Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Looking at my Facebook profile that I've had for about 10 years I realize that seeing some of my old pictures feels kind of weird, sometimes I feel like I'm looking at someone else.  I'm curious, what do y'all think about old photos of yourself?

It feels incredibly weird and uncomfortable

I don't generally look at old pictures of myself. I don't relate to the person in the picture anymore. It feels like a completely different person. Hugs
Mariah

It's kinda weird for me. I'm ok to look at some now prolly because I really feel like I don't look like that anymore. I too feel like I'm almost an entirely different person now.

Mostly I don't even recognize that person. Whenever I look at pictures or videos from before transition, it actually takes me a second before it "clicks" in my head and I realize "Oh my god, that was ME. Like, that was the body that I used to wake up in every single day." And I just want to give myself the biggest hug because I love myself so much now, and can't even imagine being trapped back in that body.

The discomfort mostly comes not from realizing that that used to be me, but more from having no pictures from my youth that actually do look like me. I've so quickly forgotten that I was ever male in the first place, that it's painful to realize that I have no pictures of myself as a teenager, or a little girl, or any of those growing stages of life, because I was physically male at the time.

In my mind, I've always been me, and I've always seen myself this way. And yet in my actual pictures, the woman that I am suddenly pops out of nowhere as a 28-year-old.

I was stalking my mother's facebook page a few weeks ago and I found the very last picture of the old me in existence. I was like "holy crap, he ugly" Also, it was kinda creepy cause it looked like i was asleep in the picture. I decided to save the picture to remind myself how pretty I am now when i'm feeling down.

 I avoided having my picture taken since I was about 12 not even class photos. There is only one photo of myself as a teenager that I know of and that is my graduation picture, which I submitted too to appease my mother. Still have a hard time having pictures taken. Why can I see myself in the mirror but not in pictures? I wanted to post a picture of myself on face book and here since I have lost 210 lbs and been on hormones for 6 months but I still don't like the way I look.

Well since I am still pre everything, I cannot make any justified notations. Though, since I am living with my mother temporarily, I have come to despise some of my older pictures of me, especially with how it was in a nutshell, me watching over me while I sleep. Well with over ten pictures of the old me, ten of my brother, and other pictures of other family, pictures of me with my ex wife, etc... It gets tiring seeing all of that.

Well with some wiggle room of modifying the room around a bit, I was able to stow away a couple of my older pictures, cover the part of a few with other pictures and such. Much more bearable to not have basically myself creeping over me while I sleep on the futon. When my mom asked me if I was hiding the few pictures of me away, I simply told her I was not, but the new way the shelves were placed just didn't have enough space for them to be up. Aside from the fact I found a couple pictures of my grandparents and such which essentially replaced those, which in my opinion is much better grounds to have up.

Only time will tell if I will come to hate the old pictures especially with the changes I will be making in the near future. Besides the fact that unless I would be known to have the birth defect of being male, I would have my first 30 years of life essentially having not quite an existence in pictorial memories.

Kate <3

I just feel embarrassed. I look so awful and not at all like myself.

I am uncomfortable with pictures of me as a child.  But then I always have been because I always thought I looked weird then.  Even as a child I thought I looked weird.

But I'm not really uncomfortable at all with pictures of me as an adult.  I don't have all that many but the ones I do have remind me of the place and people where they were taken and those were all happy places in one way or another.

Maybe I'll feel differently later when I go further with this.  I haven't socially transitioned yet.  But I don't feel any kind of revulsion over my past or the past me.  I just feel relief and happiness now not having to deal with dysphoric depression and anxiety all the time.

I don't feel anything when I look at those old pictures. It was another life.

I only keep pictures of days when i was happy, + I'm normally in the pic with someone else. I try not to focus on the shape of my body etc anyway (plus I've had a string of awkward haircuts lol) and on what i was doing when it was taken instead. I really don't want to end up splitting my life in two.

