Hello,

I have a question that I would like to be answered. Yes, I know I am quite early on in my transition, however, my mother has posted stupendous amounts of photos of me as a male (most of which make me look quite ugly and unpleasant) and I don't feel comfortable with them. I am young, and yes, my mother understands but is somewhat unsupporting and believes they serve a memorable value (which is fair enough, but couldn't you keep the memorable photos for yourself somewhere private not for the world to display?) and it hurts. It was taken all against my consent and I really do not want these pictures being left online. I really dislike that when people would add my mother on Facebook, they would see all those glorious "before" photos and make fun of what I looked like.

This may have been asked before, but I think this would serve as a good recent board reminder. Is there any legal advice or anything I can do to have the pictures forcibly removed? I really would not like to force that onto my mother and compromise, but I'm afraid that she probably will not do so willingly. I understand the first few replies will tell me "discuss with her to remove them" but that's quite frankly just not going to happen realistically. Is there a legal option that anyone on this forum knows about or has information on this sort of situation?

I think you might be taking it a bit too far. Mom loves you and is probably unaware of how uncomfortable this makes you. Facebook and other social sites let you untag yourself from pictures. And it's very unusual for someone's friends to add their mother to FB so I don't think you'll have much of an issue.

Also, and I might be wrong, I don't think there's a law protecting people who think their old pictures look ugly.

I'm not sure about this, but I think you can flag the photos as being of "you" and that you don't want them online. 

I looked into it, and I found that if you click your photo, click the dots in the lower right corner and click "options" you can "report photo" for "I'm in this photo and I don't like it"

Quote from: AshleyPixune on April 23, 2018, 03:32:03 PM
I looked into it, and I found that if you click your photo, click the dots in the lower right corner and click "options" you can "report photo" for "I'm in this photo and I don't like it"

Great advice, and Aliii, you're totally right! NO ONE has the right to post pics of you online without your consent, including your mother. Posting pics of a child while they're young might seem cute - but once they get older, it gets uncomfortable. It's totally different having pics of a child on someone's phone/computer/home and showing them to friends etc. than having them online on a display for everyone to view!

I'm not familiar as to giving legal advice, but like Ashley there advised I'd think most social media sites etc. would have means to remove photos you don't like. And laws regarding this I'm sure vary in different countries/states/regions.

Report the FB pics as advised plus have a firm conversation with your mother. She totally doesn't get it, I totally get that. But she needs to know it's not okay to have pics of you on her accounts without your consent. That's probably illegal in many places too. (Though I'm not familiar with that, as said.) Even if it weren't outright legal, it's totally morally wrong at least. I think this issue you're dealing with is concerning many people as they grow older and want the unpleasant childhood/teenage/whatever pics removed. So you are totally not alone!!!

Your mom needs to understand that even though you're her child, that doesn't give her the right to share your pics online. My spouse doesn't like her pics being shared so I never share them with anyone. As simple as that.   

Whether you have in legal recourse is going to depend on where you are. In Australia, there's little law to cover you, you'd likely first have to prove in court you had a valid case - and then fight the case itself. This assumes that most of the pics were taken when you were a minor - in which case, consent was given by your parent, not you. And your ability to revoke that consent is questionable.

Short version? Unless you can convince your mother to take them down, you'll need to report each and every one and hope that the site policies are on your side.