Social transition online before real life.

[MuddyFrog]

Hope I write this correctly just that I am curious and would like to know. How many people actually transition online before going full time IRL? I had a long spill about my story but my allergy medication made me much to chatty so I back spaced it all. Two years after I was intro the net I went male online, chat forums social network, chat rooms, message boards for role players the whole nine yards. I did this for two years before deciding that living two different lives was not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Personally it was the best and hardest decision that I have ever made. One would think that spending all that time on the net I would have found others life myself. Trapped in the wrong body, well I had no clue it was not until two and a half years ago that my doctor who had always been open about sharing this week called me on it. Lol I still remember getting pissed at him because he had asked me a question that I have spent the better part of my life trying to hide from others. I did not like being a "freak" and having "weird" thoughts.  Six months after speaking to him about it I  stopped lying to myself, I have been happier ever since.

=/ Still long winded, any I was just curious about it. I know some people do not count the people online as part of their IRL lives but I do. For the sheer fact that if it had not been for the net I do not think I would be here today. ((Hope that isn't too emo-ish even if it is the truth.))

[Jeatyn]

I lived a weird double online life since about the age of 10...I had separate MSN's, forum user names and everything. One for the girl me and one for the boy me.

Aged 18 when I came out, I deleted all the girl personas and just used the boy ones.

[kyril]

Well...it's complicated, for me. I was male in some contexts online from the very beginning; when I was 12, back in the Stone Age of the internet when parents weren't quite so terrified of leaving their children alone with it, I was hanging out in 'adult' chatrooms as a boy. And anywhere where my gender didn't matter, I just let myself be perceived as male, that being most people's default assumption when they meet me. My characters in online games were male.

But there were some online contexts - ones where I interacted with family or real life friends, and political activities where my real life experiences were relevant and I didn't feel like inventing an alternate life or excluding myself from discussions of feminism - where I took on a female identity. And my current online gaming is in a guild that I joined through my online political activity, so I was female there too. So  I had to go through the 'coming out' and 'transitioning' process in those contexts (thank God WoW allows characters to have sex changes!) It actually felt really good to do that, though...now my online persona is the one part of me that isn't living a lie.

[LordKAT]

Runescape also allows sex changes.

[Espenoah]

I've always been a guy online for as long as I can remember.

I remember a certain situation in 5th grade where my friends and I went through a huge Neopets stage. I'd signed up as a boy, and when my friends called me out on it, I said I accidentally clicked the wrong choice. I have no idea if they believed me or not, but they never said anything about it. XD

So yeah, I made my transition online before I even knew what being transgendered meant. Heck, I haven't even started transitioning fully in real life yet. But being male online is the next best thing, and it brings me comfort.

[Jeatyn]

I've always been a guy online for as long as I can remember.

I remember a certain situation in 5th grade where my friends and I went through a huge Neopets stage. I'd signed up as a boy, and when my friends called me out on it, I said I accidentally clicked the wrong choice. I have no idea if they believed me or not, but they never said anything about it. XD

So yeah, I made my transition online before I even knew what being transgendered meant. Heck, I haven't even started transitioning fully in real life yet. But being male online is the next best thing, and it brings me comfort.

haha I did this too, man, Neopets, that brings back memories

[Devin87]

I always had male screen names and used to get a lot of grief for it on some websites when I told them I was a girl.  And then there were other times when I purposely told people I was a guy, especially on forums where being a girl would get you treated differently.

[Silver]

haha I did this too, man, Neopets, that brings back memories

Lol, my Neopets have probably died years ago due to starvation.

Well, here is where I've pretty much presented as male. Other sites, (don't use many forums or anything) nothing's been said so I assume they're trying to figure my gender out. Or assume me male.

[Jamie]

I always had unisex names online but my gender was always marked - female. My older brother was at the home, so he was using my computer, but also I didn't care too much those days. After he went to the college, I changed some of the stuff - gender, names in some forums... And now in a couple of forums everybody thinks I'm a guy.

However, I'm not outed in real life, so I live a double life.
I have different email addresses, MSN's, Facebook profiles... 
And I have to say - that sucks...

