A Cautionary Tale

[Stephanie]

I had a rather horrific experience this past weekend that, unfortunately, demonstrates all too clearly the perils of having too much information out there in public on the internet. I went over to my Dad's for dinner to celebrate my birthday yesterday and during the course of the time that I was there he pulled me into his bedroom privately and showed me printed copies of a review of a crossdressing book (Out & about:The Emancipated Crossdresser) that I had posted on Amazon.com as well as a copy of my Yahoo! profile which, at one time, mentioned my crossdressing (Yes, I had realized later on that that was not such a good idea so I edited it out but apparently not soon enough). The scariest thing about the whole experience was that my Dad knew NOTHING about my crossdressing nor did I ever plan on telling him and I was shocked into disbelief at what what was happening. Fortunately, he was amazingly supportive of me and said that he still loved me and didn't care what I did privately. However, he strongly urged me to pull all such information that I had out there on the internet regarding my crossdressing where it was associated with my real name because he said he was afraid of it potentially coming back and hurting my chances for advancement in my field. Despite asking him point-blank, he emphatically refused to tell me who gave him the information and, as such, I pretty much have let the matter drop (I suspect it was probably a family member) but I am really freaked out about the experience and feel like I can't totally relax knowing that somebody somewhere out there took the time to look me up on the internet like that. My Dad seemed to think that somebody (whoever it was who found the information and showed it to him) might have got me mixed up with my Dad because our names are the same, although my profile clearly indicates that I am 30, which is NOWHERE near my Dad's age. I've since gone in and "scrubbed" or eliminated any online mentions of my crossdressing wherever my real name is listed. I posted the information online before, I guess, because I wanted to be more open about it but I never thought that the information would end up in my Dad's hands. But if it can end up in my Dad's hands like that, then it is not too difficult to imagine it ending up in ANYBODY's hands. I do have a pretty tolerant family, my supervisor and co-workers are a pretty tolerant group of people, and our governor (as much as I dislike him) did take the pretty gutsy step of signing an executive order prohibiting employment within state government on the basis of gender or sexual identity, so I don't feel particularly threatened (especially since I'm NOT running for public office or in the "spotlight"). However, if this experience has taught me anything it is that, unless you consciously intend to "out" yourself to everybody, it may be wiser to stick to your "psuedonyms" and use other means of anynomity when discussing your crossdressing because apparently there are people out there who may, intentionally or unintentionally, stumble across and share information that you just may not want to be shared with certain people.
:straightface:

[Yes I am]

This is a great post! Not only warning those of us who would desire to remain closeted, but your father's love and acceptance must be such a wonderful thing for you to have. I'm so happy for you darling! I'm sure that there's an intense feeling of relief and joy mixed in there with the rattle you must have felt from your unplanned "outsting." Again, thanks for the "head's up."

[Stephanie]

Thanks! I definitely had one of those "life-flashing-in-front-of-my-eyes" moments when he showed me everything but I'm EXTREMELY relieved that he doesn't hold it against me. Although it will probably feel a little "wierd" to be around him for awhile, I'm nonetheless thankful that it's not going to negatively impact our relationship in any way. I definitely don't want to spend his few remaining years estranged with him.

[Yes I am]

Now that the cat's out of the bag, at least partially, do you intend to reveal this aspect of yourself to other relatives?

[Stephanie]

Now that the cat's out of the bag, at least partially, do you intend to reveal this aspect of yourself to other relatives?
Frankly, I have no desire to disclose it to any other people in my family. My brother is the only one (prior to yesterday) who knew anything about it and he has always been o.k. with it. I think that my mom wouldn't be too shocked about and I suspect that she knows that I've always acted somewhat "atypical" in terms of my gender identity. However, given that I don't know who exactly shared the information with my Dad, I have absolutely NO way of judging whether this individual has shared or will be sharing this information with other family members (or god knows who else) and it may be awhile before I may see any possible evidence of it being shared with anybody other than my Dad, so I will just have to wait and see what unfolds. As I mentioned before, I have a fairly tolerant family and really cannot foresee any massively negative consequences resulting from such a revelation, however I never really felt like I wanted to nor needed to ever share the information with anybody about it other than a few selected trusted individuals because it is more of a private activity that my wife and I share. The bottom line is that I won't deny it if confronted about it but I'm definitely NOT going to be the one disclosing the information.

[Yes I am]

You must do what you feel is right, of course. I too have not and most likely will not disclose the fact that I am a transvestite to my parents, though like you my brother is aware, as are my close friends and lover.

[Talon DeRojo]

Stephanie - Thanks for sharing this story. I've been careful about putting any identifying information anywhere on the Internet. The consequences for my career could be very negative. My wife has a better sense of this than I do and I heed her advice. The Internet can simultaneously be a blessing and a curse. On the bright side, it's terrific that your Dad knows and is OK with your CDing. Take care.:)
Talon

[KewTnCurvy GG]

I've since gone in and "scrubbed" or eliminated any online mentions of my crossdressing wherever my real name is listed.
WHY IN GOD'S NAME WOULD YOU HAVE EVER USED YOUR REAL NAME IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!

