Using a real photo for your avatar

[TommiTN]

I decided to use a real photo for my avatar. Hey, nobody said it to be a photo of me! Just think of me as a middle aged Betty Page.

[S. Lisa Smith]

Posting the avatar goes right to the heart of the issue of why this site is better than any other. We are essentially conducting conversations about our lives and how they are affected by our TG circumstances.

Since I can't sit across the table from you in a nice restaurant, have a glass of wine and talk about these things( and numerous other topics that come up), at least when I see the avatar, it allows me to think I am dealing with a real person instead of electrons scattered around the screen, and it lends credibility to the information being bandied about.

Now of course, the avatar you post might not be of you, and all of your postings might be just so much rubbish. But that circumstance is usually exposed fairly quickly and those people disappear...

We are all on a journey here, and if you don't feel comfortable showing yourself to the great unknown I can easily understand that. I hope that you can get comfortable with the whole TG thing in your life and allow this little part of you to surface

You said it so much better than I could! Thanks!

[IMJenn]

The only reason I felt comfortable posting my pic as my avatar is because the shadow makes it impossible to see my face...other wise I would be to scared

[curse within]

I don't see the harm....I would wonder how someone I knew seen it so if that happens I am sure it would stay with who spotted it anyways.

[victoriamwilliams1]

I figured that I look so different in both modes so I never thought about it.

[bah-bah-bobbie]

My problem is I am a technolgical nincompoop. I don't even have a cell phone much less a digital camera. In the unlikley event I get a digital camera it will only be from the waist down (assuming I learn how to get picture from camera to computer, remember my first sentence) because I don't think my mustachioed mug belongs here. I'm not much to look at anyway. Seriously, there isn't much to see. I'm 6"4' and 160lbs. I turn sideways and leave a disembodied floating head. I have to stand twice to cast a shadow. I'm not much to look at.

[eliot]

Posting my avatar was a big step for me in my passage to self affirmation. I dont regret it one bit.

[Tina B.]

I have put up both, drawings, and photos. I was using a little bear, I thought was cute, but now have gone to a real photo of myself, I worked it over in Photo shop, so no one could tell who it is, but I am working on other newer stuff I hope to use soon. everything I have now is getting kind of old, and I feel phoney using something to old, because I have put on weight and don't look like that anymore.
Tina B.
P.S. I do like seeing all the pictures, of those that are brave enough to use them. But I still go back and forth between wanting to post a picture of myself, and my fear of someone seeing it!

[Anna the Dub]

I only put my one up the other day. Took me a while. But I don't really care who knows anymore. it's my life, and nothing to do with anyone else.