Delete or not delete.

[Maria 60]

It was a cold Canadian day Saturday and the wife was cleaning the bedroom closet when she came across my junk box, which has a few 3 memory sticks with about 300 pics. of Maria. My wife said to me we are getting closer to our fifties and we are traveling a few times a year and we are just out more together and God forbid something should happen to us together and the kids find these pics. is this how you want them to find out and want them to remember you, and you don't view them very much why don't you just delete them. I told her that there's a huge box of women shoe's in size 10 behind the furnace, there are wigs and women's cloths hiding between my male cloths everywhere i think that they will find out. Plus there are pics. there as far back as 1986 and i love to see how much Maria has improved through the years and couldn't believe that i thought i could pass as a women back then and the most improvement has been in the last few years ever since this forum. She turned to me and said you always tell me and the kids never leave a paper trial and now that's what your doing, and when they find the women things you will leave them guessing, but with the pics. you will verify it. I just can't delete them and now i am wondering almost everyone here has pics. of themselves, where do hide them or do you delete them right away, and can you delete them if you had to. Maria has hit a view speed pumps in her crossdressing and hopefully with the help of my friends here i hope there will be smother roads ahead.

[Stephenie S]

Yup. Many here have pictures of themselves. Where to "hide" them?

I don't. I am just so darn beautiful and hot I want all to see.

[Dana921]

I think Ideally, they would know about you and you would share this part of yourself with them! But I do also understand there can be many reasons that it just is not practical!

In the end, I say keep them because they are a huge part of your life and very important to you! Perhaps leave a letter explaining this side of you or simply share your times that you felt you had to express this side of you that you felt compelled to hide from them as well as others. It is your life! You are the one who gets to choose how you live! After you are gone, well I am thinking you will be working on far more important things.

[Laura912]

Maria,
You are going through a rough time aren't you? I remember the post about staying away from being Maria for awhile. The picture solution is easy. Get an encrypted thumb drive and put all the pictures on it. Maybe there are some computer wizards here who could help. I think that there are encryption programs that will erase everything after three false attempts. Your wife is correct that the pictures remove all doubt. Anything else found is "wonder what these were for?"
Laura

[jillleanne]

Wouldn't it just be simplier to tell them and take the future mystery out of the equation?

[Beth Mays]

I have all my "files" password protected under file names like "1998 Tax deductions". i did have a laptop stolen and I lost a lot of things I had not backed up onto external hard drive.
As for the clothes and other things you don't wear, donate to ..?... or put in boxes and mark " Stuff from Uncle Joe's house".
Never underestimate the acceptance of your family, they may just plain not care who's things belong to.

Beth

[Ressie]

you could send them to me for safe keeping. But I'm thinking of all of the cloud storage that's available now days like drop box. A password to log on to your computer and password to a cloud site where your photos are stored should work unless your kids become hackers. If that's the case, just tell them the truth somehow.

[Karren H]

Kepp them.. I've got an external hard drive full or three! If something happens to me and they find them... I won't acre cause I'm dead!

[Cheryl T]

I agree with Karren.
I won't get rid of mine and if something happens to just me...then my wife will get rid of them.
If something happens to both of us then they will find everything along with the note I left with my things. It explains "To Whom It May Concern" all about Cheryl and what it meant to me. If this offends them and affects the memory of me...then so be it. If not, then they will just inherit more than just the "estate".

[Gillian Gigs]

When your dead your dead, so relax. Have you ever heard of some one say anything other than they were sure a great person after that person is dead. Your children will hide your secret and move on with their lives. This life has enough problems of its own without you borrowing some from after you are dead.

[suzy1]

I have to agree with Karren here.
When your gone your……….well…………gone.

And like Cheryl said, they will inherit my estate and that will put a smile on there faces.

[DanaR]

I couldn't imagine doing this would be the one thing that someone would find to hate or dislike you. My wife and kids know about me, so this wouldn't be a problem for me. If my kids don't like me, it is for other reasons.

[~Joanne~]

Being closeted, I am always facing this fear. I think keeping them on a pin drive or external with a password would be just fine and is what I will probably do sometime in the near future myself. For extra protection, zip them and password the zip too.

[docrobbysherry]

My girls will be PISSED when they find out! None of my shoes or boots will fit them! Ha ha ha!

As to my pics, I loaded all my 6 jillian old ones onto an external hard drive. Then, I got a new computer and CAN'T seem to get them out of the hard drive onto it!

[StarrOfDelite]

CD's and hard drives can be encrypted so that no one can see them without a password. Of course, that type of security can be broken by an expert, if someone wants to pay for the work, but it's not cheap. Not sure about memory sticks, but it's simple to transfer the images on them to a CD if the sticks cannot be safeguarded.

[paulaprimo]

i have mine on a CD, and if someone gets into that CD, they will C a CD on that CD....lol

[Julogden]

Whatever you do, keep the photos, you'll always regret it if you destroy them.

Several months before I got married, I told my future wife about being a CD and she freaked, and insisted that I destroy all my photos, which back then were 35mm slides and negatives, as well as prints. I went along with her wishes and threw all my photos, some of which went back to age 16 or so, into a bonfire, so there's no recovering any of them. I've always regretted that, big time.

