Doxxing ‘GallusMag’

My vocabulary expands frequently. One word I learned from some trans hackers recently was “dox.” It’s a verb that originates from the word “document.” and means “to search for and publish private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the Internet.” Often it’s done maliciously; sometimes it’s done as reciprocation to someone who has doxxed others maliciously.

At a blog called GenderTrender, there’s a trans-exclusionary radical feminist who posts under the pseudonym “GallusMag.” This GallusMag took her pen name from a bouncer at a mid-1800s, New York City bar called The Hole in the Wall. That 6-foot tall, female bouncer went by the name Gallus Mag. The 1800s character Gallus Mag is a figure that plays prominently into New York City folklore: Herbert Asbury described Gallus Mag this way in The Gangs of New York:

“It was her custom, after she’d felled an obstreperous customer with her club, to clutch his ear between her teeth and so drag him to the door, amid the frenzied cheers of the onlookers. If her victim protested she bit his ear off, and having cast the fellow into the street she carefully deposited the detached member in a jar of alcohol behind the bar…. She was one of the most feared denizens on the waterfront and the police of the period shudderingly described her as the most savage female they’d ever encountered.”

The GallusMag of GenderTrender uses the icon of an ear in a jar on her blog and on her Twitter account.

The present day GallusMag has doxxed trans women for years on her blog, as well as on her Twitter account, and most trans women would say her motives for doing so were malicious. Because of her doxxing, there have been many who wanted to know who the trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) was who visited harm on so many trans women. This past Sunday (Oct. 19), dots were connected. A trans hacker found a Pastebin page where someone presumed to be a peer TERF had connected the dots between GallusMag the blogger and a woman named Linda V. Shanko. Further investigation by that hacker and some of her trans hacker peers connected more dots, and it became very clear that Ms. Shanko was GallusMag.

GallusMag is aware that the name Linda Shanko has been connected to her, which at this point is being taken by some as an acknowledgement that GallusMag and Linda Shanko are the same person. This is because trans people trying to divine GallusMag’s identity in the past have got her identity wrong a couple of times, and GallusMag quickly denied they were her. No quick denial this time.

So what now?

I think two things are important to remember. One is that we all, under the Constitution, are afforded the right to free speech, but we aren’t afforded the right to anonymous free speech. Just as GallusMag doxxed others in the past … well, being doxxed is a hazard of attempting to be a combative, anonymous, public figure.

The other thing to remember is that violence or threats of violence aren’t productive ways to respond to violence toward you or your peers. So for trans people, and trans women in particular, even though the person behind the pen name of GallusMag has been identified, responding with violence or threats of violence would be attempting to drive out darkness with darkness. As Martin Luther King Jr. wisely told us, “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars … Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

GallusMag’s identity is now known – she now has the opportunity before her own speech under her own name, with all the positive and negative consequences that can occur from writing under one’s own name. My thoughts, my prayers, is that violence of any sort isn’t part of the consequences of her being fully doxxed.