Transitioning my old Bookface account to my new one

[Obfuskatie]

I finally posted this as my status update for my old Facebook account:

Hey y'all, I'm going to be closing out this account and making another because I'm trans. I wanted to give all of you the opportunity to reach out to me to add you to my new account. I've appreciated all of your friendships with me during the previous chapters of my life, and wanted to invite you to continue them as I start the latest chapter.
I'm essentially the same person, just happier, with better clothes and the opposite set of pronouns. The added bonus is, if nothing else, you've met an actual transgender person, and you know me a bit better than Caitlyn Jenner, Chaz Bono, Janet Mock, Buck Angel, Andreja Pejic, Lana Wachowski, Candis Cayne, Patricia Arquette, Carmen Carrera, Laverne Cox, Jazz, etc...
I'm going to be unreachable until the weekend, and will respond to any feedback once I'm done with work, and class. I'll also check my account periodically for about a month before closing it. If I don't hear from you, I hope you're doing well and have found your paths to being happy.

I'm still freaking out about it a little, but I'm glad I finally shut that closet door behind me. I brought this up with my therapist, and after discussing all I will gain from it with her, a few friends and my mom, I finally did it.
I thought I'd re-post it here in case anyone wanted to see what I wrote. And I figure I can update this thread to document the fallout. Sigh, I should probably stop thinking of coming out on Bookface as the nuclear option since it's not helping my anxiety :-/


     Hugs,
- Katie
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[ActionLiz]

Katie, awesome post -- it manages to be both lighthearted and heartfelt while diminishing neither.  I've been thinking about how to do this myself and will be coming back here for inspiration when the time comes.  I expect the feedback you get will be pretty positive. 

[Jessie Ann]

Congrats Kate!  I did this same thing a few months ago and had a very good response for the most part.  I did find that a lot of my old male friends elected to not come over to my new page once I had established it. I elected to not send out friend requests to most people and indicated on my page that I only wanted people who were comfortable with me to send me friend requests.  Good luck with this big step.

[capnkyler]

I have been wanting to do this for the longest time, but I am so anxious about it. [emoji19] I hope things go well for you; be sure to keep everyone here updated!


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[Allison Wunderland]

Curiouser and curiouser . . .

My FaceBite acct. is Allison Wunderland. I opened the acct. as one means to expressing my alternate gender. There's the added incentive on FaceBite that I don't need to give any of my personal information to Zookerbooger and his minions of data vultures.

I made a half-assed allusion to "closets" etc. on Bastille Day (Jul. 14). -- This is the day the peasants stormed the Bastille Tower (prison) and started the French Revolution.

The reaction from all of my friends, colleagues was pretty much, "The door has been open on that closet for years."

I considered hormones, surgery . . . full transition in gender presentation. At 67 yrs. that's in a very real sense a sort of refutation of who I am, who I have been all my life.

"You can stay in the closet about your sexual preference, but if you change genders -- people will notice."

And I suppose -- maybe because it's a full-fledged forum category herein -- I suppose that the crucial test for "gender presentation" is  pretty much "which bathroom do you use?"

I feel "less wrong" about using the cis-M. Mostly I look for "family restrooms" -- mixed gender and a lock on the door for individual, private use. (Public restrooms are a cultural, social, gender dyad dinosaur.)

Don't change your FaceBite page. Zook allows for gender changes, (No changing birthdays! I list 1914.)

Transition is a continuum -- C O N T I N U U M . . .  as in incremental steps. One step I suggest is that you hang on to who you have been all your life, because that is not going to change. I was asked if I had picked out a new name. "No, new name. I am who I have always been."

Change your photos, change your personal information. Change gender. Change your name, but hold on to your FaceBook pages -- because they are YOU.

I have huge issues with this whole concept of "Reinventing your personal history." -- Coming up with some sort of story about growing up as your present gender. I feel, and I'm not transitioning in any overt physical sense, I feel that social norms/expectations are changing, and that gender transition is no longer a "secret past."

Continuity in ID is essential. Hang on to your page. FaceBite allows you to "come back" and reopen your former pages. All the data is still there -- because ZookerBooger sees $$$ in the data. For YOU, the thread of who you are, who you are becoming is an essential part of your ID. Don't lose track of that ! ! !

[KatelynBG]

Congrats on your courage Katie. And good luck with "the fallout."

[Obfuskatie]

Congrats Kate!  I did this same thing a few months ago and had a very good response for the most part.  I did find that a lot of my old male friends elected to not come over to my new page once I had established it. I elected to not send out friend requests to most people and indicated on my page that I only wanted people who were comfortable with me to send me friend requests.  Good luck with this big step.

Yeah I almost did it around May, but it took me a while to warm up to it. I think my other best friend and I reconnecting again and him being accepting was a big part of it. The other part was just getting my life together. I got my ears pierced the first time as a gift to myself for finally telling my dad and stepmom. The second time for my nostril and upper cartilage was for finally dealing with all my social groups.
Thank you, I plan to be a lot less circumspect now that I'm not worried about it getting out to my other social groups. I do feel bad if this causes my brother any issues, but he's been pretty awesome about supporting me.


     Hugs,
- Katie
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Obfuskatie]

Curiouser and curiouser . . .

My FaceBite acct. is Allison Wunderland. I opened the acct. as one means to expressing my alternate gender. There's the added incentive on FaceBite that I don't need to give any of my personal information to Zookerbooger and his minions of data vultures.

I made a half-assed allusion to "closets" etc. on Bastille Day (Jul. 14). -- This is the day the peasants stormed the Bastille Tower (prison) and started the French Revolution.

The reaction from all of my friends, colleagues was pretty much, "The door has been open on that closet for years."

I considered hormones, surgery . . . full transition in gender presentation. At 67 yrs. that's in a very real sense a sort of refutation of who I am, who I have been all my life.

"You can stay in the closet about your sexual preference, but if you change genders -- people will notice."

And I suppose -- maybe because it's a full-fledged forum category herein -- I suppose that the crucial test for "gender presentation" is  pretty much "which bathroom do you use?"

I feel "less wrong" about using the cis-M. Mostly I look for "family restrooms" -- mixed gender and a lock on the door for individual, private use. (Public restrooms are a cultural, social, gender dyad dinosaur.)

Don't change your FaceBite page. Zook allows for gender changes, (No changing birthdays! I list 1914.)

Transition is a continuum -- C O N T I N U U M . . .  as in incremental steps. One step I suggest is that you hang on to who you have been all your life, because that is not going to change. I was asked if I had picked out a new name. "No, new name. I am who I have always been."

Change your photos, change your personal information. Change gender. Change your name, but hold on to your FaceBook pages -- because they are YOU.

I have huge issues with this whole concept of "Reinventing your personal history." -- Coming up with some sort of story about growing up as your present gender. I feel, and I'm not transitioning in any overt physical sense, I feel that social norms/expectations are changing, and that gender transition is no longer a "secret past."

Continuity in ID is essential. Hang on to your page. FaceBite allows you to "come back" and reopen your former pages. All the data is still there -- because ZookerBooger sees $$$ in the data. For YOU, the thread of who you are, who you are becoming is an essential part of your ID. Don't lose track of that ! ! !

I pruned and removed my old photos, made private most of the information, removed the contact info and removed all the apps that had been linked to my account. I effectively removed and un-tagged everything from the recent past on that old account.
I'm only going to invite the friends who remain so to share all my current life, but I'm not going to proudly display my trans status on the Internet until I am gainfully employed after I graduate with my MFA. It isn't an effort to rewrite my history, just discarding the saddest, most self destructive part of my life before I came out and took better care of myself inside and out. Plus I'll need Bookface for my professional relationships and future workplaces, so I have to be careful how open I am via the series of tubes that are the Internet.
I'll still always inquire beforehand with new relationships about trans acceptance. I prefer to give optional associations the right of refusal before I let myself care about their opinions. For instance, I would have done some permanent makeup with a woman who never returned my call, and got a positive response to a new gym I'm going to join. I'm glad I know my new gym will back up my legal status as female, and that I won't have a bigot with needles near my eyes/face.
I agree about the continuum thing too, although I don't really believe it starts at MtF for me. I think of it as FtF with some unnecessary dangly bits, because I'd rather accept a flawed self than wait until I reach some magic milestone that may never come.


     Hugs,
- Katie
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Obfuskatie]

I peeked at it earlier, and it looks to be positive so far. I don't want to get drawn into it until I'm done with my work for the week. Crossing my fingers all of it remains positive and the rejection comes as a polite dismissal.


