Doxxing: where the personal meets the political. A story of living with grief
By Anonymous
At first, getting doxxed1 had no real affect on my life. Jordan Peterson2 fans from a different continent, a whole ocean away, sending me threats of physical and sexual violence wasn't that scary. I just blocked them and moved on in life. This was in 2017, I wasn't practicing good security culture, because I didn't know what it was or how necessary it is to keep yourself safe while engaging in the fight against fascism. This was as the fight against the far right was becoming more mainstream in so called Canada. I was inexperienced and looking to help fight in the struggle. I spoke at an anti-fascist rally using my real name, the same name that appeared on a local Non-Governmental Organizing (NGO) website saying I supported trans kids, wrote trans inclusive policies and organized trans support groups. The same name that I used on communist articles about trans rights and the class struggle. Everything I did was legal, there was no need in my mind to fear state repression or the cops being called. The organizers of the rally even had a permit, it was very liberal and law abiding. But this is how Jordan Peterson and his fans found me.
Over the years my politics changed and became more leftist and less authoritarian, I became more involved in anarchism and syndicalism. I continued to organize but differently, I learned security culture along the way. Gradually, I became more educated on far right ideology, my hometown was (and still is) a hotbed for neo nazis, anti-vaxxers and other far right groups. It is crucial for one to know their enemy.
While researching on youtube, I saw a new video of Jordan Peterson; he was talking about me, not by name, but he mentioned the anti-fascist rally. He was attempting to do a really bad armchair psychoanalysis of me just based off a video from the rally. (Thanks for the free peter-pan syndrome diagnosis btw). He then added an ominous message which at the time I thought was just him talking shit: "you can find the video if you know where to look".
At first, I thought nothing of it, a washed up loser well past his prime saying something so vague. I joked about the interview with friends "It's been five years since we shut him down, and he's still mad about it". Then people started trying to queerbash3 me in public. Men and women I didn't know would stare at me with hatred in their eyes. This was 2022 and transphobia fuelled by the freedom convoy was on the rise. I don't know if these people knew who I was or if it was just random bigotry. I am small and look like an easy target, these cowards will target queers who look weak. Still, I made one attempted queerbasher cry; I refuse to be an easy target for these fucks. It is important to fight back. What scared me was this was on a bus, and no one who witnessed an attempted assault stepped in to help. The hatred, and liberal, pacifist, milk-toast acceptance of queerphobia was escalating.
Then one day while riding my bike, someone tried to deliberately hit me with his SUV. He missed and I got out of there, physically unharmed but shaken. I will never know if this was random or a targeted consequence of the doxxing. I reached out to experienced comrades, asking for help and advice. They agreed this was serious and stepped up to help. They got me out of my shithole town that I desperately needed to escape. I found a safe house to move to and a queer radical organization, Pink Bloc, crowd funded some money for me to live off while I found my feet in a city where I didn't even speak the language.
I had to leave a lot behind and start over. Giving my cat to someone I thought I could trust only for him to block me. We were friends for over ten years and he just cut me off, having to give my cat away hurts most of all. So often people judge others for needing to rehome pets, and I used to be obnoxiously vegan, so I get where these critiques come from, but I had no other option.
It's safer on the frontlines. I wouldn't have been able to get out of danger had I not engaged with anarchist and anti-capitalist organizing. NGOs and the ballot box will not defeat fascism, woke scolding from anarcho-liberals and tender queers will do nothing to fight fascism nor will it build solidarity and community safety. Engaging in anti-capitalist queer revolution is what saved me. The survivors guilt I feel is immense, and always eats away at me. I feel bad for leaving a city that so desperately needs a radical left but I just couldn't attempt to organize in vain anymore. The far right knew who I was and conservative suburbia is not the community I needed to stay safe.
I'm afraid of getting doxxed again, afraid of the far right finding me again, afraid of someone trying to kill me again. An adulthood of protests including a sexual assault by a cop at the G20 already left me with PTSD. This doxxing has just added to the trauma. The fear, grief, anger and paranoia eat away at me. I am always on high alert and try to stay busy to distract myself from the never ending well of grief, fear and guilt. The well overflows and it feels like drowning. I'm holding grief all the time, grief for the murdered trans kids and comrades whom I never met, grief from the life I lost. Grief over the friends who turned their backs on me when I needed them the most. Grief for the cat I had to leave behind. The fear and the anxiety always loom but the extra layer of grief runs so deep and it's something I will always carry with me.
If I had to go back and do it all again, I still would. Just with more precautions about my personal identity; better opsec and security culture. Everything I did was legal, and it never occurred to me how insidious the far right can be. I will not be silent, I will not stand by and watch oppression happen. We are living in historical times, silence and complacency are not an option. Hiding from the struggle won't keep you safe. Engaging in resistance builds community and forms connections. Community and comrades kept me safe and threw me a lifeline. The queer revolution lives on, the class struggle will continue long after I am dead and gone. The far right wants us dead; so we must keep fighting for our lives.
It's been over a year since this happened, yet it still feels like I am lost in a bottomless sea of fathomless, ineffable sorrow. I remember the feelings but I don't have the words. Everything is uncertain and nowhere feels safe. My home was devoured by the enemy without. I always hated my hometown but leaving still feels like a loss. I escaped but survivors guilt, the ghosts of transphobia, and fascism still haunt me.
My only anchor is love rage and revolution.
[1] Doxxing is a tactic often used by the far right to intimidate and harm anti-capitalists, revolutionaries, activists and marginalized people fighting oppression. It is releasing personal information about a person in order to silence them or bring them harm. I can lead to stalking, harassment, violence and death.
[2] Jordan Peterson is a Canadian psychologist who rose to fame in 2016 by opposing protections for trans people in Canadian law, framing his stance as a defence of free speech. Since then, he has become a key figure of the far right, known his reactionary ideas on anti-feminism and transphobia.
[3] Queerbashing is when bigots try to assault trans and queer people, it is caused by queer and transphobia.