If I Disappear

This is challenging to write. I’m attempting to provide evidence for why I’m not overreacting without compounding the existential dread anyone who cares about me and pays attention likely already suffers from lately.

I’m scared. Scared in a way I’ve never been before. When I’ve said this to friends and family before, it was in quiet dark moments where I contemplated disappearing of my own volition. My instructions then were mostly to avoid asking too many questions or providing too many answers for insurance companies so my life insurance payouts wouldn’t get disrupted.

Similarly to how I feared losing my home when I was laid off, this fear is bittersweet. It’s the shadow of a newly bright light of a life I value continuing to live. I have a lot more to lose now. Today, from a much better place internally and a much worse place externally, I feel the need to speak about the possibility of being disappeared by others more openly.

I’m not going to list all the reasons why someone may come for me, but suffice to say the headlines of 2025 frequently detail people like me in multiple different ways being pulled out of their homes, detained, deported, and even tortured.

There’s even a risk of not being allowed to return from travel for who-knows-what reason.

If I disappear, who’s to blame?

It won’t be on purpose. I can say this with absolute confidence now: As long as I’m safe and capable of accessing healthcare, the chances that I’m disappearing on purpose are near zero. Even if I do disappear from some places, it won’t be from my loved ones.

If I disappear, hundreds of people will have had to let me down. Working backwards from my actual personal safety:

1. The security guards at my apartment complex would fail to stop ICE, the police, a militia, or whatever gestapo equivalent through my door.
2. Local law enforcement in my city would fail to protect me by either aiding or allowing the gestapo to come and get me.
3. 😰 Local government would fail to direct local law enforcement to stop the gestapo from coming for me.
   • 😰 City
   • 😬 County
   • 😬 State
4. 😰 The states, the ACLU, and other national civil rights litigation organizations would fail to sue these groups to put a stop to it in time.
5. 😰 The press wouldn’t cover it happening in real time or warn us when things escalate.
6. ✅ The gestapo starts detaining anyone they feel like without warrants.
7. ✅ All the infrastructure that’s being put in place today for mass deportation is turned on citizens and legal residents, either quietly or overtly.
8. ✅ They start rounding trans people up who are already incarcerated and moving them into their own specialized units.
9. ✅ The gestapo would ignore legal challenges to their authority to detain or deport people.
10. ✅ Infrastructure for rounding people up in camps is built. Everyone involved in funding, procurement, and building these places would fail to stop it.
11. ✅ Private services I rely on to protect my privacy would fail to keep my demographic, health, and location data from falling into the hands of entities who’d harm me.
12. ✅ Regulators would fail to prevent, deter, and prosecute private entities that invade my privacy.
13. ✅ Public services I rely on to protect my privacy would fail to keep my demographic, health, and location data from falling into the hands of entities who’d harm me.
14. ✅ Government services would remove acknowledgement of marginalized people’s existence and humanity from their materials.
15. ✅ The government would systemically remove any protections I have from their educational materials.
16. ✅ They would actively order people defending our rights to stand down.
17. ✅ The Supreme Court would fail to uphold my civil rights. 🙄
18. ✅ The president would fail to veto it. 🙄
19. ✅ My representatives in federal government fail to stop legislation that allows me to be harmed.
    • Existence of my demographics
    • Related constitutional protections
    • Rollback of disability rights

This is concerning.

Don’t Obey In Advance

Please, if you are anywhere in the chain, stop this. Refuse to assist them. Slow them down. Do anything you can to stop me and other vulnerable citizens from being harmed. Even if all you’re doing is removing words from documents and websites, or telling others to do it, please stop. This is your moment to resist fascism; to be a little stone in an authoritarian’s shoe.

Please, believe that your sacrifices today to do the right thing will earn you a future reward of some kind. I know we don’t all have glamorous jobs where our heroism will be recognized if we stand firm in our values and get fired for it, but the pride in that act has sustained me enough to keep doing it over the years. And some employers — if not most — value integrity.

If I disappear, this is what I ask.

Notice that I’m gone. I know I’m off most social media now, but keep up with me if you can. If it’s been a while since we spoke or since you’ve heard about me from a mutual friend, please ask. Shoot me a text. And if you don’t hear back (I’m pretty responsive), please start looking for me within my community.

Don’t talk to cops about me. If you’re approached by law enforcement about me, tell them nothing. Only get information from them and then hang up and talk to me, my family, and friends about it. Even if they tell you I’m missing or in danger. They more likely will be the danger, and my loved ones will be the ones who can help me.

Please keep showing up to protests. I’ve felt less safe to be as out about my political activism recently because I’m already targeted by this regime. I still show up when I can keep a low profile but I’m not taking photos or sharing my location online regarding them. If you’re not in those targeted demographics, please do those things though. Please resist.

How I’m Preparing

I’m renewing my IDs before I’m forced to lie on them. I got an updated state ID and RealID in California with my X gender marker. My passport renewal with X on it was blocked before I could submit it, so I’m planning to renew it with an “M” marker for now, just to ensure I can leave the country if I need/want to. If I need my IDs to match, I’ll figure it out later, but for now I want them to be truthful if possible.

I’m preparing my will, power of attorney, and other legal documents. I want my loved ones to be able to find me, gather my resources, take care of my pets, and know what I’d want if I’m unable to speak for myself. I’m also assembling some legal contacts for myself or my family to contact in case I’m unreachable. I’m sharing encrypted data with my inner circle that will allow them access to my accounts in an emergency. (Thank you to my lawyer friends who’ve given me informal legal advice for free during this crisis)

I’ve assembled a “go bag” for my realistic risk profile — fascism or a natural disaster. I’m not packing gallons of potable water and signal flares. I’m not buying firearms or a bulletproof vest. I’m not withdrawing bricks of cash from my retirement account. I’m just keeping a bag near my door that I can grab and run to the airport, train station, or a friends’ house if I need to. It has all my important documents, some basic medical supplies, essential clothing, spare chargers, and a small cache of my prescriptions.

I’m not planning on leaving the country like many of my friends are. I’m aware of other countries that can be friendly places to visit if I need to, but I think I have a better chance of staying here where my support network is and relying on them to hide me in their basements/attics.

I’m running for Emeryville City Council next year. I know it’s a longshot with how little funding I have and how unknown I am locally, but among my objectives I aim to protect vulnerable people in my community by doing things like reducing surveillance and blocking local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE and other unjust federal interventions. (If you’re interested in trying to run for local public office, check out Run For Something.)

I’m also taking another pragmatic measure I’ll talk about in its own context very soon.

Agency

It may all be for naught, but giving myself concrete things to do has made me feel less powerless. Once I’m finished, I hope the peace of mind I’ve started to feel about it lasts. It reminds me of practicing fire drills in school and with my parents as a kid. In a possible moment of panic in the future, I will have clear strategies in place I can rely on without needing to think about it all from scratch.

From here, the plan is to live in the present and locally. I can’t take tomorrow for granted (not that any of us ever can), so I’m making effort to be present in the freedom I have now. I want to be closer to my loved ones and be present for small pleasures. Those relationships are the glue that can help hold everything else I’ve prepared together.

I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that,
I did not want it.

Emma Goldman — Living My Life