There are 2 framed pictures of me down the stairs to the recreation room. One is of me at 18 in my full dress uniform and the other has my father's picture, medals and badges along with my picture, medals and badges. When I see my picture, it makes me feel uncomfortable and it feels like that it is of another person when I look at it. Hard to believe it was me. I have had people ask me if it is my brother's picture? You can see the look of surprise on their faces when they find out it was me.

If I had my way, I'd take them down but a friend of mine paid for the framing before I transitioned so I can't really remove them as uncomfortable they make me now and no way I'd let her know.

Love,
Clare

I'm not.  I totally own this thing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it empowers me. Yes it makes me sad I was in such denial for so long, trying to be the macho man's man that was all a farce. I like to show before and after pics of things I've done (like restoring cars), although I haven't posted anything here of what I used to look like. I show my trans friends old pics and one said I "don't even look like a remotely distant relative". Old pictures also remind me what physical torture I went through as I sit here healing from a trachea shave.

And it is bizarre beyond imagine to look at a different person in the mirror, especially after FFS. Although now for the first time ever in my life I like myself and feel more at peace.

I'm definitely fine with the last 20 years of pictures because I have been very masculine and was often seen as male.  I am a year on T and although I am always seen as male, there is no one who knows me that would not recognize me.  Still, I don't think even if I start to look less and less like my female self that those pictures will bother me.

You have to go all the way back to my childhood for any touch of femininity.  With that said, my mother has this one large picture of the family when I was in the 7th grade with longish hair and a dress.  I never liked to wear dresses, but I had to for this picture.  It is very front and center in the family room.  I think I will ask her to remove it.  I didn't before because my deceased father is in it, plus I am not at her house very often (so it feels unfair to ask).  But, it makes me sick to my stomach when I see it.  I remember when my last girlfriend saw it I felt so humiliated and embarrassed (not that it bothered her in the slightest).

ok with it, but i cringe at all the stupid things and the way i used to act in the past.

On the poll I considering how I feel when I see old pictures of myself.    Well for one thing for the past 16 years I have taken pictures of my female self with my many digital cameras over the years.   I have used Webshots Screen Screensaver and Google Screensaver to put my pictures of myself over the years on my desktop and screensaver on my computer.   For 9 years, I transitioned in private and for the last 7 years I all anybody has seen me is my female self.

I have noticed through the years with my many pictures that there are pictures of me that will at one time look ugly and at others look nice depending on how I feel.   I don't have any butch pictures of myself on my computer.   When I see butch pictures of myself I am totally disassociated from them.

I went with other so here is my explanation: i have found that I can look at my pre-first puberty photos. Because even though I am dressed like a boy I remember loving some of my clothes and I can see how happy and bubbly I am. I am the goofy tomboy, always smiling and moving very much like me.

Post puberty photos well, as soon as the t hit so did the sadness and they take me back there too quick. The pain is palpable. I would rather not see those.

My photos from my late teens into my early thirties I can't really relate to. I have never been able to recognize that person and he looks so lost and hurt.

I do look at all of them though, just went through a huge stack for a video I am trying to make. A timeline vid. They remind me of why it is so important to keep following my truth. I don't and won't dwell on them but they do represent all the stages of my life. I am very happy now and they were all of me, from the experiences that made me who I am. I spent my life running from my truth and I just can't do that ever again. I have learned my lesson.

I have deleted or trashed all old pictures I have of myself - if I ever want to look at that (I doubt it), my mom has plenty.

I accidentally found one (the picture I uploaded to the student housing administration, they use it for identification purposes and I forgot to change it) recently, and looking at it made me feel horrible and sad for the person I see in the picture. My eyes were empty, my face expressionless, and I looked like an empty shell. Of course that also tells me how right it was for me to transition, but on the other hand it makes me depressed thinking of how long I let myself be in that state due to being in denial. So I prefer never seing pictures of my old self.

When I look at old photos of myself I find it difficult to connect with any notion that it was me.  To my mind at best I look like my brothers or a close male relative, but as to it being me, - no.

