Privacy Guide for Closeted Trans People:

The world is increasingly becoming more dangerous for LGBTQ+ people, and for transgender and non-binary people in particular.

There is so much hate spread online on the main social media platforms, and also right wing personalities are trying to outlaw various important aspects of the LGBTQ+ lives through discriminatory bills, from their public visibility, to medical needs, to their most basic human rights.

At the same time, tech conglomerates and governments are becoming more and more invasive when it comes to digital and internet privacy online. Everything we do on the internet is being monitored, listened, recorded, tracked, archived, and that huge amount of data collected from us every day is being sold to third parties to show us ads, and being used by international surveillance agencies to keep an eye on the population.

If this sounds like a dystopian cyberpunk society, let me tell you that the dystopia i'ts been here for a long while, and seems to only get worse. However, not all hope is gone, and there are things you can still do to protect your privacy online, especially if you are a trans, nonbinary, queer, gay, bi, pan, asexual, or aromantic person.

Who is this guide for:

This is really a guide for everybody. Because we all deserve a right for privacy in our daily lives, and deserved to do not be tracked and watched on our online activity.

You might think: “Well, actually, I don't need any of this, because I have nothing to hide”. This one is a pretty common misconception. But let's say you're right. Yes, it is true, you and me might be boring persons with boring routines, and might not be a person of interest for 3 letter government agencies, but we all have something to protect. If you have nothing to really hide, then you can send me all of your mail password and let me check all of your social media accounts, DM's, and private posts. If that idea makes you uncomfortable, and you would rather slap me in the face for even suggesting it, then I think we are on the same page now.

The fact is, most countries in the world are one election away, or one military coup away, or one foreign invasion away, from becoming a hellscape, a police state, a military dictatorship, or a huge open-air prison. Sometimes it is not even necessary for huge traumatic events to happen for your country to become like this, some frog might start getting boiled right now, and you don't know it yet.

Taking a little lesson from the history, in the early 1900's Germany, there were censuses and population data, where people were classified by their ethnicity, social class, and sexual orientations. When the Nazis came into power, they used this previously existing data to go and persecute these minorities, so it was easier for them to execute the holocaust.

What you are doing now might be perfectly ok, but in the future your existence might be outlawed, no matter your ethnicity, gender identity, religious preferences, sexual orientation or romantic attractions. So, we all deserve to be protected.

Additionally to that, this guide might be useful in case you:

Want to inform yourself on LGBTQ+ topic and issues, either because you want to be an ally, or because you are doubting your sexual orientation, romantic attraction, or gender identity.
Find online communities without the risk of outing yourself online, or being caught by people who have access to your devices and be outed.
Live in a country where homosexuality is illegal and actively persecuted.
Live in a cult family or community, where access to information is forbidden by the cult or family authority figures.
Are traveling to an unsafe zone for LGBTQ+ people.
Are a journalist.
Are documenting human rights violations, state violence and discrimination.
Are concerned about being victim of hate crimes.
Want to help other LGBTQ+ people on your locality or country to be informed, create communities, or protect themselves.

If you identify with any of these circumstances, first of all, I wish you the absolute best, I know is hard, but stay safe always, and you are a great, valid, and a strong person. Second, you can use some of the following tips.

Common sense security:

First, we need to address some basic topics about security. No matter how secure a system is, the most vulnerable variable is always the human one. So, yourself most be as secure as the systems you could implement to protect your privacy and identity.

Never use your real name. If you are a trans person, and want to try out chosen names, you can take this as an opportunity for that, but don't use names that would link to your real identity.
Use random generated long password. When creating passwords, don't include any kind of personal information about you. Random generated password are extremely hard to crack, so they are the safest.
Don't use the same password in different services.
You can use a password manager (like Bitwarden, or KeePass) to generate and store all of your password, you won't even have to memorize them.
Don't talk about your private and secret online activity to anyone.
Major platforms like Google, Facebook, ~~Twitter~~ X, Reddit, already have the personal information from your profiles, searches, and activity. Accessing these services from a private and secure network is not safe, private, nor secure. Also, some of these services require phone number or identity verification to create a new profile.

