The cases, she said, raise questions about whether ensuring compliance is truly the goal behind the monitoring.
These concerns are reinforced by a 2021 study conducted by the Cardozo School of Law, which found that ankle monitors do not necessarily improve compliance and may even be counterproductive. The report found that 98% of immigrants released without electronic ankle monitors attended all court hearings and ICE check-ins, compared with 93% of those required to wear the devices.
Legal experts say uncertainty about the motives behind ankle monitor orders is exacerbated by limited transparency from federal authorities. ICE’s internal memo was never released publicly, prompting the Amica Center to file a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Benz said ICE initially responded to the lawsuit by saying it would publish the memo on its website. The agency later said it could not do so at the time because of the ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown.
“We’ve seen that ICE is not an agency that cares very much about transparency in its dealings with immigrants, or really the public at large,” Benz said.
Julia Decker, policy director at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, said the lack of transparency reflected a strategy of “intentional chaos”, in which creating uncertainty and anxiety in immigrant communities was “part of the plan”.
Decker raised concerns that the use of ankle monitors and the broader ATD program could become another way to “force” immigrants into a mistake that would push them into detention.
“I think that it’s very, very likely that any program like this becomes a way to funnel you right back into the very system that it was supposed to be an alternative to,” she said. “Particularly with an administration like this one that has been very public with its statements about wanting to arrest and deport as many [people as possible].”
Benz echoed Decker’s concerns, calling the ATD program an “alternative form of detention” rather than a true alternative to detention.
“We’ve seen a number of cases where ICE has used the ankle monitor to track down someone at home,” he said. “Sometimes there has been a ruse of ‘Hey, can you come outside? We got an alert. There’s something wrong with your ankle monitor, and we just need to check it out.’ And then that person is actually detained by ICE.”
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Beyond increasing the risk of detention, ankle monitors impose psychological, economic and physical harms on the people required to wear them, experts said.
“There are very onerous conditions of supervision, like curfews, home inspections and restrictions on where you can travel,” Benz said. “All of these combined can take a great toll on an individual on a psychological level. They don’t feel free. They feel as if they’re being watched, and they are also having their liberty, their freedom of movement, actually physically restrained.”
He noted that people wearing ankle monitors were more likely to lose their jobs, as the devices are often associated with the criminal legal system and can make those who wear them appear suspicious to employers.
Bijpuria emphasized the physical discomfort of ankle monitors. “Besides the psychological trauma, shame and disruption, it’s difficult to sleep.”
She added that the combination of deportation threats and the various harms of ankle monitors appeared designed to pressure people into self-deportation. Last year, the then DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, announced a nationwide, multimillion-dollar campaign that offered incentives for self-deportation, including up to $1,000 in financial assistance and free travel.
“We’ve seen people who’ve been detained or put on ankle monitoring who have options but, because of the conditions that they’re subjected to, ultimately decide to self-deport,” Bijpuria said. “You also have to remember there are private companies involved, and there is someone who’s making money from all this. They don’t have enough capacity for detaining everyone, so this is an alternative still getting you in that pipeline to ultimate removal.”
Amid the shifting landscape of immigration policies, a continuing DHS shutdown and leadership changes, Benz stressed the importance of submitting a written request to ICE for removal or avoidance of the device, supported by medical documentation demonstrating its negative impacts. Benz pointed to guides for attorneys representing clients in the ATD program and people navigating the process without legal representation.
“I think that [ankle monitoring and the ATD program] have flown under the radar in part because there are so many awful things that this agency is doing every day in terms of ripping people away from their families and their communities,” Benz said. “But the use of ankle monitors by ICE is a very harmful phenomenon.”