100% uncomfortable. Before I came out, I went through and deleted a lot of my pictures. Some I moved into a private album so that I can look back and compare now that I've been on T for a bit. But I wouldn't want anyone else to see them. Not just because I was clearly a girl, but I looked miserable. I don't want to relive the misery, and I don't want to expose anyone else to it.

Age 0-7ish or so not so much because I looked like a girl in many of them. Beyond that? Ick. Only exception I make is pics with my kids because I love them absolutely to the end of the universe and back.

I'm fine - it's who I was, I can't change that. I still have a pic of myself with my grandmother from about 11 years ago on my bookshelf. Yes, I'm in dude mode but I love my grandmother (now passed away) and I love the photo, if anything I feel a bit sad that she didn't know her granddaughter but what can you do?

I would rather not, but when I do see them I don't freak out.  It causes a little of the dysphoria to surface, but I am able to recognize them as snapshots of a past that cannot be erased.

Was just going through my Flickr account...whoa.  I finally did have to stop on that for now.

Quote from: Ms Grace on November 27, 2015, 05:37:14 PM
I'm fine - it's who I was, I can't change that. I still have a pic of myself with my grandmother from about 11 years ago on my bookshelf. Yes, I'm in dude mode but I love my grandmother (now passed away) and I love the photo, if anything I feel a bit sad that she didn't know her granddaughter but what can you do?

I loved my Grandma too and I hold my last photo with her very dear. I wish all of my grandparents had gotten the chance to know me better.

I'm just glad that my folks know. At my age, they are probably as old as some peoples grandmas..

I have virtually zero pictures of me from before, there are several from different ages at my house which I have trained myself not to look at, similar to the mirrors in my house that I am only now getting comfortable looking into. heck seeing my old name on mail raises my heart rate and triggers sad feelings.

So very very uncomfortable. Its awful that facebook wont let me filter old pictures of me and allow new. then again i stopped going to facebook because things get bad when I do.

Serena

I don't look at pictures of me, typically. I found pictures of me as a child and I can't recognise me. I like showing my (closest) friends because it's so weird and I look funny and have funny faces and it doesn't look like me. I just can't recognise the long haired kid as me. Funnily enough, short haired five year old me I can recognise that is me. Teenage me (before I learnt to look ok) I can deal with, I mean it is cringey because I look like a girl with a Justin beiber hair cut (I was aiming for P!nk or Niall Horan but that doesn't work) but it's not too bad because it makes me think "well damn ain't I hot now".

Very uncomfortable. I'm pre-everything, but can't recognize myself at old pictures. I can't recognize myself in the mirror either. Looking at myself in old pictures are the same as looking at somebody else; maybe a person that died several years ago. Often I have no idea who that's supposed to be. My gender characteristics and the whole package look totally difference in my head. I still have black hair etc. So hair color etc. aren't pictured difference in my mind.

When I rarely look at one of the very few old pictures I see the wasted years of struggling pretending to be a guy when it was quite obvious that everybody could see that something was off so it is definitely uncomfortable. There was a period in my life when I couldn't look into any mirrors or at pictures of me without considerable effort.

I've never really done pictures. I always did my best to avoid them at any cost, and I have deleted/destroyed most of the handful that exist. There's just one that I can't get rid of, and I'm wearing a prom dress in it. I look absolutely hideous, but I was very much in love with the boy standing next to me, and now that he's deceased, there will never be another opportunity to get a picture of him. So I'm keeping it.  Really, the only picture of myself that I've ever liked was one taken by my girlfriend a little while back. It was the first time I've ever looked at an image of myself and thought "that's me! I look like a man!"

Thomas

Since coming out to my close family and closest family friends, I am getting bombarded with pictures, whilst I still have to maintain male mode for work and amongst family for now, its not me anymore and inside I hate it, but smile and put a brave face on it all.
Yes it is very painful.

Katy xx

Pictures of myself from the "before" are to be expunged. I know family still have a bunch but as long as they don't show me I'm ok with that.

Heck I don't think I'll ever be happy with pictures of myself. Pictures as a rule are something I've never really gotten.