Some additional tips:

Remember to change your default keyboard app on mobile, because it might be using a keylogger to track everything you write on it. You can use AnySoftKeyboard as an alternative on Android.
Remember to clean your browser history and cookies after closing this site.
If you think you might be targeted, buy your electronics in person and paying with Cash.

Software:

Now, it is time for the real info. Here is a selection of software that you can use to protect yourself, and make your online activity really private. We are using PrivacyTools.io as a source, if you want some more recommendations, you can check it out.

Operative System:

Now days, you can't even trust on your Operative System (OS). Microsoft has so many surveillance and data gathering software running on Windows itself, that we can say is not safe at all use it. Apple has an even closer and more controlled environment of their MacOS, that also recollects a lot of info about their users. You be really private, you need an OS that does not collect your data.

GNU/Linux: Well, this isn't actually an OS, but a huge family of Operative Systems, and their derivatives and forks, called “Distros”. Since GNU/Linux is free and open source, there is no major company looking out to grab all of your data.

Really, any GNU/Linux distro might work for this, but some are better for the task than others, so here I have some recommendations.

Linux Mint: This is a general purpose distro, which is not going to take any extra steps to protect you out of the box, but is a good starting point for people not familiar with GNU/Linux yet. BTW, you can replicate the look and feel of Linux Mint by installing it's desktop environment “Cinnamon” on any other distro.
Debian: One of the oldest and still active distros ever. This one if the base for a lot of other distros, like Ubuntu, Mint, Kali, among others. It is minimalist, doesn't collect any information, and is great for stability.
Trisquel: This one is a Debian based distro, which does not include any kind of proprietary software, everything on the system is Free and Open Source, so is free of any obscure, suspicious, or straight up malicious software that might be used to spy on you. As a warning, this might also mean that it won't have a proprietary WiFi driver for your computer to access wireless networks, so you would need to plug it through and Ethernet cable, or use an USB external WiFi adapter, it might be annoying, but might also look at it as extra protection for you.
Tails: Now, if you really want to be anonymous on the internet, Tails is the answer for you. This is not a distro meant for being installed like a normal OS, this one is designed to run from an USB drive. It is an amnesic distro, which means everything you do on it will be deleted and forgotten the moment you shut down the computer. You can also enable encrypted persistent storage if you are going to use it often. Tails also connects to the internet only thought the Tor Network, to hide your IP, your activity, and also access websites censored by your ISP or government.

Mobile Operative systems:

Unfortunately, your Mobile Operative system might also be a huge spyware device. There are a lot of incentives to put surveillance software on our phones since we carry them everywhere. So here's a list of mobile OS's that respect your privacy. And no, iOS is not secure at all.

All of these are modified Android OS's, that remove all the Google services, to make it a pure, simplistic and clean android experience. Don't reinstall the Google software because that will defeat the purpose of installing a different OS on your phone.

To install apps, you can use the F-Droid app store, it is a store to download free and open source apps.

What if I can't install a new OS on my phone?

I get it, installing a new OS on your phone is difficult, it's a very technical task, and you risk bricking your phone if something goes wrong. Also, these OS's do not support all the mobile phones out there, but instead a few selected brand and models, you can look it up on their websites. Also, some brands make it very difficult, or straight up impossible to install a new OS because of bootloader and OEM locks, like Samsung. If you can afford it, can purchase a phone compatible with any of the listed OS's, you can get it for cheap on second hand, and use it only for your private communications and activities.

If you can't install a new OS you can do the following:

Try to root your phone (if possible) and delete all the bloatware and suspicious programs running in the background (be careful, you might actually break the current OS if you delete the wrong thing, look at debloating guides online for your phone model).
As an alternative to rooting, you can use ADB to forcefully disable apps you can't delete by regular means.
Use as much free and open source software as possible, specially the keyboard and launcher.
If one App is available in both the F-Driod store, and the Google Play Store, always download the F-Droid version.
Secure your device with PIN, Password, and Biometrics.
Go to your phone settings, and turn off all notifications, particularly the notifications on your lock screen.
Check the permissions on the apps you use.