[harlee]

I also lived two lives It started about a year ago, and I was male over MSN. I had some really good friendships with quite a large group of people. This was carried on for about 6 months (I felt really bad cause I was majorly lying...at the time I didnt have my hair cut or anything and still wore girls clothes) I later came out to my parents, and a month after that I told my online friends the news

I was expecting all the worst since they were a bunch of 12-15 year old kids. Actually they were nice over the whole thing! Very supportive! Just 3 days after that I was so excited, cause I was able to meet them in real life!

[Kreuzfidel]

Wow you could have been talking about me.  I spent years online presenting as male - I will go to my grave saying that it's made me much more self-confident about who I actually am.  The online life gave me IRL confidence, and helped secure who I 'really' was.  I was able to be myself, I suppose.  It helped in ways since I was perceived as male, and my mindset adjusted completely to that - so when I got offline, to have people such as my family still refer to me as 'she' etc. (I'm in the closet with them presently), it was shocking and I suppose it left me depressed - a downside of it all.

[cynthialee]

Kinda did that. I spent 3 years on WoW so I could RP females.
I refused to get ventrillo because I didnt want to be outed. Then they got the ingame voice-chat and I gave it up.

[MuddyFrog]

Now that allergy meds are not  gripping me and I can think much clearer, I was a neopets kid too though there I was just male. Also did habbo hotel as a mail and MVO Runescape though Runescape I tried as a female for a couple of levels but it felt so so wrong. What I left out earlier was that when I was in voice chats and talking to people even if I had girlish tags counting really only one. Lol my first yahoo tag was sk8girl4relz It was so so stupid but even with a name like that and me talking in chat vent I was yelled at for pretending to be a girl. One comment I had which in truth stopped me from picking female as an option was "Stop acting like a girl give your balls a couple of years to drop and you should be fine." =/ I was 15 at the time.


My rents did not allow me to be online alone period not in fear that I would break something expensive. But  as soon as I went into foster care I would hang out at the library in boy mode when to a tech school where I became a paige in the library and even entered a poetry contest where I presented as male.  Now the kicker is that I had done this letter exchange in junior high school found at the person was already into Role Play. They liked playing female characters so I automatically felt more confidant playing male roles with them. ((Yes we snail mail role played. Massive multi-para))

I have only had one instance where I felt the need to out myself I was 19 finally living on my own and not in group homes or campus life. At that time I had been living in and out as being male online though on chat and role play boards. This was a chat room setting the resulting issue was this guy had been constantly hitting on me. We voice chatted gamed and rp'ed together for months before he up and said the L word. Mind you I felt no such thing for him but felt I owed him the truth. In my circle of friends it really did not matter as long as you were not breaking the rules of our group.  This guy had seen my pictures ((As an adult I dressed in men only clothes mostly skate grunge or something closer. I was small enough that without binding nothing showed.))  I told him and he decided that the chat room in general deserved to know I was filthy and well his account got hacked shortly after it. I remember of the lead group chat leaders at the time yelling at him over mic about so f#$# up he has more balls then you. 

Lol even without medication my posts are winded I am sorry I like to see myself type. Maybe because I do not talk much in person.  Thank you all for sharing your stories about this.

One more question Did you feel guilty at all for living the double life online?
Okay two questions: Did it help you become stronger for later IRL situations?

[LordKAT]

Ssshh I did neopets too. blame my girls for it.  It really was a girl thing.

[kyril]

if I may ask...what in the world is neopets?

[LordKAT]

A neopet is a virtual pet. You go online and play with them and feed them and send them to school and lead them and have them play games, etc.

[kyril]

oh...ok.

[Carson]

I kind of the same thing, but not for very long.

PS Neopets rules.

[Espenoah]

One more question Did you feel guilty at all for living the double life online?
Okay two questions: Did it help you become stronger for later IRL situations?

I never felt guilty about it unless my friends noticed and questioned about it. They rarely ever did, but it kinda made me want to crawl into a hole when it did...
As for making me stronger...I did feel a lot more comfortable in my skin afterwards. I think in the long run, it helped me come to terms with myself.

This makes me want to go play Neopets again...

Edit to say that I just checked my old account. I was a big fibber online when I was younger. I surely never lived in Japan...

[Silver]

One more question Did you feel guilty at all for living the double life online?
Okay two questions: Did it help you become stronger for later IRL situations?

Maybe a little at first. Got over it real quick.
I guess I got more used to it or whatever.