I always feel like I'm kind of expected to be completely disgusted by past pictures and I remember these two instances, one where a close friend of mine asked if I wanted them to get rid of stuff involving the old me online and another when my mother asked if I was going to have a problem with old pictures of me because a lot of other transpeople do.

But the truth is I don't particularly feel disgusted with past pictures, to me it just shows me how much I've changed and I prefer to make light of it all. I just don't like the idea of trying to cover up the past because it feels too much like hiding the truth when I feel the better way at least for me is to just come in terms with it and accept it. In my mind I never viewed myself as obviously girl (even if I was in these pictures) and honestly I never even really saw the old femininity in my past face that others did until now that I'm passing as male.

I feel externally uncomfortable when I look at my prom pictures. It's like I am looking at someone completely different but I know it's me. That will most definitely be the last time I ever wear a dress again

I have mixed feelings but am generally fine with them. Sometimes I feel confused and disconnected, other times I'm like 'heeey ;)', and then occasionally I just shake my head and shrug. I do feel a bit weirded out though, because I don't feel like it was even me, or at least not me as I am now which I guess is true. I've literally become a different person in as many ways as possible. Enough of a change has occurred that my friends say I'm totally different and my own mother didn't recognize me as me in an old pic I showed her. It's just surreal, but I don't feel ashamed or dysphoric or anything. If anything, just sad and sorry for the guy that he had to go through everything that he did and that he felt like he had to pretend to be a guy. I see him sticking out his jaw to look more masculine, or scowling, and I remember the confusion and awkwardness of trying to be a man and not quite getting it. Glad I'm not him anymore and glad he isn't suffering that stuff anymore.

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Foi63.tinypic.com%2Fswd383.jpg&hash=77c4de487e793f8e4d4c77aae411f80704bd01bb)

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I am quite comfortable about my old pictures - there are few that exist.  Hey, that was me; I went through a lot of experiences and came out okay.  Yeh, I hate that last male picture (1981) because it is the only most-male of all old pictures.

Yes, my sadness comes because I also have no photographs of me as a girl during childhood or teen years though many people (my 'Team Sharon' doctors and counsellors over the years) who see pictures of the younger me actually tell me that they see a girl, not a boy.  I tried taking a 'selfie' (years ago as a child before that term existed) of me in my sister's clothes but the pictures did not come out well.

My dad took photographs of my sister and me getting autographs following a music performance (1973).  When he showed them to family, they said the one with my sister looked nice but wanted to know why he took pictures of a stranger girl and none of me.  Yep, I appeared very much female in that photograph.  I have not seen that picture in ages and I suspect my dad destroyed it because of those reactions.

My picture appears only basically in high school yearbooks - for example, only my class portrait for 9th Grade.  By 12th Grade, the book was printed with my face in the seam in the only picture other than the portrait.

Maybe because I had no operations other than my version of GCS for my inter-sex condition, the face and body of the person I see is the same me rather than one altered by FFS, BA, or other procedures.

Nor was I excessively insistent that people use my new name.  Sure, I knew all about me and my family did, too, since my earliest childhood, but I accepted giving them time.  Eventually, I perceived that family who used my new name did so with derision whereas my dad was among the few who never did use my new name, but at least he used my old name respectfully.

I recall well the few 'before' pictures that remain in existence; I can look at my old photographs, get nostalgic, remember every detail about that picture and that time, have a good cry, address my male predecessor as my former name, and talk to my old self.  We came out okay after all.  I don't deny my former me, in some ways I embrace my old me for having endured and survived - for having done so much and gone so far.

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I'm not one to reminisce and look at old pictures often, not of me at least - my family history and the huge album of old photo's my mum has are fascinating though(somewhat off topic I realise), but when I do I am typically fine with it.  I can't change the past, and to try an erase it would mean I lost the records of a lot of things I have done.  Sure I don't particularly like to see myself in boy mode but I know its something that can't be helped.

I don't particularly love looking at old pictures of myself, but I don't really hate it either honestly. It just feels very surreal, because it's odd to think I ever looked the way I did.

