Hi everyone.

Sorry I haven't been around... got really busy and fell out of the habit of coming here. I want to be better about that.

The reason I'm posting is because I'm working on an article on trans women who express their female identity purely online, whether temporarily or permanently. I was wondering if any of you are either in that situation or have had this experience in the past, of joining online communities or having identities on social media as a woman while still living your physical life in your assigned gender, and what that experience was like for you.

Please feel free to respond below or send me a message. I might quote you anonymously but won't include any identifying information in the article unless I ask you explicitly. Thanks so much.

This is an interesting post.

For me its more of I'm female stuck in a male body and online you get the freedom to be open with what you are so I'm female online and currently male in real life until I'm able to change then I'll be female in both but for me its a release of some of the anxiety until I can make the rest match.

Hope that helps your article.

I did that for a short while and enjoyed it in a way.  Any time you're interacting with others in your true gender, it's a pleasure.  But in a way it's also frustrating.  You're still in the closet, but you've got the door open a crack and you can see a little chink of light.  It makes you want to get out full-time.  It makes you want to live in the light.  That's what I've been doing for two years now.  When you're out, that's when you feel "real".  For me, being online like that doesn't truly make you feel real because for the most part you're still in hiding.

Thanks so much for the responses. I really appreciate the perspective, especially since I didn't really identify as a woman online until I started doing the same in real life.

Mandonlym...
Hi... Yup very interesting and probably something that is more common than people would admit too...
At this point I fall into that category, because I need something to "push" me to really understand my path to being the real me.
The fall out of me actually moving into my real identity across the family (kids and grandkids) could be devastating to them and possibly me, therefore joining (at last) these forums will give me insight into how it was handled, the reactions and stories of others in similar situations. Also maybe my own situation could help others as I have lived mis-gendered since a very young age (pre 10yo), knowing that and hiding for all those years creates a need to suppress and hide those desires to be who you really are... I choke when I think of all those wasted years, but love my kids and grandkids to bits....

Please reach out if you need help in your quest, have a lot to get off my breast, love it now that I can call my chest breasts.

Love Katy

Quote from: mandonlym on November 17, 2014, 01:37:51 PM
Hi everyone.

Sorry I haven't been around... got really busy and fell out of the habit of coming here. I want to be better about that.

The reason I'm posting is because I'm working on an article on trans women who express their female identity purely online, whether temporarily or permanently. I was wondering if any of you are either in that situation or have had this experience in the past, of joining online communities or having identities on social media as a woman while still living your physical life in your assigned gender, and what that experience was like for you.

Please feel free to respond below or send me a message. I might quote you anonymously but won't include any identifying information in the article unless I ask you explicitly. Thanks so much.

Expressing female identity online can be a good exercise for being in the real world. Initially I expressed my femininity online, and thereafter in the real world, quite successfully. Also uploading my photos in Facebook has helped greatly people understand and accept my female identity. A photo is worth more than 1,000 words.

barbie~~

Just need to add that I beleive that there are suspicions, certainly now as I have to (semi) conceal my breasts, also by comments and actions of those around me sometimes... Kinda important and maybe the key to move forward on?

L Katy

Thanks Katy. The article as it's developing is focusing on a friend who I've known for more than a decade, who for that long a time is identifying as a woman purely online while I've since transitioned, even though she's actually known she's trans for a lot longer than me. It's partly about our parallel experience but also I guess to me, what "real life" means and how we engage and identify who we are. To me now as I'm talking to you, you're not just a woman on my screen but I'm imagining you out there as a woman. And if we were to meet in real life, all my feelings about you would be influenced by my knowledge about who you feel yourself to be. And maybe it's just experience, but over the years it's come a lot more naturally to think and interact with people according to how they identify, regardless of how they seem to be presenting. So it becomes this fascinating question, what it means not to be your true gender in real life. It shifts the focus on how someone presents herself to how the person is asking to be perceived, through what gendered lens we understand her actions, regardless of how she behaves or dresses.

I present myself female online all the time now. I've had a hard time figuring myself out and the internet was a safe playground.

You can act like the real you even tho you are looking like a hairy ape. Nobody judges, because they don't know. It's also the reason why I basicly lock myself up inside nowadays... Outside I got no one who knows the real me. On the internet I've made some good friends who know I'm trans. They could talk to the real me without the transsexuality being a wall.