     Hugs,
- Katie
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jessie Ann]

For me it was not about deleting the past and creating a new history for myself. All of my information except for my name and my gender remained the same on my new page. I wanted to start a new page for the new me.  I don't need reminders of my past to pop up on my new present. There were people who were my friends who were very uncomfortable with me transitioning. I gave all of my friends advance notice of the change and frankly, if they were uncomfortable I really didn't want them seeing what I am doing.

[Allison Wunderland]

Ahhh yes!

My FaceBite ppg. are anon for most part. Open to all, but not heaps of "personal stuff" -- friends are all RT, 4O of them. For me it's like being on a bus, looking out the window, comments on passing scene. My RT friends realize Allison is a "character" -- created literary personna, poetical.

They also realize I'm me, and that gets convoluted, intricate, expressive, creative, liberated.

Carpe diem! ☆☆☆

[ErinS]

Mine lol:


I've always hated Facebook "coming out" posts, besides the inevitable "look at me!" aspect they're also inherently too serious. And Facebook is not to be taken seriously. Ever. It exists primarily for candy crush and sharing ironic pictures of cats.

So I can't believe I'm sitting here actually writing one. I actually never planned to do one, and when I overhauled my profile a few months ago(mainly so I could update Tinder lol) I figured those who didn't know would figure it out or message me. But bewildered facebook friends are still washing up on the rocky shores of my inbox even now, so I should probably clarify things.

First, I do deeply appreciate how incredibly understanding and considerate so many of my friends and family have been, especially the buttloads of "conservative/very conservative" ones that pretty consistently proved wrong their reputation regarding this matter. I'm incredibly lucky and humbled by that fact. There's been a few bumps on that topic, but honestly partially my fault as well because I could have handled some people more adroitly.

To get the point, yes I'm the Facebooker formerly known as **********. Yes I'm transgender. Yes I'm currently living full time now as Erin. Why? Pretty much not really all that different from any other trans narrative out there, and can best be summed as "Because reasons. Please purchase any hypothetical future memoir for further details".

The inevitable genitals question? Yes I have genitals, and I'm sure there's cultures where unsolicited inquiries about someone else's genitals are perfectly within the rules of decorum. Unfortunately I can't tell you where the hell they are located, beyond this not being one of them. I am happy to discuss them with anyone with whom a mutual interest in sex exists, however. And if you don't prefer my configuration, that's fine. People have a right to be as completely arbitrary as they wish with their sexual preferences for whatever reason, the only downside being we find ourselves on the wrong end of that occasionally.

My orientation? Consenting adults I find attractive that are not in legal or moral entanglements with third parties, excepting said third parties providing express permission or indicating a desire to participate as well.

Do I demand you 'approve' or 'celebrate' me? Nope, I'm pretty happy with anything meeting or exceeding the standard of "this is totally weird as ->-bleeped-<- and I don't understand, but I'm not going to get in your way". Hey cool, I can work with that. You vehemently disapprove? That's totally your right as stupid as it may be, but don't bother getting upset if you decide to adamantly express it to me and my eyes glaze over halfway through your third sentence, as I start idly wondering if I've forgotten to pick up any dry cleaning.

Also please ask me nothing containing the word "Jenner". We're not all friends, or even required to really like each other.

If you made it this far, please don't take the snark personally. I just miss the Facebook I joined in 2006, and feel pretty much like I've done the equivalent of putting Kipling quotes on top of a penis-shaped cake. The important thing to take away is I'm really the same person, just looking a little different, taking longer to get ready in the morning, and prone to occasional fits of jealous rage when tiny asian transwomen talk  about their experiences, just because it pretty much  sounds like they're playing Grand Theft Auto with all the good cheat codes loaded.

[Ms Grace]

Congrats, I know it can be hard having to deal with the online world and your social media identity. I decided to change the name and gender of my account, along with my profile pic and a bit of a message. I think I got the most likes ever! I decided not to delete, to maintain continuity and not prune out old photos or posts...despite the fact I needed to transition I still liked dude me and who I had been.

[iKate]

I didn't come out publicly with a big splash on FB. I simply suspend my old account and made a new one.

People found me, I found them, some of the haters made trouble and I unfriended them.

Right now my Facebook is no big deal at all. Everyone knows me as simply (my real name) and some know of my Trans status and some do not. I don't care and I'm just happy being me.

Some here have friended me and that's awesome. Friend me if you like.