old online photos?

[sandra-leigh]

Those of you for whom there were pre-transition photos online, old photo albums posted, tagged in friends photos, high school yearbooks, photos at professional events, and so on: how did you deal with those photos? For example, did you untag yourself in the places you were tagged (when you could); did you remove your family-reunion photo albums? Did you just leave everything and so end up with "old apparent gender" photos tagged with "correct-gender" name, at least on systems where the tags automatically adjust as you rename your account?

[Kathryn Martin]

Uhmm, believe it or not there are no photos of me online prior to transition and only a very few after.

[Cheryl123]

Hmmmm .. difficult question and I think there will be a lot of different preferences. I'm comfortable with just leaving the old pictures with my old name. It reflects how things were when the picture was taken. But this is just me.

[Jorja]

There were no pre-transition pictures of me online. As a matter of fact, there was no internet at that time.

[LeaP]

...there was no internet at that time.

Any pictures of you on circus posters? Old sepias in the public domain? Sillouettes perhaps? Wanted posters? The big blue ribbon shot for the sheep competition at the state fair? Ever been on a Wheaties box or appear in a "have you seen this child" photo on a milk carton?

Everyone's got SOMETHING out there!

[Anne2345]

Old sepias???!! OMG I just *completely* fell apart laughing!!! That is the funniest thing I have read in a long, long time!!! Old sepias!!!! LOLOLOL!!!!! Oh, and feel free to punch Lea right her face, Jorja!! :-)

[AllieSF]

So, the interesting question to the original question is, "If you legally change your name will all, some, hardly any, or hopefully no pre-transition pictures will show up under your new legal name?"

[LeaP]

Old sepias???!! ...That is the funniest thing I have read in a long, long time!!!

Anne! I thought you stopped drinking!

[PretzelGirl]

I am interested in the answers. I am converting my male page and my daughter has requested that all old, male pictures stay up. She says that "he" is still a part of everyone and shouldn't go away. We had a conversation where we left it open for more discussion.

[Jorja]

Any pictures of you on circus posters? Old sepias in the public domain? Sillouettes perhaps? Wanted posters? The big blue ribbon shot for the sheep competition at the state fair? Ever been on a Wheaties box or appear in a "have you seen this child" photo on a milk carton?

Everyone's got SOMETHING out there!

Any old sepias.... why I ought to....

There are a few old pictures out there like high school yearbook. I was not a very public person back in those days. Like most of us, I shied away from cameras and crowds. There might still be a couple of old wanted posters somewhere. I found that there are some things that you are just never going to change, hide, or do away with. Learn to live with their existence. More importantly, unless they themselves are in the picture, people just seem to forget about things like that and after a while it falls into obscurity never to be mentioned again.

[LeaP]

Just funnin' you, Jorja! I'm fairly certain I'm older than you! Fortunately, I have full control over the ambrotype and salted paper prints, so no worries there!

On topic, there's no way to guarantee eliminating anything online. Stuff will still show up in caches, search aggregation sites, people's copied material, etc. Change what you control and forget the rest.

[Kate T]

Related to OP.

I read on a blog of a transitioned TS recently that they had taken down their old photos but then decided to put a few of them back up as they felt it would help others that might have GD to see other people who have struggled and come out the other side. I was wondering how others here feel about this? I know it is a bit of the old to be or not to be an activist argument and I can certainly see how for some individuals those old pictures of themselves may be abhorrent but at some stage you felt that you wanted to show those pictures to others?

[stefan37]

I changed my name on my Facebook page. I still have photos of the old me on it. I am so entrenched that stealth for me is not an option. My past is what it is and was. My present is somewhat in my control. I am proud of what I accomplished as a male and I will own it. I will now forge ahead and be proud of my accomplishments in my new life. And own it!!

[sandra-leigh]

Yesterday I did some searches for photos of myself, even adding in some bits of personal information to help narrow it down. I was not able to find any using Google Images, or using Bing. I found a fair number of mug shots of people with the same first and last name, and I found some of the avatars I use, but no pictures of me.

I checked my photos on Facebook and found that I did have one recognizable picture of me available publicly; I locked that down, along with locking down all of the albums I had set for more restrictive audience and which had a picture of me somewhere. It should now be fairly difficult to find pictures of me. I never did post a lot of pictures of myself. Likely there are still some out there, but one would have to be dedicated to find them and to know they are me. Maybe a facial recognition search on a more modern picture would find me, though.

[LeaP]

I googled my name and came up with a couple that was murdered. His name was the same as mine and his wife's name was the same as my first wife's! Bizarre! One LinkedIn picture of me comes up, but that's it.

[Frances]

I was not present on social media before my transition, on purpose. There are photos here and there of me, but there is not much I can do about it. They usually get taken down eventually, and my name is not connected to them. At one time, there was even a photo of me taking a photo at the Anaheim NAMM show on the Schecter guitars Website (it's not there anymore). I google my name once in while. The only current problem is on this very Website. There is a locked thread with personal information and my full actual name. I wish I could unlock it (I started the thread) and at least remove my name.

[sandra-leigh]

Frances, if you PM a mod for this section, they can unlock the thread long enough for you to make the change. Provided that the thread has not migrated to be "archived".

When I change my name legally, I will not post the new one here, as I don't need people googling the new name and locating my years of mental disarray.