Scare Tactics

We live in an era where it's easier than ever to spread our message, but with this comes its drawbacks; it's also a time where it's easier than ever for our enemies to intimidate us. Instead of spitting in our faces, they have the luxury of cursing us out over the internet. Instead of stalking us and threatening the places we live, they dox us and tell the whole world who we really are. And instead of throwing hands in-person, all they have to do is tell us that they would if they could, and that's enough to put us into hiding.

I mean, it's only reasonable to do. If someone is threatening violence against you, then of course you want to take actions to keep yourself safe. And so, along with the invention of the internet, came spaces where people could protect themselves against violence. And with that added protection, came the people who made us feel like we had to hide, and while our use of the internet is to find support, theirs was to use scare tactics to scare us into hiding even further.

Anonymity is an amazing luxury of the internet. Before that, anonymity was only possible in certain scenarios, like if you posted to a bulletin board, and while you can consider the internet a "certain scenario", it's become so ingrained into everyone's lives that it's just a part of the way we live now. A significant part of everyone's life now has the option to be anonymous. Many choose this opportunity to lead double lives, where they post on websites like Instagram the parts of their life that are not confidential, parts they want to share with their friends and family. And for the more controversial aspects of one's life (we've all got them), we choose to spend time in anonymous places like imageboards, forums, and social media. 

But with this anonymity comes a certain privilege that humans have never had, possibly for good reason. Yes, they threaten to take this anonymity away and make steps towards it everyday, and it should be a human right to have the option to be anonymous, but why is this something we care about? In some cases it's for very good reason, like groups of people who are persecuted by their government, or who live in parts of the world that are more intolerant than others. But for the most part people want to secure their privacy out of a feeling that they should not be tracked by our superiors. In a post 9/11 world with cameras everywhere, website ID uploads, and age estimation verifications, it should be obvious why we want our privacy. But for some, this privacy is "necessary" because of threats we've merely imagined to be real.

And obviously the threat to MAPs and radqueers isn't entirely imaginary, we've all heard horror stories of what can happen to the bravest of us, but is this issue really prevalent enough to be "real"? There once was a time where people couldn't hide who they really were. If you wanted to meet other queer people, you had to go out there and, well, meet other queer people. With symbols, mutual friends, and secret phrases we discovered ways to keep ourselves safe while exploring the dangers of an intolerant world, but it still carried an innate risk. After all, it's impossible to find true friends without seeing which friends are real and which are fake. These days we are able to be safer, and use the internet as a way to protect ourselves, but at what cost? 

Harvard says that "According to the American Perspectives Survey, the percentage of U.S. adults who report having no close friends has quadrupled to 12% since 1990". Is it any coincidence that this is when the internet came into existence? "For decades, Americans consistently spent about 6.5 hours a week with friends. Then, between 2014 and 2019, that number plummeted to just four hours per week." I have online friends that have basically no friends in real life, and if they do they are unstable relationships with people who may or may not still be friends if they learned they were radqueer. The more of us that choose to make the internet our real lives, the more we lose sight of the importance of in-person communities and friendship. Some may consider online friendships to be real, and that is fair, but as someone who's experienced both in-person and online relationships, in-person is better. All my friends agree that in-person communities save lives. People consider the internet to be a safe place because it's where we can't be attacked, but in real life, the risks that come with being out are mirrored by the support of real connections, and no matter how "safe" the internet is, the loneliness it brings is deadly.

Tangent aside, back to the topic, people are scared of getting doxxed. We're so comfortable with our anonymity that we're terrified of that anonymity getting taken away. Some use this anonymity as a way to skirt the law, which only furthers the scare of doxxing. It's the main reason why our people are lonely. We think that if we put where we live on our social media pages then we'll get doxxed and harassed. And half of that is true, you probably will get doxxed. Our enemies are out there waiting for opportunities to expose us, but the other half is not true. 

Antis, transphobes, paramisiacs—whoever—hate you, but they hate you because they are scared of you. These people exist in the real world just like you do, but in the same way that radqueers are scared to go out and be confronted by them, antis are scared of confronting us. They think we're predators, monsters, abusers, but we know that those labels really apply to them. We're scared of them for that reason, and it means they're scared of us too.

So in much the same fashion that we use the internet and anonymity to protect ourselves, they do too. They hide behind usernames and anonymous forums to spread their hatred of us. They threaten to dox us, and when they've doxxed us they threaten to hurt us. But consider this, everything you say online is something you wouldn't dare say in public, and if they're just as scared as you as you are of them, doesn't that mean that they're too scared to make good on their own threats?

I've seen it first hand. I've been doxxed, I had the dox shared around my community. I got death threats online, I've had people who used to be my friend call me a monster. Now with Bt+ here in Seattle the rumors are spreading, and I hear things people say about us. And with all this doxxing, lack of anonymity, and unapologetic activism I do, nothing has happened.

I have been doxxed at least like four times at this point. I have friends who've been doxxed. I know people online who've been doxxed. And y'know what? They're all still standing. Some continue to be scared, but the ones who aren't have learned that all doxxing is is an opportunity to take off the mask of anonymity, and embrace what we have lost out on: in-person community, having friends we can trust, and being our true, authentic selves.

Antis and radqueers are both scared of each other. This post is not to say you shouldn't be scared, rather, it's to say you should be brave. Threats by antis are usually pretty empty, but once in a blue moon they aren't, and those are risks we need to accept. By taking off our masks and showing everyone who we really are, we can find community, and with that community comes safety, more safety than the internet could ever provide.

We've let scare tactics push our rights back into the stone age. Once upon a time we built in-person communities with hundreds of members, and when antis confronted us we accepted that risk as necessary to furthering our rights. (See Stonewall). But when things got too scary we went to the internet and never came back. And so along with "safety", came the emboldening of the ones who sought to scare us all along. And every day those scare tactics push us further and further back into the closet. 

I fear everyday for my life. Once again, I am not saying to be unafraid, but to be brave. Bravery is persisting through fear. And we all need to be brave if we want this movement to succeed. And I hope it's a little easier to be brave once you learn that the monster in your closet was really a shadow all along.