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transFour years ago, when I was a student, I was very liberal with my identity on the web. I was transitioning and talking about being trans, both in trans and non-trans communities, helped life make sense.
Eighteen months ago, I was made redundant. I was extremely lucky to be able to walk straight into another job at the time - I was 25 at the time and I live apart from family with a long-term partner, a full-time student, who is dependent on my income. It could have been a difficult situation, and I was very happy and grateful to be able to start a great new job.
One lunchtime on my first week in the job, I discuss blogging with my superior and a few of my colleagues. I explained that I have two blogs, one is for me to write about topics relating to my profession, the other is a personal blog that I choose to keep "out of the way" - in my own words. The latter is in reference to my Livejournal account.
My superior said that he had found my Livejournal account and in his own words was "not out of the way enough". I felt as if I'd had the floor pulled out from underneath me, I felt sick. Regrettably, as this is now eighteen months ago, I cannot precisely remember what was said and how much of my reaction was based on what actually happened rather than my interpretation. My inference, though, is that he meant that I had intended on keeping my Livejournal account private, that I hadn't succeeded in doing so and that I probably should have been more careful.
My immediate reply is broadly in line with my original intention with my Livejournal account. It's not private; I keep no secrets*; I enjoy talking about myself and people are welcome to talk to me.
I had started writing using Livejournal while I was still a student before Twitter and Facebook were popular. My university friends all used it, it was used as a social network at the time. When Twitter and Facebook became prime social networks, its primary use for me was to keep in-touch with the trans community and to keep a record of my life. As such, it's now inseparable from my public web identity, which is how my superior, and potentially anyone, is able to find it with little effort.
I can't help feeling vulnerable since what has happened. I've tried to go back through my archive and make much of my posts friends-only, I've renamed my Twitter account to attempt to free it of the association with my public web identity, and my writing to Livejournal has dried up. The reality of my reaction is in contrast to my stated aim of keeping no secrets.
I'm beginning to see the beginnings of stealth. I used to be very open and happy to talk about being trans, and to some extent I still am. I still talk with many of my friends and peers about it, but I've now gone eighteen months working in a job where my history has not been open. I used to think that there simply hadn't been a very good opportunity to talk about it, but on reflection I feel that the incident in the first week has left me feeling insecure and vulnerable, and this is where my the seeds of my own stealth are being sown.
I'm in a fairly good place for work, I feel very employable and I don't think I'm at risk of losing my job, or at risk of struggling to look for work if the worst were to happen. I'm also fairly happy about where I am working and who I am working with, despite the difficult incident to start with. However, I've identified an insecurity that would cause me to control information about myself in a way that could bring about the situation of stealth, and severing my identities on the web and in real life. That insecurity is work.
It's not my intention to live in stealth. I am happy talking to people about my history, I enjoy having a very low margin of personal information that I keep in reserve when talking to any given person. I'm also very much missing keeping in touch with the trans community at a time when I need a connection the most - the three most immediate events in my schedule are gamete storage, SRS consultation and then getting a firm date for SRS.
I'm planning on keeping my Livejournal account open, and to re-open some select entries that I feel secure about being public. I've also decided to post directly to communities for the first time, instead of simply relying on friends lists (I've not at all done this before, so hello Transgender). I'm not planning on tweeting every time that I update my blog, but hoping to link back to specific posts to provide contextual information when replying to people on Twitter, instant messaging or IRC.
So hello, everyone, and thoughts and suggestions would be welcome.
* "keeping no secrets" is not in so much in reference to my thoughts on stealth, more it is in reference to my Livejournal account. My personal feelings on stealth and on disclosure to any given person is that I would prefer to have a low threshold of disclosure**; I have no firm policy, but I currently have a higher threshold at work than I have in the past. Circumstances may change such that I may change the "threshold of disclosure"**.
