I actually touched on this a bit in a topic last month (How Open To Be About Transitioning), but social media wasn't actually the topic and after the recent Facebook dust up over "real names", I've been giving this some thought, so here I am.
As I said in the above entry I mentioned, I'm not a huge social media person by any stretch. I guess there are a lot of reasons for it, probably the single biggest one is that I'm by nature a fairly private person - or at least I used to be. Truthfully I only joined Facebook originally to play Farmville with my wife J and my daughter P and while that original account has (well had, I started cleaning it up today which is another reason I'm writing about this now) between 1300 and 1400 "friends", 95+ percent of those are simply people who I played the various games on Facebook with. They were people I really didn't know, although over time I grew to recognize certain names and would interact with them outside of the games on occasion. A couple of those people have become friends over the years and despite never actually meeting them I do cherish those friendships for what they are. Beyond Facebook; there was Twitter, LinkedIn (although that was/is mostly a work thing), lots of "forums" all over the place, and so on.
When I chose to go "full time" as Madison, one of the first things I did do was create a new Facebook account under that name. Some people chose to rename their existing one, but I didn't want to do that for a couple of reasons. The single biggest one was that I wanted the Madison account to be more of a personal thing. I had no intention of playing games on it (though I do play Candy Crush Saga from time to time), and as such I felt I didn't need 1000+ people I didn't really know associated with that account. I also wanted to be able to pick and chose who I talked to about my transition and when I did it. I wasn't sure how those conversations would play out, and by creating a new account and carefully inviting people to interact with it I was able to focus on people who I felt were really and truly friends and/or would be supportive and without fail everyone that I chose to invite were friendly and supportive. I don't spend as much time there as I used to as the account does only have about 40 or so "friends/family" and I've taking a liking to Google+ so my time tends to be split fairly evenly between the two.
I also created a fresh account for Twitter as Madison, although I barely use it, mostly only to express my feelings towards particular businesses (both good and bad), though I do follow a few people there such as Janet Mock, George Takei, and the like. I do have accounts elsewhere such as Pinterest, but that's mostly for myself to look at recipes and such. The only account I didn't create a fresh start for was LinkedIn - partially because I'm not a fan of it in the first place and partially for the reason I'm writing today - and that's because I'm not entirely sure how best to handle things as it relates to me now as Madison and the "old me".
I do consider myself "out" - or at least as much as I can feasibly be. For those that have read this blog before that pretty much means everything other than work. Without delving back into work (there are blog entries that touch on that) - they weren't very receptive to me transitioning and as such I'm not really and truly out when it comes to that. When I have to travel I do so as Madison, but when I'm actually dealing with people face-to-face I have to present as the "old me" and while I don't like it, it's the lesser evil since I do like my job and I really and truly believe not doing that would cost me the job one way or the other. Because of that I feel that I really can't be Madison on LinkedIn - it would be far to easy for my employer or one of our business partners to "connect the dots" and that likely would not have a happy ending.
So now six paragraphs in, I can finally get to the crux of this post and that is what to do with all of those "old accounts"... As I said above the Facebook issues recently made me start thinking about things and I actually signed into that old account earlier today. I hadn't been on there in a good while and personally I didn't expect any issues with the account as I had to "verify" it last October - at first I was concerned since my drivers license, birth certificate, etc., had already been changed to say Madison, but thankfully I had not yet changed the name on my passport so I was able to use that to prove it was my real name - although in hindsight perhaps the best thing would have been for me to have said to h*ll with it and let them close it then. However, I was still playing games there on rare occasions, so I jumped through their hoops to keep the account.
Well, when I signed in today, I probably had a good 100 "happy birthday's" on my timeline from a few days ago, and for whatever reason that sort of made my decision for me. That account needs to go - it was never really something I used other than to play games and I really never sign into it any longer. I did take the time to post a status update thanking everyone for the birthday wishes and explaining that I no longer played any of the games and that I'd be closing out the account soon for "personal reasons". In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have said anything and just simply shut the account, but that seemed rude to do, hence the way I chose to handle it.
Now it wouldn't be too hard to connect one account to the other for people - in fact one person did rather quickly - and that's really the reason that my original account needs to go. I'm no longer that person - I am Madison - it's how I live, it's who I legally am, and while I wouldn't change anything in my past unless I could be 100% guaranteed that I'd still have what I have today - I also no longer feel a need to stay connected with that past. I have a wonderful new life as Madison; and all in all a very happy life. I was never "miserable" pre-transition, but I was also never really "happy" either and I am now. While I can't do much about work short of "seeking life elsewhere" and as of now I really don't want to do that, beyond work there is no reason for me to have any reminders of my pre-transition life - at least via things such as Facebook and the like. As far as the other accounts under the "old me", well I barely use those anymore so they'll go too - at least as much as is possible. I realize that I can't just make the "old me" up and disappear, but the reality for me is that the more I can clean up the better off I think I'll be in the long run. I'm not ashamed or embarrassed about my life "pre-Madison", but I also don't need/want the reminders that my life wasn't always as good as it is now.
- M
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