This is a doctor working in Gaza. He describes the conditions. The Israelis are sniping World Health doctors. Israelis are moving the “yellow line” that they are claiming is the new boundary line between Israel and Palestinians. They are slowly moving the line deeper ad deeper into Gaza. The Israeli snipers were shooting the young boys in different areas on different days, now they are using drones to fire on young children alone with horrific results. Remember from the last clip he was saying how Israel is blocking and destroying the medical supplies and equipment. Israel is deliberately shooting and killing children. They want the chaos it causes, they like the fear it promotes, and they like that no new generations of Palestinians are growing. The doctor spoke of other atrocities that Israel is inflicting daily on the Palestinians. Israel is a criminal nation doing a genocide, and much of our democratic leadership is deeply in the pockets of AIPAC. Notice that Hakeem Jeffries was also at the same event. People here have asked why I am so anti-democratic leadership; this is one of the reasons why. They are beholden to the big money donors and lobbies doing their bidding while ignoring the desires and will of the people they are supposed to represent, not rule over. Hugs
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has emphasized his commitment to maintaining pro-Israel sentiments within the Democratic Party. In recent statements, Schumer articulated that his role is to ensure that the left remains supportive of Israel, a position he conveyed during an interview with The New York Times. This assertion reflects a broader concern regarding the changing dynamics of the Democratic Party’s support for Israel and Jewish causes. Schumer’s comments have sparked discussions about the implications of this shift, particularly in light of the party’s historical alignment with pro-Israel policies. Opinion pieces have noted that Schumer views the preservation of American institutions as integral to protecting religious minorities, highlighting the intersection of Jewish identity and political advocacy. https://deepnewz.com/middle-east/chuck-schumer-emphasizes-role-keeping-left-pro-israel-says-job-to-keep-the-left-f0ff217c
“I have many jobs as [Senate] leader… and one is to fight for aid to Israel — all the aid that Israel needs,” Schumer said at a gathering of Jewish leaders and community members in New York on Sunday.
“I will continue to fight for it.,” Schumer continued. “We delivered more security assistance to Israel, our ally, than ever, ever before.”
According to Jacob Kornbluh, who provided footage of the remarks while reporting for The Forward, Schumer told the audience that his support for Jewish security funding will only continue growing under his leadership, calling it his “baby.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/schumer-israel-aid
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said on Sunday that one of his most important jobs as Senate minority leader is to “fight for aid to Israel,” as the Trump administration’s masked federal agents continue their deadly raids of the U.S. with little to no pushback from Democrats.
Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian emergency room physician who has been volunteering in Palestine joins the program from Gaza for a harrowing interview. If you can, please support Dr. Loubani’s Glia Project, a medical solidarity organization that empowers low-resource communities to build sustainable, locally-drive healthcare projects.
Because this is important history that we really ought to review, because the leopards who were “only” going for certain parts of the population are going for all the population, these days.
“Not all Republicans are racist, but racists vote Republican, and they do it for racist reasons.”
While the explicit nature of the “monkey” and “cannibal” slurs is jarring, it sits within a long, documented tradition of presidential prejudice that has shaped the nation’s policies.
History always has a funny way of spinning the block, and every once in a while, we run into something that refuses to stay buried no matter how much time has passed. Recordings reported by CBS revealed a deeply disturbing discussion between former Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan—and you guessed it, it’s super racist.
Per the news outlet, former President Richard Nixon was speaking with then-California Governor Ronald Reagan following a United Nations meeting to recognize the People’s Republic of China. While global attention should’ve been centered on the diplomatic shift, Reagan reportedly phoned Nixon’s White House to voice his frustration over African delegates who celebrated the decision. At one point, Reagan flat out called them “monkeys”—and it only went downhill from there.
Before we get to that, here’s the real question: Why is anyone shocked? To treat these recordings as a singular, shocking “glitch” in the American presidency is to ignore the very fabric of the office. Yes, the explicit nature of the “monkey” and “cannibal” slurs is jarring, but it sits within a long, documented tradition of presidential prejudice against Black folks that has shaped the nation’s policies for decades.
Long before Reagan and Nixon shared a laugh at the expense of African diplomats, Woodrow Wilson was busy re-segregating the federal workforce and praising the post-Civil war Ku Klux Klan as an “Invisible Empire of the South,” per History. Andrew Jackson publicly framed Native Americans as an “inferior race” to justify the brutal displacement of the Trail of Tears. Even Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act, was notoriously recorded using the N-word in private to describe the very people he was legislating for—often viewing civil rights through the lens of political leverage rather than inherent humanity.