Ummm, ok. When I first discovered online chat rooms (IRC and suchlike) - it was about 15 years ago or smth, I had a habit from time to time to chat under female nicknames. I just found that to be funny and looking back now, I cannot imagine how I was never found out. Those guys must have been blind. Anyway, I did not really identify as a woman back then (I suspected that I was most probably transsexual but had very little understanding of nature of that phenomenon, apart of knowledge that transsexuals wished to be born into the opposite gender (just like I did), and undergo several surgeries (something which I never considered possible in my case). So, that was rather a kink... or maybe a way to find some sort of relief. Funny, but those memories about IRC chatting were somehow suppressed and I only recalled them when started to think about my experience in online communities.

Now, the online gaming. I used to be an active gamer but I did not play online games. Yet, when I started and chose the MMORPG, my first alt was female... Just because I thought it would be fun and because everybody knows that all those female alts are run by guys behind keyboards. But I have to say, I did enjoy that experience, although many other guys were running female alts and we used Team Speak and it was fairly obvious who was who.

And then, I read about Second Life and something very very strange clicked in my head. I dont really remember if that was one of triggers or it just coincided with some other events going on, but it was a matter of few days when I had nicely looking female alt, had made several male and female acquaintances and nobody ever had a clue. I kept socialising and learning about world of Second Life and did many things of which I am ashamed now, but still nobody ever got clue... I was making female girlfriends who kept telling me things which usually are not being told to guys and it really felt being accepted there. Except, it created such a huge gap between online life and reality that all this deeply repressed dysphoria just broke out of its iron cage and I was standing there with no coping mechanisms left, wide-eyed with terror because I could not understand what was happening. It was a matter of days as I started online research and kept reading about GD, transsexualism and realised that everything is just beginning.
So, in a sense, when I used online escape mechanisms, I did not really identify as a woman, but they helped me to overcome some inner barriers and realise who I really was.
And then, I was using Second Life as some sort of training grounds to figure out how to deal with guys in a safe environment. And I was never clocked .

Thanks so much everyone. This is really valuable. Emily, I'm really interested in your idea of using life as a training ground. I guess that's interesting to me because in a lot of ways, I used clubs as my training ground in real life, dressing as a woman in places that are dark and it's more acceptable to be in "costume." There's not a lot of difference in a way...

Hi Mandonlym... Agree totally the perceptions created by presence and static images build your perception of somebody... Thankyou for your feedback by the way... Positivity is alway's good!

Luna Star... I have also in the past presented myself as female online, and you are correct in what you say, this time I am also presenting "selfies" as further identification of who I am, un-retouched and taken when I can be me... The problem with this is that it may be seen as a "false" images. However, I am determined to  press on and create change in my life.

Interested in the facebook side can I present a new me and relatively protect myself from myself without thinking the whole fallout through... Hmmmm

Love Katy

Quote from: mandonlym on November 17, 2014, 05:05:12 PM
Thanks so much everyone. This is really valuable. Emily, I'm really interested in your idea of using life as a training ground. I guess that's interesting to me because in a lot of ways, I used clubs as my training ground in real life, dressing as a woman in places that are dark and it's more acceptable to be in "costume." There's not a lot of difference in a way...

I guess, online life presented a safer environment. at least for me, than any kind of club scene. Having always been extremely shy, I have never been to a club in my life as a guy, not even speaking about a possibility of going there dressed as a woman. Especially, since at that time there was like zero chance of passing due to frame size and facial features. As was mentioned before, in online life You can look like an ape and nobody would know that anyway.

Quote from: katrinaw on November 17, 2014, 05:06:59 PM
Luna Star... I have...

I have an online mtf friend who photoshops her images to look just like a girl. Although I can understand that you want a goal and such I can't help but worry about her expectations being too high or for the "lying" to other people with pictures.

When playing games online or MMORPG's I always play as a female character because it always felt right and is some what of a way to deal with the dysphoria. I also starting playing phone app games and presented my self as female to see what it is was to have people to treat me as female. I love it, it fells great to be have people think of me how i feel inside. 

I recently wrote something pretty similar.  If you haven't found them yet, here were some articles you might want to search for.  I found them pretty useful in my research.

Bargh, J.A., Fitzsimon, G.M., & McKenna, K.Y.A. (2002). Can You See the Real Me? Activation and Expression of the "True Self" on the Internet. Journal of Social Issues, 58(1), 33-48. doi: 10.1111/1540-4560.00247

and

Hill, Darryl B. (2005). Coming to terms: Using technology to know identity. Sexuality and Culture, 9(3), 24-52.

Thanks so much for the references!