Coming out via Social Media

[justmeinoz]

Before closing my male persona's account on Facebook I sent a message coming out to all those close real world friends I couldn't reach directly.
Unfortunately as FB is now "user-unfriendly", I believe some may have actually gone out as Wall Posts rather than messages.
I don't believe any harm was done, but still  BE CAREFUL,  sometimes it is as much use as an ashtray on a bicycle!
Karen.

[Lady_J]

I'd been thinking of coming out on Youtube but I've put off posting any pics as I have felt uncomfortable doing that.  I respect those who do and I've met some great people there but I've decided it would be a little too public for me.  I don't have enough posts to do the ''will I pass eventually'' thing yet but when I do I will post here. 

[amybenedict]

I have been thinking about it, but for now I think I will keep it at arms length... I still have some family to tell, and a couple of what I would call 'proper' friends, and I agree that you owe it to people to tell them face to face, if you can bear it...

I don't really have the option of being stealth in the future, as I intend to stay in the same career with the same friends and associates, and word gets around this business pretty quickly. I know of a few trans folk in the industry, not personally but just because everyone knows someone who knows someone etc, and it isn't long before everybody is only 2 or 3 connections away. Good thing is, no one really gives a monkeys.

There are loads of people who are friends on FB who I haven't seen for donkeys years, don't actually like and don't want to give the pleasure of something to talk about down the pub, so am quietly unfriending them.

Time will tell I suppose.

[Jayne]

I wrestled with this decision for a while & decided to tell anyone I meet in person face to face, the people I talked with regularly got sent a lengthy message explaining what & why.

On a non-trans forum I visit daily I posted a topic so that people I coulodn't get in touch with would know before I next met them in person, I had over 100 replies & only 3 were negative, I also recieved around 40 - 50 pm's from people wishing me luck with the transition.

On xbox I invited people into a private chat to tell them in person & so far everyone has been great about it, when i'm a medic on Bad Company they call for a nurse instead of a medic & when I crash on GTA they moan about women drivers but it's all done with kindness, i'd be more concerned if they stopped taking the mickey after 3 years of us all ribbing each other non stop.

I've declined to vote as this is one of those decisions that I feel people should make themselves, whatever you decide I wish you the very best, big hugs & best wishes

[GinaDouglas]

Privacy settings on FaceBook keep "the world" from seeing it, if you don't want them to.

I had to come out on FaceBook by accident.  Ten years ago I had a FBook page in my old gender, just to allow me see some family members' pages and pictures.  I never filled it out or participated.  I'm from Michigan and live in Colorado.  I hadn't seen anybody from Michigan since I moved here 11 years ago, at least.  But some high school people found my old page, and asked to friend me.

I am really active on FBook as me, so I had a quandary.  I ultimately decided to find some people who were my actual friends back then from looking at people's friends list, and friend them from the old account.  Once I had a dozen of them, I set my privacy to let friends of friends see that page, and I sent people private messages, telling them what my deal was - so that people who were close to the old me would not find out by a wall post, or by somebody telling them, "Hey, did you hear that so-and-so is now a woman?!?"

One of my friends, who is not really active on FBook, answered my private message on my wall - and the cat was out of the bag, without me having to figure out exactly how to do it or what to say.  So then I briefly opened the old page to let anybody post on the wall, and used my real account to post some current pictures on the old wall, and made the following post:
This is a dead FB account. It was old and forgotten. I decided to use it to let people know, if they cared to try and look, who I am now.If you're a friend, thanks for friending who I really am. Love y'all!

When that was done I set the old account back to friends-of-friends.  Then I deleted the notice on my real wall that said I posted on the old account's wall, to make it less likely that somebody I know know could follow the FBook trail back to my old identity, but still fairly easy for someone to follow the FBook trail from my old identity to find me now.

So far, I have renewed a couple old friendships, and had no overtly negative response, although the lack of response from some people has been a bit hurtful, though not unexpected.

[justmeinoz]

Before I did anything else I put up a post saying I was deleting anyone I hadn't talked to at least occaissionally and got rid of those for a start.  That left only those people I regard as real friends, not "FB friends".
I then wrote a letter for the people I had worked with up until I quit the week before.  After I had printed copies for the people at work, I edited out the irrelevant bits about leaving the Lab, and sent that to all those I could not contact locally, via FB.  Also my new FB page, and deleted the old one.
It all went well, great responses from everyone, in person and via FB.
Karen.

[Raya]

As far as "coming out", I agree with JessicaR. To me, coming out to someone is a very intimate affair. People I only know via social media don't merit a "coming out", they're just getting informed. I'll just let the changed name, picture, and sex marker do the talking. No different than any other biographical info.

I've always used social media as a way of keeping up with people I'm not close to. If it's on my Facebook page, I've already told most everyone I care to.

[paulault55]

Last August was my 40th high school reunion, a good year in advance i created a Facebook, My Space page and joined Classmates, i added as many of my high school classmates as i could find as i did not want to take away from the reunion, it was a total success, everyone was focused on the reunion and not me, though i am sure there was some talk, i got more acceptance than i could have hoped for.

So yes at least in my case outing myself in this way was a good thing.

Paula

[JulyaOrina]

Well, I did it.  I sent out a mass message, not a wall post.  It will remain private on the inter-webs, and be informative for those I need it to be.  I have had very positive responses save one, but out of 101 people, that's okay odds...

[Brittany:)]

If I were you, I would go on a deleting spree and just delete anybody that does not really need to know or people who you don't want to know, then I would come out.
I would most likely also delete that account after a few days when everyone you want to have seen it should have seen it, then just create a new account.

I think if you did this with your whole friends list it may open you up to a lot of hate/hurt. But I don't know who your friends are, so I might be wrong.

[JulyaOrina]

I did a lot of weed-whacking, and only accepting friends that I have a real life connection to.  It has been very inspirational for me.