Coming Out on Social Media

[Julie8181]

Hello Everyone! I hope you are having a happy new year!

I'm curious to see how trans men and women have approached the whole social networking media aspect of coming out (for example, coming out on Facebook). For those of you that have done so, did you have a plan you followed? What approach did you decide to take? Did you create a new account and close the old one? Did you make an announcement and send a message to all of your "friends" on the site you use? Did you "de-friend" anyone before coming out? Perhaps you didn't come out at all and don't plan to? Maybe you have two profiles that you continue to maintain? I'm sure there are a hundred ways to address the social media question during transition, but I'm wondering what your experiences were like.

[Aimee20]

I have two profiles at the moment, my female profile only had the friends from my old one that I've already come out to. In about a month I will come out to my close family and afterwords change my old profile .

[DeeDee1974]

I shut my Facebook account down when I went full time. It really had more to do with wanting to tell those who mattered to me in person as opposed to on social media. I have now gone 2 years without Facebook and I don't really miss it. The people who are important to me know how to reach me.

[DebbieL]

Hello Everyone! I hope you are having a happy new year!


I'm curious to see how trans men and women have approached the whole social networking media aspect of coming out (for example, coming out on Facebook).

When I started with SecondLife, I created a female identity, and made no indication anywhere that I was male. When I got requests for e-mail address, I created a series of e-mail accounts that made it possible to create accounts on gmail and yahoo that don't have direct links back to the male identity. I used my web site to create the accounts for both the male and female identities. Only the credit card links the accounts.


For those of you that have done so, did you have a plan you followed?

Get a web site that lets you create e-mail accounts for users. Create one for your masculine identity, another for your feminine identity. Apply for e-mail accounts using your web site e-mail addresses as references. Then you can create your FaceBook accounts using the two gmail accounts.


What approach did you decide to take?

You can maintain both identities during transition or otherwise. In my case, I had already been outed as a result of a posting to a usenet newsgroup I had posted back in 1993, when I was single and looking for a partner who could accept and even enjoy my being transgender.


Did you create a new account and close the old one?

It's not necessary. The requirement for maintaining the two accounts is that you have separate e-mail addresses for each account.


Did you make an announcement and send a message to all of your "friends" on the site you use?

The main reason I created the second facebook account was because my brother didn't want to hear about Debbie's antics. I realized that there were others in my family and my wife's family who didn't want to hear about Debbie's antics, and didn't want their friends to know. Creating a separate account for Debbie not only made it possible for Debbie to share freely, but also made it possible to get e-mail and spam directed to Debbie, as well as female oriented spam - fashion, shoes and such.


Did you "de-friend" anyone before coming out?

I initially friend-ed myself so I could invite friends I knew would be likely to accept, sending them an e-mail indicating why they were getting an invitation from Debbie. Some took up the invitation, others passed. If Debbie posts a message that Rex wants to pass on, I can like it. Debbie has different interests, different groups, and different friends.

You can friend me as Debbie Lawrence of Bridgewater


Perhaps you didn't come out at all and don't plan to?

Like I said, I posted to a soc.personals usenet newsgroup in 1993 that surfaced again in 2003 - in an attempt to silence me and discredit me in the comp.os.linux.advocacy newsgroup, someone who supported Microsoft and didn't like my support of Linux.

I didn't even try to deny it. I explained my exact situation at the time, and my current state. I explained that I was transgendered, and that being transgendered had given me the ability to question the status quo, to see new possibilities beyond the conventional. Within minutes, the postings were in support of me and furious at the person who had tried to "out" me.


Maybe you have two profiles that you continue to maintain?

Yes - as above.


I'm sure there are a hundred ways to address the social media question during transition,

Keep in mind that creating dual identities creates a legal alias that needs to be included when you need any sort of security clearance. The second identity will show up on background checks and government records. This is especially true if you use a credit card with your first legal name to pay for the second identity. Do not try to keep the second identity a secret or it will create problems for you. Reporting the alias officially gives you protections at several levels.


but I'm wondering what your experiences were like.