I don't get it.

[Joy Carter]

If you register on Yahoo or any group you have to use your real name. didn't think about that and chatted with others now they know my real name.

[Sarah Smile]

When you register, yes, but you don't have to make it public.

[Helen MC]

This contrasts with other recent threads demanding, in my opinion, too much information such as people's locations and even one castigating posters for using pictures other than themselves as avatars.

If someone is "out" then fair enough but many of us are not and indeed some such as myself do not go out en-femme prefering to dress home alone. I have experienced the sheer misery of being accidentally outed at work 30 or so years ago in a hostile environment.

So I would suggest caution. I never use chat or MSN or Yahoo style instant communicator systems prefering a Forum such as this and never use my real name nor likeness and give as my location a rather large and heavily populated part of the UK.

I have a very few close friends and a sympathetic ex-wife who "know" but that is it. No co-workers, neighbours, no family. My sister Anne, who's knickers I used to borrow to wear as a teenager, may suspect but has never said anything to me and I am happy to leave it at that, my father would never ever understand as he is one of the old school, ex Army, butch, hates "queers" which to him is anything not a standard man so includes TVs etc. As he is now in his latter years it would be cruel to confront him with such information as he is better off ignorant of the facts.

[Sandra]

This contrasts with other recent threads demanding, in my opinion, too much information such as people's locations .

If this is about the thread I did on profiles, all I said was it would be helpfull to know which country they lived in and nothing more. :) If it's not then I have missed a thread some where. ;)

[Helen MC]

Ok, it can be handy to know what Country a person lives in and unless one is a resident of Andorra, Monaco or the Vatican City then these are big enough to afford good anonimity. As there are different language usages in the USA Vs UK e.g. Pants = trousers in America but underwear in the UK, knowing which Continent a poster is from can help prevent misunderstandings.

However if a person gives info regarding where they live, especially if it is a small place and also in a later post mentions their occupation etc it could be possible that their ID could be uncovered and with Google etc making it so easy to access a myriad of websites this information could be discovered by someone such as a Co-worker etc to the poster's disadvantage.

Personaly, I am only interested by the content of the post and whether it strikes a chord with me, so if I read a post from "Mary from Scotland" stating that they started to CD when they were 12 and had to wear a pair of a girl cousin's panties when spending a week on holiday at a relative's home, then that is good enough for me. The fact that they may actually be a bloke called Brian and live half a mile away from me and sometimes drink in the same pub is information I neither need nor wish to know. That is his secret.

[Kate Simmons]

Stephanie has a good point. While I personally am not unduly concerned about it, it's wise not to share too much information about yourself on the Net. There are always opportunists out there who will exploit the information for their own gain, not caring about your feelings or consequences to you in the process. CDing is big business to some who care nothing about the feelings of others. Ericka

[Anita Mae GG]

Great post. Shows that you aren't as hidden as you may think and that anyone can find things out if they look hard enough. Moral of the story, DON'T use your real name anywhere.

Great post though. Really opens your eyes to the internet

[AngelAshley]

You may also want to check the information isn't cached anywhere... Google keeps a cache of some pages (if it has one, there will be a link under the search results - the only way to remove it is to contact Google or wait for it to expire) and there's also www.archive.org which keeps copies of old pages.

A simular thing happened to me, before I 'came out' to work. I changed my name legally to the name I had been using as a female name all over the internet. Because it's an unusual name, people kept asking me what it meant - and I kept telling them that it didn't really mean anything - I'd just made it up. Unsatisfied with that explanation, they googled it. And needless to say, it got back to me through my manager. I beleive I was constructively dismissed because of this but unfortunately I was never able to proove it.
(It was quite interesting - I was working as a systems administrator at the time so I had access to all the internet logs for the entire company, I could see exactly who had been looking at what - right down to katie in the bristol office putting my name into behindthename.com and google!)

[Teresa Amina]

If you register on Yahoo or any group you have to use your real name.

Actually not, I registered as Teresa. The sky hasn't fallen in yet! The problem with the basic Security issue is that there is always some clever little b-----d out there that can figure a way around your dodge. If they can crack your passwords and get into your ISP account you're done! But if someone is that malevolent toward you you've got bigger problems than people knowing you 'dress.
Have A Nice Day!:D

[ginafaye]

i love this forum and would love to post pictures and do more but though im real and sincere its family first and to many uacepting people would cause so many problems for me and my loved ones im content to just share what ican and enjoy ginafaye time with my wifey.........and not risk being outed

[Stephanie]

If this is about the thread I did on profiles, all I said was it would be helpfull to know which country they lived in and nothing more. :) If it's not then I have missed a thread some where. ;)

I didn't write this thread in response to any other threads per se. I just thought that I'd share my experience to possibly help keep everybody else from making the same mistake that I made.:)

[gennee]

Thank you for the warning, Stephanie. One can't be too careful.