I see my pre-transition pictures once in a while on facebook when my friends share old picture. It doesn't bother me seeing them. Most of the tile I feel like I am looking at a stranger. But only thing I do is I request my friend not to tag me in those photos, cos that physical body in the pictures was not me. It was the mask I had to wear till I became my true self.   

I guess I get a bit uncomfortable if my family start going through old pics and start praising my appearance or something in the older photos. I know it's probably not meant to be insulting, but if they're admiring that and not my current look, it does seem like a little like disapproval or lamenting when I'm still right here. A person's look isn't more important than their actual selves.

That was actually one of the most annoying things I heard when coming out to my family. Instant praise for a female body they've never actually seen in full.

I have also hated having my picture taken since early teens.  Most of the time when it is "required" >:(  :(  ::) I have a reputation as someone who is hard to work with.  No Duh?!  I do not want to be here or have a history of my unhappy time.

I don't see many pictures of me as a kid, but I generally like them as I'm usually wearing clothes I felt comfortable in. I dislike seeing pictures of me as a teen, as puberty made it fairly obvious that I was AFAB despite the boys clothes I wore. I also look incredibly uncomfortable for the most part, I haven't been photogenic for ages. Pics of me as an adult are very hit and miss, but again, I feel pretty uncomfortable seeing them.

I have always had issues with myself in picture's and I have avoided mirrors and Camera's most of My life as they always showed somebody I did not associate as Myself. whenever I pictured myself In my mind I was always female and the camera's and mirrors showed this horrible Male thing So I hated it .Now I look at a Mirror or a photo and see an image that matches my internal image so much better and I feel a lot happier

Actually I'm more comfortable looking at my old photos. I was looking more andro/male before that.Before I decided to live as a woman. OMG I so hate my photos from recent years. :D Hopefully when I set in motion my plan on "changing look" before everything, I will be able to look at my photos without "OMG, I can't look at it".

Old photos are just another part of the historical reality I accepted when starting transition.  I cannot and would not expunge my memory or those of people who have known me.  Sure photos can be triggering and I am reminded how far we can go at any age.

The last thing I need is a memory eraser or more denial of the truth in my life.  Time will likely ravage all we now know soon enough.  And then a photo image is still just a two dimensional picture and we all have greater depth than that.

I'm okay with it.  They don't have much significance to me any more.  It's like I'm looking at pictures of somebody I used to know but who no longer has anything to do with my life.  I've turned the corner and I'm looking forward, not backwards.

When it comes to really old pictures of myself, it upsets me to look at them, but at the same time since I looked super androgynous growing up I just sort of convince myself that I looked like a boyish girl. Sometimes its sad too. I look back and see that innocent little kid that just wanted to be accepted and it brings back painful memories of my childhood. I never really liked getting my picture taken at all for as long as I remember too. If I could be given the chance to erase every single photo of me from the 4th grade up until now, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Sometimes its just too painful, especially since my mom has my senior picture on the wall outside my bedroom, reminding me everyday when I wake up that, that is how she will always see me... I can't believe I actually gave in and took them in the first place since I skipped picture day my sophomore year of high school due to dysphoria.

It really depends on the picture.  I have family pictures that I am in with relatives who have passed away or with my kids at various stages of their lives.  I also have pictures that commemorate important events.  All of these are a part of who I am as an individual today.  The pictures reflecting happy and positive periods of my life don't bother me all that much.  There are some that I absolutely hate and can't stand to look at them.  I have no problem with people seeing me as I was and seeing me as I am.  I actually am pretty proud of what I have been able to accomplish in my transition and I want other transgender ladies know that it is possible to dramatically change how the world sees you, and how you see yourself.  You can't do that if you don't acknowledge your past.       

Mum was going through some old family photos the other day and asked me if I wanted to see some old pics of me after I had just become a foster kid. Initially I declined but later I agreed and it was like looking at a completely different person. She knows that I don't like them but they are her pictures so I won't ask mum to destroy them. Just as long as these pics don't turn up at my wedding or whatever.