Tag: Zinnia Jones

Rolling Stone: Insiders warn DOGE and Trump, Musk, or US enemies could use Social Security data to target trans people and political opponents

Rolling Stone: Nightmare Scenarios: Why DOGE Having Your Social Security Data Is Dangerous (archive) (2025-03-21):

When Mike Russo entered Social Security Administration headquarters on January 31, he introduced himself to agency staff as a representative of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to court filings.

Along with Akash Bobba, a 22-year-old former Meta and Palantir intern, Russo demanded sweeping access to data on every person in the United States with a Social Security number. Social Security Administration (SSA) insiders warn the sharing of this data puts Americans at risk of identity fraud — and that it could be used by Donald Trump’s administration to punish, threaten, or blackmail his political enemies, both at home and abroad. […]

Two SSA insiders warn the potential for misuse of this data is virtually endless: The agency data could be used by hostile foreign governments to locate defectors and political dissidents inside the United States; officials in DOGE and the Trump administration itself could theoretically use the data to threaten elected officials and journalists, among other political foes, or create databases of transgender Americans and citizens who were born in other countries.

The data given to DOGE includes the addresses, medical and work histories, tax, banking and citizenship information, benefit amounts, and family records of every person in the United States with a Social Security number or who has applied for benefits. DOGE officials were granted access to this data over the objections of Flick and former Social Security Commissioner Michelle King, who resigned in protest over the episode. Despite the pushback, DOGE was able to access the data thanks, in part, to Dudek, who has become key to DOGE’s work inside the agency. […]

Insiders and agency veterans worry that the data DOGE has access to isn’t secure, and could be stolen or hacked by the “bad actors” that Flick mentioned in her deposition. One source close to the agency tells Rolling Stone they worried that foreign governments could use the data to locate defectors or political dissidents within the United States. The source also expressed concern that terrorist organizations could use the data to find foreign nationals who have aided the U.S. military and intelligence community in fighting in the Middle East. Another source warned that law enforcement and intelligence sources living in witness protection could be exposed by the data, as well as everyday Americans who could be viewed by Musk and the Trump administration as political enemies.

Some of those perceived enemies could include transgender Americans, according to Zinnia Jones, a transgender activist and researcher. Jones warned that the SSA data could be used to “identify nearly all likely transgender people in the US with 99 percent confidence.” Jones cited a 2015 U.S. Census Bureau study that utilized the same SSA data accessed by DOGE to estimate the number of trans Americans.

“For all we know, they may already know about the possibility of doing this and it’s part of why they insisted so forcefully on full access” to the data, Jones tells Rolling Stone. In her deposition, Flick noted that Bobba requested and was eventually given access to the SSA’s full dataset, “including source code.”

A former federal employee speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution agreed with Jones’ assessment, telling Rolling Stone that the Trump administration could use the SSA data — as well as agency hiring paperwork and passport applications — to identify and purge transgender employees from the government.

And yesterday’s memorandum opinion in American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO v. Social Security Administration, 1:25-cv-00596 (D. Maryland, Mar. 20, 2025), ECF No. 49:

Plaintiffs’ members do not know if their information has been viewed or documented by any of these employees, nor how many times it has been viewed or will continue to be viewed in the coming hours, days, weeks, or months. But, plaintiffs know their sensitive, personally identifiable information is accessible to the DOGE Team on a daily basis, with no proper justification. […]

To facilitate the expedition, SSA provided members of the SSA DOGE Team with unbridled access to the personal and private data of millions of Americans, including but not limited to Social Security numbers, medical records, mental health records, hospitalization records, drivers’ license numbers, bank and credit card information, tax information, income history, work history, birth and marriage certificates, and home and work addresses. […]

In my view, plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that such action is arbitrary and capricious, and in violation of the Privacy Act and the APA. Plaintiffs have also demonstrated that their members will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a TRO, the equities tip in their favor, and the TRO serves the public interest.

Meanwhile, from Mother Jones: Tesla’s in Trouble. Elon Blames… Trans People? (2025-03-20):

Unsurprisingly, Musk ran with the fact that some of the people charged with the Tesla vandalism may be gender non-conforming, suggesting that it pointed to a larger phenomenon of violence perpetrated by trans people. “What are the statistics on trans violence?” Musk asked in his repost of Insurrectionist Barbie’s post. Ever the dilettante, Musk quickly answered his own question — with more of the baseless transphobia he has long spewed on his platform. “The probability of a trans person being violent appears to be vastly higher than non-trans,” Musk falsely claimed. “Hormone injections cause extreme emotional volatility. That is simply a fact.” […]

Musk’s latest transphobic tirade came on the same day that his estranged trans daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, was profiled in Teen Vogue — and she’s not giving her dad, or his unhinged X posts, any brain space. “He’s a pathetic man-child,” she told the magazine.

Zinnia Jones: Remarks on Trump 2025-03-04 speech to Congress

Zinnia’s commentary and remarks:

— He’s misgendering the trans girl in high school who played volleyball against Payton McNabb, and calling trans women “men”.

Trump:

$8 million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho which nobody has ever heard of.

— Everyone has heard of Lesotho. He can’t even pronounce it.

Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. … Including, to finish, 1,039 people between the ages of 220 and 229. One person between the age of 240 and 249 — and one person is listed at 360 years of age.