Gennee

[carol ann]

You are all correct - we do have to be careful about revealing our real idenities. But we all take some risks even by searching a crossdressing site on our computer. It can be traced by someone knowing what they are looking for.

I do use a an internet wiper program but google for instance can find anything you have on your computer anywhere..

i sometimes wonder if some of the excitement of crossdressing is that, deep down, the risk of being 'found' adds to the excitement.

i do not want to be found, but I post photos. is that a risk in itself that someone might recognise the male me from my female photos, i don't think so but then......

[bredalee25]

If you register on Yahoo or any group you have to use your real name. didn't think about that and chatted with others now they know my real name.

That's not true Joy because I joined yahoo using my fem name Brenda Luv. You don't have to use your real name just a name for the account. Joined msn the same way. I can chat under the name brenda at msn and bredalee_25 at yahoo so it is possible to join groups using your fem name. ttfn

[Sally24]

By all means, keep your public profile in any of these online areas with your avatar name, not your real name!

I even go to the extreme of either editing out the backgrounds in my photos, or blurring them enough that they can't be recognized. You can't be sure who is looking out of curiosity who might recognize something in the background and then take a closer look at you.

Be careful out there!

[Ebonee_Tgirl]

I've had yahoo and hotmail email addys and am on MSN Messenger and did not have to register with my real name. Put whatever name you want. That is one of the whole points of yahoo, hotmail, and msn...anonymity. Sure I guess there are the super cyber hackers who might be able to track you down but I've never encountered any problems. Glad things worked out with your dad, that could have been a disaster. A good warning. My take is don't EVER use your real name on anything that others can access.

[nancy58]

I agree with your dad. Don't put anything out there that creates an easy link between your fem persona and your male persona. Today, it may not matter, but stuff has a way of hanging around. When I search Google, Yahoo, etc., for my real self, I find things I posted ten years ago. So, before I started corresponding here, I set up an email account that isn't going to be easy to link to me except through the ISP I used. Obviously, it won't stop anyone armed with a subpoena, but it should discourage people who are checking up on Bob before they hire him, and if any of my family recognize me, then they've got some 'splainin' to do.

Someday I'll put up a photo avatar, but for one thing, I haven't got a wig yet, and for another, I don't want someone showing a picture of me to my father.

A great place for a disposable email address is this: http://mailinator.com

Just be sure you read the FAQ before you rely on it, and don't use it to do anything Evil.

[FionaAlexis]

It’s a good warning for many, Stephanie.

Before you go on the ‘net with a profile or a website you have to weigh up the risks versus the benefits. Every so often, in my quieter moments, various thoughts come to my mind that causes me to review my profiles etc. Most recently when I found that some visitors to my website came because they had 'googled' a subject not related to TG-ism. However, I’ve never really changed anything as I usually satisfy myself that what I’ve put up I’m quite happy with. I remember doing a corporate seminar where the leader said never do anything or put anything in the public domain that you would feel uncomfortable being interviewed about on TV by Ray, Dan or Trevor.

I suppose it comes back to how comfortable you are with what you are and how ‘out’ you need or want to be?

I created an internet profile because, at the time, it seemed a very important thing to do. It gave me some community credibility – before I had a profile and website I had trouble getting anyone to respond to me. Now they don’t respond because they know me too well. But the profile worked well – and I know I rarely respond to anyone without a detailed profile and a photo.

And that brings me neatly back to agreeing with Sandra’s argument – that everyone ought to be able to put, at least, basic [and truthful] information on their profiles on forums like this.

I accept that with the exception of GG members and a few TSs - the rest of us are hiding behind disguises and chosen names - but I think that's a given.

I also accept what Helen says that we do judge people by the posts that they have made – but, sadly, it does matter to me if - ‘RitaRaverGG’ the 21YO woman with a troublesome CD boyfriend who is seeking advice and support is really Brian from round the corner. Or if ConnieCorsetTV ,the 30 something CD with psychological and emotional problems turns out to be CarolCanberraCD, a long standing member with a weird sense of humour.

Probably 99% of members are who they say they are – and I’m not sure what you do about the rest anyway. I guess I’ve got off thread a bit but it is a balance for some between maintaining your own privacy and attaining some level of credibility.


Fiona xx

[KathlyLC]

Somethng is not right here with YAhoo. I used any name I wanted and registered. No way heck does yahoo know what your realname is.......so fill me in what am I missing here.

I hate to say it, but nothing is ever removed from the internet. There is always a copy or it somewhere in a repose or archive. When uyu commit tp the use of the internet and forums etc to post about ones style of life or tid bits, be prepared for what ever is apt to happen...

[stephanie100]

I have an account on yahoo as Stephenie registered from my email the thing is dont use my real name on the web either male or femm. even the computers are registered under a psudonim.
Steph:hugs: