how

[Nesreen]

There's a famous soccer player who plays for Kuwait's national team who got caught being en femme from an picture that got spread in the soccer community. He ended up dismissed from the national team and leaving his local soccer team and basically all his soccer career ended. The story is pretty famous around here but everyone is keeping quite about it in public forums. The good thing is many soccer fans just remember how good of a striker he was rather than what he did. But doesn't help when the fact that his whole life was affected by this mistake.

To have your whole life, career and dreams destroyed because of an image or a video you posted on the net is not really worth it. It's a shame because otherwise many of us would get out of the closet and share pictures here.

[MargaretJ]

My sister didn't recognise me when I showed her two 10x8 pics of Margaret and told her that was me, so I don't worry about being recognised.

[eluuzion]

hiya bomba,

Once you post something on the Internet it is there "forever" to be found by anyone. The only way to guarantee your pics will not be discovered someday by somebody that you did not want to see them is not to post them.

There are a gazillion ways to "minimize" what can be found on search engines like Google, etc. Your "online" names quickly connect a lot of things you post in various locations. You can avoid quite a bit by just not "signing" your online names after your posts. That is why I use an emoticon/smiley or whatever you want to call it instead of my "name".

Try and google your screen name and you will see almost every forum post where you included your name at the end.

Or you just practice a little self-deception, convince yourself nobody will recognize you, etc. and hit the submit button,

[Kittyagain]

I worry about the same thing but I sure hate hiding. Maybe I can work on a better avatar picture of myself this weekend. Now I have to go figure what to wear. If it was for my male picture, that would take about 30 seconds.

Good thread.

Kitty

[diannecourtney]

Hey I love the life and I am now trying to getpictures and avbatar scene, but the bod is yet to go. I am proud of the wearing of m'ladies things and if I looked asm good as Karrewn and about 50% of the girls, I'd be prancing all day. It is nnot a thing to be ashamed of!!!

[Samantha B L]

Hi Bomba, I first posted pics in 2008. They weren't the best pics but I thought besides the risk of people finding out maybe I should post because so many other people were taking a chance and posting pics. I know it sounds cornball. It was kind of a "do my part" thing,in a way. I ran into some good luck about 6 months ago and I was allowed by family and freinds to come out of the closet. I'm a published rock critic and I have a book on the web. For the profile section of the book on the web I have a fairly nice enfemme shot of myself in a red,pink,orange,blue and purple wig from fifi-mahony in New Orleans. It's right there as you scroll through the book as plain as day. If privacy and discretion are a concern,and I don't blame you,I wouldn't worry about it. It's true some of the sections can be accessed and peeked at even by people who ain't registered members. But I think there's a certain mental orientation to people who are crossdressers or LGBT(which doesn't mean I think we're all crazy)and I don't think we've had many spies or prowlers. So it's not politically correct but I guess i'm saying straights don't read Cosmo so we kind of go undetected. Don't feel obligated to post pics if you don't want to or if you don't feel ready for it yet. Many members don't post pics and we've had several star members who only posted emblems and cartoon characters.

[Sarah Doepner]

Like so many others I worried at first. I realized that if someone was to find the photo and figure out it was me they would have to spend quite a bit of time on this site first. If they spent the time here it would be either because they were sympathetic or they wanted to find dirt on someone they knew. Once I accepted my crossdressing and was out to my wife, I really didn't care any longer. Now that I'm retired and my job can't be threatened I care even less. In 8 or more years of posting photos, or being in others posted photos no one has come to me with the evidence of my crossdressing. There are just too many options and avenues on the old information super highway for people to explore and the odds of someone who knows me getting lost here and accessing the members only section are infintesimally small.

[Kaz]

I've been posting pics since I joined this site. It is a big part of Kaz's life and she wants to be seen!

It is a big issue is this. At the moment I am not 'out' so would need to be recognised as me from my photos. There is facial recognition software out there, and there are debates about how accurate it is. I really don't think anyone would recognise me from Kaz's pics... well not from the face! I look so completely different. The give away I have found is in other things you let out to people. I had a major scare once when I thought I'd been outed. Someone I'd met on-line and befriended appeared wanting to be friends with me on one of my 'drab' forums, but in their femme persona. Scared the s**t out of me and I became non-interactive for a few months and deleted all sorts of things!

So the way I see it... there are more ways to identify you than your female face... and then again, me in a dress looks very different from my usual drab attire!

And these days, I am little more ready to be accepted if the truth comes out... this forum has helped me with that.

[VioletJourney]

What are they gonna do if they find me? Hate me because I like to put fabric on my body and pigment on my face?

[Kaz]

Nice one Violet!

[Eryn]

I think the chance of a drab acquaintance recognizing a picture of me en femme is fairly small. Eryn just doesn't look much like my male presentation. Pictures on this site are kept fairly small so the resolution isn't very good. I don't doubt that really good facial recognition software, like that used by the NSA and Las Vegas casinos might be able to make the connection, but even they need good input data.

I'd be more worried about someone finding me through my writing style. If they find a couple of pet phrases that I use more than others they can Google to find other forums that I post to.

The bottom line is, if anyone calls me on it they will have a heck of a time explaining why they are reading CDers.com! Maybe we can trade makeup tips when they are done!

[sandra-leigh]

I'd be more worried about someone finding me through my writing style.

I understand that well. I have written so much public technical material that it is very difficult for me to write in a different "voice", and people have no problem picking out my writing style and typical sentence construction. If I were ever to decide to become a professional writer or to publish a book, I know I would first have to study how to vary my sentences and my adjectives and adverbs.

[Barbara Dugan]

One guy from work that really hate my guts and always try to criticize me when he has the opportunity tried to flirt with me on a dating site...I have to admit I felt panic and erased most of my internet profiles...later on he kept treating me the same way so I assumed he didnt recognized me or dont want to be outed as a married chaser

[Nancie64]

I feel like most of you girls. What the h___would any of my friends be doing on this web site. Maybe their picture is posted here. The only other person that knows about Nancie besides my SO and my EX is my sister in law and she is very supportive. When I went and had the makeover in Vegas the 1st time and I showed her the pics she did not beleive it was me. The 4th time I had a makeover (that was at Rori's) she was along. Love it when she is along, she is a lot of fun.

[Cheryl T]

It's like the question my wife asked me when we were attending our first Tri-Ess meeting.
She said, "What if we see someone here that we know?"
I said, "So? Will they run back to our friends and say, guess who I saw at my crossdresser's meeting Saturday?" Somehow I don't think so and I also think that it would bring our friendship to a new level.
If coworkers come here and cruise the photo areas and such and see me I doubt they would recognize me firstly and secondly if they did who would they tell? Again, it would be..."guess who I saw on the crossdressers site I was cruising last night?"....mmm and why were you cruising a crossdressing site???????????

[Kittyagain]

Well it is a small step. I changed my avatar picture to a picture of me.
I just realized how much I dislike my hair.

More shopping to be done.

Kitty

[lynn_lynn]

Id have to question.. Why were they searching crossdressers in the first place.. ??

[NathalieX66]

If someone who knows me is cruising the net and looking at crossdressers and transexuals, what does that tell you abou them?

I'm someone with an online persona with pictures. I have yet to be outed. I showed a couple of pics to some close friends & family, and they know this side of me.

Many of us display our femme selves online by immortalizing our femme selves when we have to be dad, career people, and the guy that everyone knows and loves & respects without the ramifications. The internet has given a refuge to many who want to express themselves when we can't in real life.
The thing is sometimes people like us get trollers and lurkers that see us as sexual beings, and think we are doing it to attract them, which is often not the case. But that's par for the course.

When I put photos on line, I'm being me as I want to be. It's not as good or fun as being out at a restaurant or a shopping mall, or a club which I do every now and then, but at least I'm Nathalie 24/7/365 all the time.

[adrienner99]

This does not directly answer your question but it's related. I went to a CD support group meeting once wearing full makeup, satin skirt, black patent pumps with five inch heels, dark wig, red blouse, etc. At the meeting was a woman I worked with and her CD husband. I held my breath the entire meeting but I don't think she spotted me for who I was, or maybe she was just as worried about me outing her for her husband....

[Taylor Dame]

Like the move Risky Business, "Sometimes yo gotta say What the ..." At this stage of my life less than 10 years from retirement and working at a Liberal Arts College, I am not too worried. I still am not out to my family, but certainly don't expect them on this site. I tried the facial recognition in my Aperture software, but it didn't recognize me without my glasses. Wearing glasses would be another story.

[izzfan]

I haven't posted any photos on here since 2009 (it's hard to believe that this was two years ago LOL!), mainly because my camera broke a few months later and I still can't be bothered to replace it.

I've just looked back at some the threads of the old pics I've posted and noticed that someone has exactly the same dress as I was wearing back then, which is really awesome (why on earth did I miss this post the first time round ?)

But, although I felt a bit nervous initially about posting photos on here - I guess I also thought that the only people who will probably visit here are other TG people and if anyone I knew saw my pics and tried to ridicule me etc... because of it, then I could simply just say "...and why were you looking on this website in the first place?" .

Second of all, for me, the fact that I'm transgender is not really a huge secret amongst most people that I know, so it wasn't really too much of an issue in that respect.

[Lorileah]

If anyone works that hard to see me who doesn't already know then they get to know. I don't care anymore. If they are surfing this type of site there must be a reason

[PretzelGirl]

Try and google your screen name and you will see almost every forum post where you included your name at the end.

I can see if you have to Google 'Eluuzion', but I only have to Google 'Sue' and ... well you get it.

It is about deciding the risk and then taking the plunge if the risk level is acceptable. All of my pictures (outside of the avatar), require that you be logged in. The same for my Facebook and I review my security settings regularly. Yes, vBulletin or Facebook could have a security hole. What doesn't? Someone could log in and copy a picture off of here. All of that is part of the risk to assess.

Having my picture found by others or being seen while out? - Minimal risk

Being myself? - Priceless