When we look at the timeline, Nixon’s own history of referring to Black people as “genetically inferior” or Reagan’s later “welfare queen” trope aren’t outliers; they are the quiet parts being said out loud. So, as these clips circulate on social media, the most revealing part of the story isn’t the racism itself—it’s our collective lack of surprise that it happened at all.
Let’s get back to the audio. Reagan told Nixon “Last night, I tell ya, to watch that thing on television as I did. To see those monkeys from those African countries, damn them. They’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes.”
Laughter is heard on the other end of the call after the disgusting statement. But that’s not all.
After Reagan’s reckless and racist phone call, Nixon later spoke with William Rogers—then Secretary of State—and doubled down on Reagan’s racist remarks. And if you thought the last phone recording was bad… just wait, it gets worse.
(snip-embedded TikTok; click the story title above to go to the page, if you wish)
“He saw these cannibals on television last night, and he says ‘Christ, they weren’t even wearing shoes, and here the U.S. is going to submit its fate to that…” Nixon said.
Later that month Nixon had a laugh with his long time best friend, former Florida banker and businessman Charles “Bebe” Rebozo. And as you may have expected, the racist banter continued to roll.
“That reaction on television was that it proves how they ought to be still hanging from the trees by their tails,” Rebozo said with a laugh during his call with Nixon.
Tiktok’s comments section was riddled with folks asking, “Where’s the surprise?” and “The way my jaw did not drop,” alongside emojis. And let’s be real, we get it.
While there’s certainly shock value in hearing these recordings, none of this is entirely surprising. This is a country built on Black labor and Black suffering—one where federal power has long been used to contain Black political movements, including COINTELPRO, which targeted organizations like the Black Panther Party and other Black-led groups working toward progress and self-determination.
That said, these tapes don’t feel like an isolated incident, but rather a reminder of how deeply racism has been woven into political life at even the highest levels. And while the exposure of this kind of rhetoric may be unsettling, it ultimately tells a familiar reality of Black folks’ lived experience in America.
Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian emergency room physician who has been volunteering in Palestine joins the program from Gaza for a harrowing interview. If you can, please support Dr. Loubani’s Glia Project, a medical solidarity organization that empowers low-resource communities to build sustainable, locally-drive healthcare project.
It was a yesterday’s Wonkette tab, but I just got to that email over lunch. It’s a horrible story. Of course, the hospital likely is understaffed thanks to policies and practices of our government, but still. Here is this-
Cara Lynn Shultz is a writer-reporter at PEOPLE. Her work has previously appeared in Billboard and Reader’s Digest. People Editorial Guidelines
NEED TO KNOW
Conor Hylton’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Yale New Haven Health-Bridgeport Hospital
The ICU where Hylton was treated had no on-site doctors and relied on off-site telehealth monitoring, the complaint alleges
A representative for the hospital tells PEOPLE, “We are unable to comment on pending litigation”
A dental student died in a Connecticut ICU where he wasn’t being cared for by an on-site doctor, but instead, was monitored remotely by an off-site physician via video.
The family of Conor Hylton has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Yale New Haven Health-Bridgeport Hospital after the 26-year-old died in the Milford Campus’s intensive care unit. According to the complaint obtained by PEOPLE, the site is a “tele-ICU meaning there are no qualified ICU intensivists on site.” The complaint further states, “ICU intensivists are located off-site at a centralized remote location, purportedly monitoring critically ill patients through a video screen.”
In a statement to PEOPLE, a representative for the medical group said, “Yale New Haven Health is aware of this lawsuit and is committed to providing the safest and highest quality of care possible, however, we are unable to comment on pending litigation.”
Hylton first arrived at the hospital at 11:08 a.m. on August 14, 2024, with abdominal pain and vomiting, per the complaint, which says he was admitted and diagnosed with “pancreatitis, dehydration, metabolic acidosis, and alcohol withdrawal.” His condition “continued to change and deteriorate over the evening.”
At 4:30 a.m., the complaint says, “Mr. Hylton slid down in bed, his eyes rolled back and he became unresponsive and exhibited seizure-like activity, vomited, became bradycardic and code was called. He was intubated, but he could not be resuscitated, and he was pronounced dead.”
The complaint states that although the pronouncement of Hylton’s death was said to be made by an on-site doctor, it was actually done by a ‘tele-health’ provider on a video screen.”
According to the complaint, an on-site doctor was called to intubate Hylton, but “the provider summoned to perform the intubation did not know how to find the ICU and had to find someone else to show him where it was located. This led to a delay in [care].”
An expert medical opinion included with the lawsuit wrote, “no on-site doctor assessed Mr. Hylton from the time he was admitted to the ICU until after he exhibited seizure activity at 4:30 a.m.”
Joel T. Faxon, partner at Faxon Law Group, which is representing Hylton’s family, said in a press release: “It’s alarming to think in a supposedly intensive care setting: Where is a doctor? Where are the nurses? How does the emergency doctor not know how to get to the ICU to provide life saving care?”
Faxon confirmed to PEOPLE that neither Hylton nor his family were informed there were no on-site doctors at the ICU. As Faxon told PEOPLE exclusively, “If the Hylton family knew that their son was being placed in a fake icu with no doctor present they would have demanded he be transferred to a hospital that could properly treat him. They were never given that option and, tragically, Conor died as a result.”
tRump treats the White House the official residence and working office of the president. The longest any resident may live there is normally 8 years or 10 years if the vice president takes over after 2 years of the president’s term. A federal judge told tRump’s administration that he was only holding the White House in trust for the people and next person to hold the office. It did not give him the right to change it or do what he wanted with it as if it was Mar-a-Lago or one of his other properties. That judge ordered a stop to the ballroom until congress authorized it, which the people do not want at a time when all their social services are being cut. tRump is deluded into thinking the more gold in a room the fancier and wealthier the person seems. He is trying to keep up with other dictators palaces. Now he is talking about replacing the front of the white house, the iconic columns. It is almost like he thinks he won’t be leaving. And that every other president will share his clearly in his mind superior tastes in decorating. However most people will see it as tacky and pretentious, which both describe tRump. Hugs
President Trump has discussed turning the White House Treaty Room, historically a meeting place for diplomats and statesmen, into a guest bedroom with an en suite bath. He has added gold flourishes to the East Room of the Executive Residence in a style similar to the gilded trimmings he installed in the Oval Office. And he has affixed “challenge coins” that celebrate his presidency — including the newest medallions in red and gold — to the walls inside the West Wing.
The Treaty Room is one of the most historic rooms in the White House. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and William McKinley used it as a Cabinet room, and it was where the Spanish-American War peace protocol of 1898, and the nuclear test ban treaty of 1963, were signed. Once known as the “Monroe Room,” because it was where President James Monroe worked, it also has been the setting for major wartime addresses by presidents George W. Bush and Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The sharply conservative Supreme Court that Trump's three appointees remade is the first since at least the 1950s to reject civil rights claims in a majority of cases involving women and minorities, according to a detailed analysis conducted for The Washington Post.
*** Personal Note. By Monday things here should be back to normal. Ron will be in Texas driving his sister home. I will have had the weekend to rest. Ron is on his last full day of doing no exertion not even house work. They went into a major artery in his wrist. He had a wrist board to keep the wrist from flexing for 24 hours, shower lightly but leave the large bandaid on. Change the bandaid after showering for 72 hours. Call 911 if it starts to bleed. On Saturday morning he is off restrictions and flies to Texas. Then he and his sister will drive to Florida. She will stay with us for a few days as her house here is emptied and then she will settle her stuff and go to New Hampshire. She is flying up there. Hugs ****
Trump administration health officials are giving serious consideration to a plan that would make injuries from COVID-19 vaccines a formal diagnosis that can be coded in medical records. Increasing documentation of what’s still a loosely defined condition could help lay the groundwork for future lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers.
The ICD-10 system already covers general vaccine injuries and reactions to some specific vaccines, but it doesn’t have a designation for the COVID shot, whose safety has become a major point of contention within the administration.
The new code could allow providers “to identify, track, and study patients who experience adverse effects specifically related to COVID vaccines,” Mary Stanfill, a CDC health information specialist, said during a public meeting on code proposals last week.
Read the full article. You will recall that the cult has claimed that COVID vaccines cause the human body to become literally magnetic, and that they cause “turbo cancer,” autism, miscarriages, myocarditis, pericarditis, hearing loss, and taste loss. Oh, and the vaccines also supposedly contain graphene nanobots meant to connect people to the internet for the purpose of mind control.
At a New York party, attendees spent Trans Day of Visibility dancing, DJing, and learning how to become less visible online.
Imani Thompson, digital security trainer and organizer of the event / Photo by Janus Rose
It’s Trans Day of Visibility, and I’m at an event space in the heart of New York City’s 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 “404: Deadname Not Found,” 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—attendees 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 “red-teaming.” A slide deck guides participants through this “self-doxing” 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’ve 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.
Behind the fun and light atmosphere, everyone here knows the unspoken reality that drives tonight’s activities: an unrelenting wave of discriminatory bills and executive orders that are rapidly demolishing trans rights across the US. “Trans Visibility” 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.
“In 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,” 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. “Especially now that there’s lots of incentives for the federal government to get into that business, I just wanna make sure all of that is under wraps.”
Like the event’s name suggests, many attendees are looking for traces of their “deadnames,” which is how some trans folks refer to the names they were given pre-transition. Trans people face a disproportionatelyhigh 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’s X, where harassment campaigns and hate speech are allowed and even encouraged.
“We have to protect ourselves,” said Ryan, who also used a pseudonym. “It’s great to know how to find stuff like this, because you never know what’s still out there.”
Imani 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.
“I hadn’t seen cybersecurity events that looked like they would attract or resonate with the crowds I felt needed this information the most,” she told 404 Media. “I 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.”
There are specific reasons many trans people are anxious about their personal data and online presence these days. For one, trans identities often don’t 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 theirdrivers licenses and IDs had been invalidated overnight, forcing them to obtain new documents that revert to the sex marker assigned at birth. JournalistMarissa 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’t 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 “bathroom bounty,” making it a crime for trans people to use appropriate bathrooms and changing rooms and promising rewards to random passersby who feel “aggrieved” 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’s normative expectations of “male” and “female.” 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 experienceunemployment,housing insecurity, andviolence at exponentially higher rates than cis people, and it’s not uncommon to see Gofundme pages and Venmo accounts flooding social media feeds. These posts will sometimes include personal details like a person’s name, face, transition status, location, immigration status, and even how much they have in their bank account—great for getting donations, but not so great for the doxable breadcrumbs they leave behind.
“I 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,” said Thompson. “Whenever I see a mutual aid request being reposted or processed it makes me nervous, because we’re basically doxing our most vulnerable friends.” To reduce risk, she recommends people take down mutual aid posts as soon as needs are met and set their Venmo activity to private. “I 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.”
The 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 “Trans Tipping Point.” 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’ access to healthcare, sports, bathrooms—essentially the ability to live a normal life.
At the same time, protection can’t be a retreat back into the closet. “It’s still important for trans voices to be heard in online spaces,” said Anna. “It’s not like I wanna go into the shadows or anything. I just don’t want people to know my personal data, my personal records, any of that.”
“Being Black, I also understand the distinction between visibility and hypervisibility and the precarity and lack of agency that hypervisibility creates,” said Thompson. “It’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.”
Janus 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 VICE, she has been published in digital and print outlets including e-Flux Journal, DAZED Magazine, The New Yorker, and Al Jazeera.
Critics say that ankle monitors impose psychological, economic and physical harms on the people required to wear them. Illustration: Guardian Design / Getty Images
Scottie's Playtime 