"In opportune moments between what she calls “work zone” and “family zone,” Eve logs onto Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, where she interacts with her large group of friends as the woman she feels herself to be. Eve has used her female name on these sites for over a decade, and has identified as a woman online for more than 20 years. Most people who engage with Eve assume she presents as a woman offline, too. But to her wife, she is a husband, and to her daughters she is Daddy. Eve relies on her interactions on social media — with people who treat and perceive her as a woman — to sustain herself in both real and virtual worlds. She calls her online social life the “release valve” that eases her gender dysphoria.
I’ve known Eve since college, before either of us began our transition. To outsiders, Eve’s life can seem baffling. As an openly trans person, I myself have found it hard to understand at times. There’s something profoundly unsettling about the idea of living as one person — the wrong person — for much of the day and only finding solace online. The desire for others to share and affirm one’s sense of reality is fundamental, and it’s hard to imagine living without it, especially for a feature as important as gender. For Eve, investing in online communities under an assumed name allowed her to explore the idea of being female, and then develop a full digital existence as a woman, without jeopardizing the daily order of her physical life. Frozen by the fear of losing her family, she restrains herself from physically transitioning in any way. This balance has worked for 14 years."https://medium.com/matter/searching-for-eve-57dd59bfa539#.d8rp64r29
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