Doxxing to destroy: The convergence of transphobic hate speech and non-consensual disclosure on X

Transphobic hate speech remains underexamined as an example of privacy abuse, and namely, a form of doxxing. Doxxing, the non-consensual disclosure of personal, identifying, and sensitive information, converges with transphobic hate speech to leverage sensitive information about gender identity into harm in the workplaces, social lives, and online security of trans people. The capacity of doxxing to perpetrate online hate speech is a pivotal concern amidst a climate of relaxed censorship and platform governance on social media sites like X. Current scholarship into online hate speech has rightfully acknowledged the rampant digital forms of misogyny endured by women and girls, but there is further scope to consider the specific experiences of trans women and gender-diverse people, as well as trans men. Drawing on a dataset of 274 tweets scraped from X, I analyse discourses about transphobic hate speech and doxxing, revealing how misgendering, intimidation, and outing harm trans people online. These findings have implications for understanding not only how transphobic hate speech is performed and conveyed on platforms like X, but how personal, identifying and sensitive information is mobilised to destroy the wellbeing and security of trans women and gender-diverse people through hateful speech acts. I sketch out the affirmative potential of informational autonomy , a resistive and relational framework of ethics which centres on the expansive possibilities of ‘hammering back’ against platforms which permit hate speech and data intrusions.