I have had multiple legal identities, my legal male name, and my official "aliases". This includes Debbie Lawrence, Debbie Ballard, and The Fairy Godmother. The stories behind the last one are in my book.

[Sassy Virgo]

On social sites i tend to have pics of myself up that were more provocative/that showed my body more than my face, for fear of being outted.
But starting in 2013, I have literally uploaded tons of pics of myself.

Hayden's tired of being hidden and might as well introduce everyone to her as I am not ashamed of Hayden :)

[Rianna Humble]

I chose not to "come out" via facebook as such, although I did use the personal messaging part to inform one person whose phone number and email I had lost.

I agree with Debbie to an extent because I created a new domain for my new name. However, where I did not follow her system was that this became my primary email address for the new me and I didn't create an email address for the old me on the new domain. I also didn't bother with setting up a gmail account using my correct email address.

I set up my current facebook account once I was sure that I was going to transition and, for a short time only I friended myself. In my case, as I was hoping (in vain) to fly under the radar for a period, that was a mistake. On the other hand, it did give 3 friends that I was happy to carry over from my old identity an easier way to friend me under my new name. When I started getting friend requests from people who were just playing the numbers game, I de-friended my old identity.

I did use my transition as an opportunity to pare back the on-line "friends" with whom I never communicated in a meaningful way. I only maintained the two accounts with facebook until I legally adopted my new identity and then I closed down the old account.

As much as possible, I came out to people either face to face or during a phone call - starting with immediate family. My brother in Canada had difficulty understanding and discussed it with his grown-up children. As a result of his discussion, they sent me friend requests on facebook. Later, my sister-in-law did the same thing as she came to terms with my transition.

In the case of my former council colleagues, I chose a slightly different route by telling the leader of the Labour Party on Crawley Council and giving her permission to share it with those she felt had a need to know. As a result of this, I got several private messages of support and a few facebook friendship requests.

I may be unusual in that I have very strict rules about who becomes my friend on facebook and how they maintain that status. I don't accept requests from people I don't or hardly know and a friendship has to be active otherwise it will eventually be deleted.

[SandraAbsent]

I didn't choose to come out on Facebook, Facebook decided that for me. Between friends in common between the two profiles, and other connections, I started to show up in my families "People You May Know" section. It didn't bother me so much, as when it happened I was fully prepared for coming out anyways and it motivated me to actually do it. I have now completely shut down my old profile and all my old email accounts. Facebook is a social site and it tracks everything you do very closely and quickly makes associations based on not only what you put into it, but what you view on other sites as well. Dont believe me? Search for the clothier "Mod Cloth" in google. I can almost guarantee that it will almost immediately show in your facebook ads. So the point is, if you are not ready to be outed yet, be very careful with social media sites.

On another note, every single person I ever came out to, it was done in person, or one on one over the phone. I choose only the people that were important to me in life and it was a very emotional and intimate experience. I would have never even considered denying myself that opportunity by just blasting it out on a social media site.

[KateConnors]

I'm planning on doing a FaceBook coming out sometime in the next few months. I only maintain a male FaceBook account at the moment, and plan on literally switching names and genders one day and broadcasting this. That's not to say that a lot of my FB friends don't already know about Kate, at last count about 150 of my friends knew (from face-to-face conversations). FB has been very useful for keeping lists of people that know, those that don't know - but that I need to speak to personally, and those that don't know but I'm happy with them finding out through word of mouth or from when I do the switcheroo on the profile. I'm not someone who befriends all before me with 1000s of friends, rather I have about 400 friends, about 90% of which I know personally (by which I have a coffee or drink with). I view FaceBook as being a tool to organize my social life, rather than it being a part of my social life (or substitute for).

I have found that over the past 12 months, my changing appearance in photographs combined with my likes (e.g., Wipe Out Transphobia) has meant that a lot of people have worked out I was trans or were well prepared for when I have finally sat them down and shared myself with them. It's probably made things much easier in retrospect.

[Monicamaryjay]

I tried to set up a second Facebook account for Monica with a separate email but Facebook detected me somehow and locked me out.

