>> Hey there! This post is part of our series tracing how the early warning signs of fascism are reemerging in contemporary America. See the full series here.

Fascism Loves a Tip Line

Picture this:

A parent in Texas tucks their trans child into bed, but the fear doesn’t sleep. Will a disgruntled relative or neighbor pick up the phone tonight, dial the state’s hotline and report them for affirming their child’s gender identity?
In Florida, a teacher hesitates before using a student’s chosen name. What if a parent or colleague decides that this basic act of decency is grounds for a tip to the State?
A trans woman in the Midwest walks into a restroom that matches her identity, and suddenly wonders—who is watching? Who is ready to call security because she dares to exist in a public space with a bladder?
A woman in Oklahoma miscarries in her second trimester. Clutching her abdomen, she knows her bleeding could spark suspicion: a nurse or a stranger on the other end of a hotline deciding her pain looks like a “crime”.

The weight of the tip-line is heavy. Fear is cultivated not always through valid, enforceable laws, but through the possibility of being denounced as "Evil Other and through the potential violence of a dangerously anointed citizen vigilante.

Every call logged and report submitted is another way the state tells us: your existence itself is evidence. Your autonomy is worthy of suspicion and derision. You'd better watch out, and we probably will make you cry.

“This system of surveillance thrives on participation, demanding that fear of the State outweigh love for family, respect for neighbors and solidarity with friends.”

Turning Neighbors Into Informants

Tip-lines don’t just appear out of nowhere. They’re built with intention—an architecture of denunciation designed to turn everyday relationships and interactions into suspicion to sprout division and fear. A government doesn’t need an army on every corner if it can conscript ordinary people to watch, report and hate.

In Nazi Germany, arrests under Paragraph 175—the statute criminalizing male homosexuality—often began not with a police investigation, but with a neighbor’s report. A co-worker who disapproved. A relative eager to show loyalty to their Führer. Thousands of lives unraveled not through evidence of any substantiated harm or malice, but through whispers and allegations weaponized into state power.

East Germany’s Stasi later perfected this model, creating a nation where one in six citizens informed on the others. Fear was ambient—every friend, child, spouse or colleague a potential source. Eyes, ears, judgment, fear everywhere all at once.

And in the U.S. today, the architecture is visible once again, and this is just a short list:

Tr*mp’s HHS “snitch line” to report children receiving life-saving, age appropriate gender affirming care
The FBI’s own take on this, once again calling on the public to report practitioners of gender-affirming surgeries (reminder: these surgeries are NOT happening, this is all divisive theater and a problem that literally does not exist)
Missouri’s Attorney General’s web form to solicit reports on gender affirming care providers, effectively deputizing anyone with a grievance or prejudice
Utah’s “bathroom enforcement” tip line which was dedicated to transforming the public into bathroom stall monitors

Each submission is a community betrayal in bureaucratic drag—a whisper converted into a permanent file with the power to transform into a target on the back or a gold star-pink triangle-red patch stitched on the coat pocket.

This is assuredly NOT about creating public safety; it’s about manufacturing suspicion and expanding the State’s reach by embedding fear in the most ordinary of relationships: parent to teacher, neighbor to neighbor, doctor to patient, priest to scared, vulnerable soul.

Typing this makes me feel borderline crazy. In what world - in what twisted dark utopian reality - might this be possible? But I have eyes, ears and the unfortunate lived experience that reminds me this is real right here and right now. We stand to lose so much when we trust in the people and institutions we previously thought immutable. I keenly feel the loneliness and disorientation this reality brings. Love hard, trust timidly.

A Short History of Collective Resistance

When they want us to betray, we choose resistance.

〰️

When they want us to betray, we choose resistance. 〰️

We’re staring at systems built on fear, but history shows us what happens when ordinary people stand firm, anchored by humanity. Even a whisper of resistance can be a roar.

Take Denmark during WWII: when Nazis moved to deport Danish Jews, resistance wasn’t a headline—it was ordinary citizens ferrying 7,500 people to safety across the water to Sweden. That’s 99 percent of Denmark’s Jewish population, saved by collective refusal to tally crosses, report names or stand by silently. For every Jew who was brought to safety, 50 Danes were involved. It takes a village, y’all.

Or remember Anton Schmid, an Austrian soldier who, in uniform, hid Jews, issued them work permits, and ferried them to safety. He paid with his life—but his courage saved hundreds, embodying the truth that telling “I won’t”—even in the face of unbearable consequence—is its own kind of defiance.

Or be inspired by the French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a remote plateau in Nazi-occupied France where Protestant villagers sheltered thousands of Jews, especially children, by hiding them in homes, farms, and boarding schools. They forged papers, refused to denounce, and ferried people across borders. Historian Philip Hallie called it a “conspiracy of goodness.” Nearly the entire community resisted, showing what collective refusal could look like in practice.

Or lean on the example set by Irena Sendler in Poland. Irena was a social worker in Warsaw who smuggled some 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto, placing them with Catholic families and in convents. She kept meticulous records hidden in jars buried under an apple tree so she could reunite children with families after the war. Arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, she never revealed names.

These acts—which sometimes might have looked small in the moment—were tectonic in their impact. They teach us that:

Refusal can be revolutionary. Not giving the form, not dialing the hotline, refusing to make someone’s existence “evidence” can ripple outward.
Solidarity is resistance. Keeping each other safe doesn’t need speeches or ceremonies—sometimes it’s just a refusal to comply.
Courage lives in the quiet. Schmid didn’t broadcast his defiance; he lived it, quietly, every day. And that’s just a name we know, there are so many thousands who did the same who we may never get to learn about and celebrate.

How to Survive Surveillance: Refuse, Protect, Resist

Sometimes silence is complicity. But sometimes silence is resistance—the silence of not dialing, not submitting, not turning someone you love into a file. Our whisper of refusal can be a roar.

So what can you do when faced with a hotline number, a suggestion to report, a mandate to surveil?

Don’t call. I mean, fuck them. This is the simplest and most powerful “no.” You owe fascists nothing. Zero. Zilch.
Disrupt suspicion. When someone suggests “suspecting” or reporting a neighbor, push back: What harm? Whose safety? Who benefits from this fear? Are you out of your mind? Etc.
Speak up and build solidarity. Tell others that loyalty to each other is real bravery. Stand visibly with trans people, women and people of color—those most targeted by surveillance. Make it clear that they are not alone.
Document and expose. Where tip-lines exist, organize to show the world what they are: bureaucratic betrayal disguised as safety. Jam those systems, burn it all down to de-weaponize and keep our community safe.
Support the resistors. Teachers, doctors, parents, clergy and others who quietly refuse to comply need protection, advocacy and resources. Or maybe even just a hug and a ‘good job’ if that’s all that you’ve got to offer right now; it’s a real tough world out there.
Reclaim normal. Send funding, share vetted clear info, show up in public support. Make community the backup system for every threat.

In a world where silence under threat feels compulsory, these choices—simple and radical—are ferocious acts of care and resistance. When they ask us to betray, we choose to protect.

>> This is just one piece of the pattern. See the full series tracing the warning signs of authoritarianism here.

Cultivating Fear: Tip Lines and the Policing of Identity