Keyboards:

If you are on mobile and using the default keyboard, it might be spying on you right now, registering everything you type, and sending your input to somewhere else without your knowledge. It is important to use a free and open source keyboard, that doesn’t send data over the internet.

If you think you are being targeted and are suspicious of physical devices like Keyboard or Monitor, use the most simple monitor, avoid smart monitors, TV’s or screens, and get a wired USB keyboard, purchase it yourself physically, and pay using cash. This is the way to avoid getting a remote physical keylogger installed on your device.

Password Managers:

Bitwarden: A cloud based password manager, but if you can host it yourself if you want. It is a great alternative to other cloud services, and the free tier is more than most people will ever need.
KeePass):A desktop password manager that will keep all of your keys on a very secure vault. Since it’s offline, you don’t ever need to be worried about your passwords getting leacked from somewhere else.

2 Factor Autentication:

Aegis: A mobile 2FA app that allows you to export or import your vault, and works with any service or platform you can think of.
GNOME Authenticator: A Linux desktop application that allow you to copy your keys easily while your working. Aegis vaults can be easily imported to GNOME Authenticator without trouble.

Web Browsers:

Your Web Browser is your main gate to access the internet, and one of the most important Apps to have in any computer, unfortunately, most web browsers are tracking all of your online activity. Yes, it makes the experience easier and pleasant, keeping you logged in, saving website preferences, customizing it, autofilling passwords, and installing a lot of useless extensions, but so much information can be leaked through your web browser, so here we have a few recommendations, and no, Chrome is not safe at all, so that won't be on the list.

Firefox: This one comes with a caveat, because the out of the box experience is not privacy focused, it even incorporates services like Pocket, and the default search engine is Google. Firefox is a good starting point for privacy, but you need to do some extensive configurations to make it really Private.
LibreWorlf: Is a Firefox based browser, that is preconfigured with all what you would need to make Firefox private for real, and with all the not trustworthy services removed.
MullvadBrowser: Based on Firefox, this one is a collaboration between MullvadVPN, and the Tor Project, to create a really secure web browser that saves no data, no history, no cookies, blocks all trackers, and completely forgets you the moment you close it.
Tor Browser: Also based on Firefox, but designed to make you anonymous on the web, this one uses the Tor network to hide your internet traffic, and can access .onion sites. This one is mostly used to browse on the Dark Web, but it is ok for browsing the clean web without being tracked.

Browser extensions:

UBlock Origin:
Privacy Badger.
LibRedirect.

Search Engines:

Searx: This is not a traditional search engine, this is a meta decentralized engine, this means that people hosts instances of the engine, and there is not a single entity that controls it. It gathers search indexes from other search engines,
Startpage:It is a very good alternative to Google, pulling their search index and results, while respecting your privacy.
DuckDuckGo: Pulls their search index from Microsoft's Bing, so still can inherit some of the biases from that one, and might not be the best option out there, given the many criticisms and legitimate concerns about how DDG uses people's data, but still a good alternative, and even has a .onion service, so is good to browse the clean web while used Tor.

Email Providers:

ProtonMail: Not only offers a private email based on Switzerland, but also offers a full G-Suite replacement, with a calendar, drive, and even a free VPN (the VPN service is limited to selecting some few countries to connect to, and can only use it on one device at the time). As a mail,
Disroot: Disroot gives you a nice web address, but also they don’t spy on your inbox, since it’s encrypted, and they even delete their logs often. They also give you a lot of other private services to use, like a SearX instance, CryptoPad, Etherpad, XMPP, Nextcloud, Mumble, among others.
StartMail: This is a service from the same company that brough us StartPage. It’s another encrypted mail alternative that gives you the essentials of a nice email service.