I am not ready to come out on my male Facebook page yet, although I had some amusing ideas about posting myself "en femme" on Halloween, but it didn't quite happen.

[vikki2020]

I do have a facebook account, but, it is only for vikki. Just something to do! I'm not one to use it very often though, but, it's there. I also have accounts on various sites, as vikki, and there are a lot of pics floating around out there! Mostly, for meeting new people--as vikki! It's vikki perez, on FB.

[Nicole Erin]

There is so much CRAP posted on social media sites like FB that you could probably confess to espionage and it would go unnoticed by 99% of the random strangers one calls "friends". I mean with stupid posts like "I had a bad day, PM me for details", "Look, I made a lasagna!", "I am about to put the kids to bed", "Why is it all the guys I date turn out to be creeps?" "Oh my life and family are perfect", "I wish the whole world would explode and everyone went to hell cause people suck!", and let us not forget the inspirational beautiful photos saying how great a friend you are or how some woman was raped in the Zangolian town of Wapalabapstia and if you care about women's rights, forward it to all your FB friends...

SO then when you put something like, "I am a transgender", no one will notice. No, they will be too busy writing a PM to Negative Nancy to ask why she had a bad day.

[noeleena]

Hi,

Social media I spos you mean T V Papers the net & talking to people in meetings of large groups of people ,

Im not sure about the coming out bit so ill redo that bit i told friends & people that we knew i am a woman & youll see some changes, that will take place, my problem or issue was i was percived as male ,

yet was not, being intersex sort of makes things a bit different, some who knew me years ago in the 60's knew what i was, not a male. though my hormones did get a bit mixed up. oh well does not matter now every one knows & has known for a few years, im just a woman of difference,

Im on over 160 different forums & they all know im a woman. the work place all know & different firms i have & still know many of those people over 15 years & some longer 46 years all know, & new people are getting to knew me so not a problem
.
My pic & name are what you see & so does every one else, i think after being interviewed by T V & papers, would & did cover our nation pretty well. to the point of after my interviews were aired people would come up to me to say hi & talk with me, strangers coming up & talking was different, yet was nice, infact many women did & it was lovely,

...noeleena...

[StephanieC]

I actually have two accounts but only really use one and those people only know me this way. I have the security locked down pretty tight because Facebook does some things I don't want done and because I have a few friends who know me from different lives.

Frankly, I'm not one to be updating my status every two minutes. I don't think most people are interested in what I have to say. I use FB mostly to keep tabs on events.

[Yolanda_Voils]

Simply use TWO different browsers.
This way you keep the cookies and have no cross-ups.

I use Opera & Firefox and no issues for years.
Here is my enfemme FB page.

http://m.facebook.com/?_rdr#!/yolanda.voils?__user=0

[Saffron]

I just put a new profile picture, the one it's on my profile, on my facebook page.

For now things are going ok :)

In the future maybe I'll create a new account, since I want to change my nickname page and facebook doesn't allow me to change it.

On linkedin I'll just change the name. For twitter I'll probably open a new account.

[Julie8181]

Thanks for sharing, everyone! I have two Facebook accounts, and I think eventually I'll go down to one. Now, which one is the question... I"m sure whatever decision I make, it'll be linked to my overall strategy for coming out. Of course, that's the big question. Or rather, series of questions...

[Nicole Erin]

Why even mess with "coming out" on some privacy killer like facebook of ALL things?
That site has been the death of so many careers, relationships etc.
You would probably be just as well off going to a redneck bar and announcing your TG'ness.

[FurPus63]

I'm out on Facebook. You can check out my page by simply typing in my name in the search box: Paulette Niemiec. I don't care who sees me. I've been living my life 24/7 as a woman for eight months and having a blast! I have a pictorial history of my transition dating back to last February when I began to live as a woman except at work, and then came out at work in May. It's all there for the whole world to see! I'm proud of being transexual.

At first I wasn't. I have to admit I had issues with the term "transexual" mostly because of the world perception of it and what the porn industry has done with it; but as I have gotten deeper into my transition, I have no problems with it any longer. It's who I am and even post-op, will ever be (technically) so why fight reality?

Paulette