Carol

[moondog]

Do you feel ashamed of who you are?

If so trash them.
If not, keep them.

Just my take.

[Rachel Flowers]

Not delete. For all the reasons everyone else has put.

[Lucy Furr]

I agree with all. I think the online storage is the best way to go. CDs, flash drives, etc. are too easy to hack. Besides, they're objects that can be found. They'll never know to look online as long as you always clear your browser history. My computer automatically clears the history as soon as I close the browser.

[Shananigans]

How old are your kids? If they are college-aged, they might find it shocking that they did not know this about you for so long...but, they also probably won't find it THAT big of a deal.

My SO is completely out and so is his brother. My SO came out at a party and everyone loved it. His brother came out on Facebook and had the same reaction.

Your wife might never accept it or be too thrilled about it, but many people in their 20s are strangely accepting and open-minded.

I'd just come out with it. I would wish that my father would, if it were his case.

[AllieSF]

I have my pics buried in several sub-directories on a backup drive. I really don't care if my kids find my clothes, wigs, accessories, breast forms and pics after I am gone. I am doing nothing illegal nor perverted. Karren is, but not me! If they catch me before I go, I will have some explaining to do. If they find the stuff after I am gone, they can deal with as mature or immature adults. That is their problem, not mine.

[Kelli Ca]

I really don't have many pics yet but what I do I keep on a flash drive. I will not and would not delet them just because something might happen, if it does than oh well daddy wore dresses is what they'll say. If they love me they will understand

[Vickie_CDTV]

You can always put the pics on a disc or drive and encrypt them, with a good strong passkey and 256 bit encryption it is not likely one could break it in a reasonable about of time (millions or billions of years.)

Don't just keep 1 copy of your pics though though (they can all be encrypted), make sure you put them on multiple media, and an offsite backup is a good idea too. As the old addage in the computer industry goes, only having one copy is like having no copy at all.

[Sally24]

If you prefer they not see your pics then password protect a large flash drive and load all your pictures onto it. Without that password they would likely either throw it away or just reformat it.

http://www.nick-james.com/public/684.cfm

Now what to do about the 100's of shoes, undies, dresses, etc..... I know, put on all of them "saved for Thrift Store donation....."

[Dana7]

If you prefer they not see your pics then password protect a large flash drive and load all your pictures onto it. Without that password they would likely either throw it away or just reformat it.

http://www.nick-james.com/public/684.cfm

Now what to do about the 100's of shoes, undies, dresses, etc..... I know, put on all of them "saved for Thrift Store donation....."

Sally said what I would say. It is very easy to password protect your flash drive or any file on any drive, for that matter. And if they don't have your password, it would take a very expensive effort to try to break that password, which I seriously doubt anyone would bother doing. And as so many on this thread have aptly said, it probably doesn't matter anyways, cuz "when you're gone, you're gone."

Password protecting is about the same as preventing a paper trail, in my view.

[eluuzion]

I did not really start taking self-images and playing around on the internet until I got divorced around 97', when I got my first laptop and a one-bedroom apt. I went wild originally...taking & posting & saving my pics/videos. I was a reckless wild person for quite awhile. I had shared custody (Fri-Mon every week), but my daughter was only 2...so I confined my activities to the solitary days.

When she got older and I got a big house filled with sleepover playmates every week-end...I adjusted and modified my behavior and minimized risk of exposure or discovery accordingly.

most pics I just deleted, as well as my online presence. (or was it my presents, lol)

anyway...few pics were saved and most recent pics are just deleted after a day or so. The few that exist are on flash drive and all internet tracks are destroyed. It simply was not worth the effort to keep them around.

My daughter just left for college, I made my last support payment last month concluding 17 years of that!

I guess what I am saying now...is forget all the previous stuff I just posted...I live alone again now...and I have lots of naughty secrets everywhere right now. :D

So, do as I did...not what I am doing now...:D I am just in the midst of a wild streak again...I am hoping someday soon I will grow up and become a responsible adult...

Naah...who am I kiddin'...I will never grow up...:D

If I take pics...it probably won't be anything I could post here...Hey, at least i am being honest, heehee.

If I die, nobody will be interested in this stuff....it is nothing compared to the other stuff they will likely find. But nothing will surprise anybody that knows me. I only have three family members that are still alive anyway...over a thousand miles away. They will likely just hire somebody to auction off my stuff and enjoy all the money they get from it...:D

:love:

[Kristy_K]

Oh just keep them. Who knows what secrets your kids are hiding from you.

[kimdl93]

Good question. MY kids know about my dressing, so the pictures might be of some historical value, but no shock.

[Tina B.]

If you are using a newer version of Microsoft explorer, you can make a file invisible, if a person doesn't know it's there, it's hard to find invisible. But throwing them out is just another way to purge, and purge is almost always regretted. I have pictures that go back to the mid 70's and I'm not giving up anything.
Tina B.

[daviolin]

Oh gosh girl, never delete. You will so reget it if you do. Many years ago I destroyed a two hour video I made of Daviolin lip-syncing. I so wish I still had that video. Just to compare the changes in me. My sugestion is to leave a explanation in writing with the pictures. So when they are found it will explain what its all about. No mystery left untold. Daviolin