— There’s all sorts of possible reasons those Social Security records are still in that database. Any number of complexities could apply here. He could be listing all sorts of ad hoc edge cases, or odd formatting hacks, that came up in the course of everything all people in the United States can experience across the course of their lives.

Deals are being made — never seen. That’s a combination of the election win and tariffs. It’s a beautiful word, isn’t it?

— He thinks tariffs are “beautiful”? The markets were a bloodbath today [2025-03-04], yesterday as well.

And Elliston Berry, who became victim of an illicit deepfake image produced by a peer. With Elliston’s help, the Senate just passed the Take It Down Act.
And this is so important, thank you very much, John [Thune]. … The publication of such images online is terrible, terrible thing. And once it passes the House, I look forward to signing the bill into law. Thank you. And I’m going to use that bill for myself too, if you don’t mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody.

— A disgusting suggestion by Trump that an anti-deepfake law, primarily protecting women targeted by AI creation of pornography, would be necessary to protect him because of how desirable he is, which he is not. The implication diminishes what she has been through, to her face, in front of the country, which is extremely insulting. I am offended deeply on her behalf.

All three savages charged with Jocelyn and Laken’s murderers…

— Anyone in any group can act heinously, but choosing to dehumanize anyone is a choice that diminishes every one of us.

Two weeks ago, I officially designated this gang, along with MS-13 and the bloodthirsty Mexican drug cartels, as foreign terrorist organizations. They are now officially in the same category as ISIS.

— Terrorism involves attacks on civilians to achieve political aims and send a message. These gangs and cartels are not intending to do so in any of these cited incidents.

— This is all a disgrace, shameful, cowardly, pathetic, small, and utterly chickenhearted.

I have already signed an executive order requiring a mandatory death penalty for anyone who murders a police officer, and tonight I’m asking Congress to pass that policy into permanent law.

— He doesn’t specify what degree of murder, or the circumstances. If the accused were 10 miles away, it could be attributed to them as being a murder when an officer is killed by someone else, due a legal mechanism of associated responsibility. This has absolutely happened before. See: “Sentenced to Life for an Accident Miles Away” (The New Yorker, 2023-12-11).

My administration is also working to protect our children from toxic ideologies in our schools. A few years ago, January Littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter’s school had secretly socially transitioned their thirteen-year-old little girl. Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband while encouraging their daughter to use a new name and pronouns – they/them pronoun, actually – all without telling January, who is here tonight and is now a courageous advocate against this form of child abuse.

— Notably, he’s describing even social, non-medical transitioning as “child abuse” in a national address, suggesting anything other than parental enforcement of stereotypical gender-conforming expression of cisgenderism (as defined by the state) is “child abuse”.

Stories like this are why shortly after taking office, I signed an executive order banning public schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology. I also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth. And now I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. This is a big lie. And our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you.

— This is notable for the invocation of religion (presumably Christian) as imposing a fundamentally anti-trans and cis-only reality on everyone, which precludes from the outset even the existence of trans people at all. This is the president’s claim that a Christian God has determined everyone will have specifically cis genders, and more broadly, that there is any kind of purpose or teleology in the universe at all.

— It is an assertion that trans people’s genders are against the intentions of an external, higher being. This assertion is baseless; there is no evidence of the proposed being or its intentions; the belief is an individual preference that falls within private practices; it is a matter for interpersonal coexistence within a pluralistic society; and it is not a vision for our secular government to select as its model of reality and then impose on everyone in the country.

As a first step, I’m asking Congress to fund a state-of-the-art Golden Dome missile shield to protect our homeland, all made in the USA. And Ronald Reagan wanted to do it long ago but the technology wasn’t there, not even close, but now we have it

— Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back? Nope! Sorry, Cold War/nuclear strategy/missile defense special interest engaged. This will never happen.

I was saved by God to make America great again, I believe that.

— Anyone can say that about any activity they engage in at any time.

— His vision of God wants nothing more for us than a falsified cisgender fraction-of-a-life, filled with many years of President Donald Trump.

And from the legends who soared at Kitty Hawk to the astronauts who touched the moon, Americans have always been the people who defied all odds, transcended all dangers…

— He said “transcended all dangers”, but it sounded like “transgendered all dangers”.

We are going to conquer the vast frontiers of science, and we are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond.

— Is he suggesting manned spaceflight to the Galilean moons?

And we will fight, fight, fight for the country our citizens believe in

— A reference to the attempt on his life; a “fight” chant now breaks out.

It will be like nothing that has ever been seen before

— Anyone can say that, but this time, in this context, it seems loaded with threat.

I’m really glad this speech is over! ⬣

Introduction: Welcome to Gender Ideology

I’m Zinnia Jones (she/her), a trans woman, researcher, and activist in Orlando, Florida. I transitioned in 2012 and have volunteered myself since then as a community advocate for transgender people collectively. I have spent years trying to give trans people the resources we need to survive. And for a time, it was good. But because of the current crisis of transphobia and far-right politics corroding trans rights near-daily in the United States, it is now necessary to document and track these events as they occur.

Gender Ideology with Zinnia Jones will provide an index of political attacks on trans people’s existence, showing why the specific events of today, yesterday, or this week were particularly alarming, disastrous, threatening, frightening, calamitous, and a danger to the basic integrity of trans life. This is our gender ideology: survival. ⬣