** "Threshold of disclosure" would mean the kinds of topics that I choose to talk about publicly that would result, directly or indirectly, in disclosing my trans history to someone.
Eighteen months ago, I was made redundant. I was extremely lucky to be able to walk straight into another job at the time - I was 25 at the time and I live apart from family with a long-term partner, a full-time student, who is dependent on my income. It could have been a difficult situation, and I was very happy and grateful to be able to start a great new job.
One lunchtime on my first week in the job, I discuss blogging with my superior and a few of my colleagues. I explained that I have two blogs, one is for me to write about topics relating to my profession, the other is a personal blog that I choose to keep "out of the way" - in my own words. The latter is in reference to my Livejournal account.
My superior said that he had found my Livejournal account and in his own words was "not out of the way enough". I felt as if I'd had the floor pulled out from underneath me, I felt sick. Regrettably, as this is now eighteen months ago, I cannot precisely remember what was said and how much of my reaction was based on what actually happened rather than my interpretation. My inference, though, is that he meant that I had intended on keeping my Livejournal account private, that I hadn't succeeded in doing so and that I probably should have been more careful.
My immediate reply is broadly in line with my original intention with my Livejournal account. It's not private; I keep no secrets*; I enjoy talking about myself and people are welcome to talk to me.
I had started writing using Livejournal while I was still a student before Twitter and Facebook were popular. My university friends all used it, it was used as a social network at the time. When Twitter and Facebook became prime social networks, its primary use for me was to keep in-touch with the trans community and to keep a record of my life. As such, it's now inseparable from my public web identity, which is how my superior, and potentially anyone, is able to find it with little effort.
I can't help feeling vulnerable since what has happened. I've tried to go back through my archive and make much of my posts friends-only, I've renamed my Twitter account to attempt to free it of the association with my public web identity, and my writing to Livejournal has dried up. The reality of my reaction is in contrast to my stated aim of keeping no secrets.
I'm beginning to see the beginnings of stealth. I used to be very open and happy to talk about being trans, and to some extent I still am. I still talk with many of my friends and peers about it, but I've now gone eighteen months working in a job where my history has not been open. I used to think that there simply hadn't been a very good opportunity to talk about it, but on reflection I feel that the incident in the first week has left me feeling insecure and vulnerable, and this is where my the seeds of my own stealth are being sown.
I'm in a fairly good place for work, I feel very employable and I don't think I'm at risk of losing my job, or at risk of struggling to look for work if the worst were to happen. I'm also fairly happy about where I am working and who I am working with, despite the difficult incident to start with. However, I've identified an insecurity that would cause me to control information about myself in a way that could bring about the situation of stealth, and severing my identities on the web and in real life. That insecurity is work.
It's not my intention to live in stealth. I am happy talking to people about my history, I enjoy having a very low margin of personal information that I keep in reserve when talking to any given person. I'm also very much missing keeping in touch with the trans community at a time when I need a connection the most - the three most immediate events in my schedule are gamete storage, SRS consultation and then getting a firm date for SRS.
I'm planning on keeping my Livejournal account open, and to re-open some select entries that I feel secure about being public. I've also decided to post directly to communities for the first time, instead of simply relying on friends lists (I've not at all done this before, so hello Transgender). I'm not planning on tweeting every time that I update my blog, but hoping to link back to specific posts to provide contextual information when replying to people on Twitter, instant messaging or IRC.
So hello, everyone, and thoughts and suggestions would be welcome.
* "keeping no secrets" is not in so much in reference to my thoughts on stealth, more it is in reference to my Livejournal account. My personal feelings on stealth and on disclosure to any given person is that I would prefer to have a low threshold of disclosure**; I have no firm policy, but I currently have a higher threshold at work than I have in the past. Circumstances may change such that I may change the "threshold of disclosure"**.
** "Threshold of disclosure" would mean the kinds of topics that I choose to talk about publicly that would result, directly or indirectly, in disclosing my trans history to someone.