Private Networks:

VPNs

Sure you might have heard a lot about VPs, mostly because every other Youtuber has taking sponsorships from some big companies to promote them. A VPN (virtual private network) works by creating a secure tunnel between your device and a VPN server. All of your traffic is routed through this tunnel, which hides your IP address from the websites and services you visit. This means that your ISP, government, and other third parties cannot see what websites you are visiting or what data you are sending and receiving. Here are some recommended VPN services that you can use:

MullvadVPN: The most private VPN out there, it costs only 5 dollars a month, and can be paid on Monero, a private cryptocurrency that hides your real wallet address when you transfer funds to someone else. It can also be paid with credit or debit card, but is not the most secretive option. You don’t have an account, instead you have a random account number that only you know.
ProtonVPN: If you have a Proton account, you also have access to their own free VPN service. That said, the free tier if very limited, and you can only use it on one device at the time, and it’s cheap at 6 Euros a month if you pay one year in advance, but if you pay it monthly, it will be 11.49 Euros a month, so is kinda expensive.

Tor:

A VPN is good for masking your real IP and location, but you still have to trust on the VPN provider, because they certainly know where are you connecting from. But Tor works by routing your internet traffic through a network of servers called relays, run by volunteers. Your traffic is encrypted multiple times as it passes through each relay, so no single relay can see your original IP address or destination. This makes it very difficult to track your online activity. Tor also allows you to access .onion websites, that can’t be viewed from the normal web browsers.

The easiest way to access Tor is throught the Tor web browser, or using the Tails GNU/Linux distribution.

In order to be fully anonymous online, using any kind of social media is not recommended. However, we understand that trans folx often use social media to find community and support online; so we’ve compiled a list of alternatives, including a few resources for finding LGBTQIA+ focused communities!

The Fediverse:

The “Fediverse” is a network of decentralized social platforms that are free and open source. The network consists of “instances”– servers hosted by volunteers– which are connected to each other through a protocol called “ActivityPub”. This makes online privacy easier to protect on the Fediverse, because there’s no central entity that collects all of your user information. Some of the networks that make up the Fediverse include:

Mastodon: A microblogging platform that works like Twitter.
Pleroma: Another microblogging platform, also works like Twitter.
Lemmy: A Reddit-like platform that hosts many topic specific communities.
Kbin: Another platform similar to Reddit, except the communities are named Magazines.
Raddle: Yet another Reddit-like platform, but this one in particular has been overtaken by the queer and trans community after some trans subs on Reddit shut down during the API crackdown, so now must of the platform is made mostly of queer and trans users and forums.
Friendica: A facebook-like macroblogging platform.
PixelFed: An instagram defederated alternative with chronological feeds.

All of these networks can communicate with each other, and their users can talk and follow accounts hosted on them directly.

You can also host your own instance and communicate with the entire world, so you will be the only one managing your information.

LGBTQIA+ Specific communities:

The Fediverse hosts a few diverse, queer friendly communities where you can connect with like-minded individuals.

If you want to join Mastodon, you may find LGBTQIA+ specific instances here that interest you. In other networks, you can look around and find queer users and communities using their internal search function.

Instant Messaging:

If you want to communicate with others in a private way, you should stay away from services like Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, WeChat (this one is straight up spyware), VK, Snapchat, even Telegram, while being more secure than the rest, might be not be enough depending on your situation. Here you have some services that might help you to communicate. Signal is often mentioned in these kinds of lists, but we won't recommend it since it requires a phone number to sign up.

Session: Doesn't require any sign up or logins, you are given a user number, and a security passphrase that you will use to log into your account. It connects through the Loki network, a decentralized protocol that works similarly to Tor. However, while this is not it's intended purpose, this app is often used to share illegal contents, so it's better for you to communicate with people you trust, and stay away from public groups.
Delta Chat: It is unique in the sense that is basically an email client, which makes it work like instant messaging. It encrypts all of your communications, and you just need to log with your current Mail credentials, and you communicate with others using their mail addresses. If you combine it with a mail provider from this list, it is an amazing private solution.
Matrix: It is a decentralized, federated and encrypted network that allows you to verify and audit the devices you are currently using, and the ones from the person you are talking to. We recommend avoiding the bigger instances, opting for smaller ones. Also avoid instances that allow NSFW content.

Offline Social media sounds like an impossible task, and yeah, in the strictest sense of the word it is, but it is possible through Peer-to-Peer connections.

We are talking about some few social apps that live only inside your phone, and synchronize with other people’s that you 100% trust. In theory, you still need some internet access, but can also communicate and synchronize your device through Bluetooth. This might be useful if you live in an area with low connectivity and want to really own your information.

Briar: This app allows you to communicate with people you absolutely trust, can add a contact by scanning each other’s QR codes in person, or by copying the profile addresses. Also allows you to text multiple people at the same time on “Forums”, and can also do Blog entries, which can be read by your contacts. You can also use another device as a Hot Spot, and leave it at a place where it receive internet connection constantly, that helps you sync to your main device.
Manyverse: Its works in a similar way to Briar, except the app gives you a feed and an interface closer to a traditional social feed that might resemble some of the major social networks. You can even use hashtags and follow people.

Kiwix:

Kiwix is a Wikipedia offline reader, this means that you can download the entirety of Wikipedia, or smaller topic specific packages in zim files, and read them where ever you want, completely offline.

Some of the privacy advantages of Kiwix include:

Your ISP can't know what are you looking at on Kiwix, since the contents are offline.
There is no browsing history.
You can access the the information from everywhere, since it’s multi platform and has a Mobile App for Android and iOS.
The files can be complete deleted or hidden in a panic scenario.
You can host a Kiwix server in any computer and access through the local network.

Some of the recommended packages include:

Ted Talks: There is a lot of content to choose from.
WikiMed: A package that contains information about medicine, the human body, and a variety of biologycal topics.
Wikipedia: Because it contains all the available information on the Wikipedia itself.
Rational Wiki: A skeptic, secular and rational Wiki that analizes and debunks pseudo-science and anti science arguments.
Khan Academy: It will help you learn math, physics, and other areas of science.
History by Wikipedia: A collection of Wikipedia articles about History.
The GNU/Linux Wikis, like ArchLinux Wiki and others. They contain a lot of useful info not only about their distros, but also about GNU/Linux in general.
The Gutenberg Project: A repository of free and public domain books, some might be banned in different parts of the world.

Since there are so many options, you are free to explore and look at content to download and read.

Private Front Ends.

Visiting those big tech websites thought a VPN or Tor doesn’t make you fully anonymous, since they will still try and collect as much information as they can. However, you can access the content from some of these platforms through an alternative privacy respecting front end.

Invidious: A Youtube front end that allows you to watch videos, read comments, and even “subscribe” to channels, through an internal RSS feed. It is a decentralized front end, so you can choose an instance, or host it yourself.
Piped: Another Youtube front end, it can do the same as Invidious, but is a more modern one, and with more features, like SponsorBlock integration.
Nitter: This one will allow you to see twits, and Twitter accounts (or “X Corp whatever” accounts) without ever loging in on Twitter.
Teddit: A Reddit alternative front end, resembling the look and feel of Old Reddit. Sometimes doesn’t work that great because Reddit is now severely limiting the usage of alternative front ends, and completely killed third party apps.

What’s Next?

We encourage you to keep looking information for yourself, keep learning, and finding what works the best for you. Hopefully you don’t need to implement all of the tips mentioned above at the same time, but if you do, we can only send you our best wishes. Is important for you to know that you are not alone, and we want you to stay safe against the worrying increase in hostility against LGBTQIA+ people in some parts of the world. One day you might not need to stay hidden anymore, and you will find a huge community of people that validates and supports you. We hope this guide will help you and give you a starting point to know how can you protect yourself, and the people you care about the most.