Joannas Diary: a TGirl Blog : Warning, May Contain Nuts

Monday, July 16, 2007

A question

Recently I removed a member from AngelFlickr because I was getting bored with seeing more and more of her images descending into TG fiction in a group devoted to just regular, real images of tgirls. I am basically not convinced that it is the same person in the pictures.

Now I am not doubting that she is a genuine tgirl - I haven't said that it is not her in the first few pages of her Flickr stream. It's just that some of the "family history" shots do not ring true...

I have just had a long email from her, accusing me of being jealous etc etc and having no proof that those pictures are not of her. So I am going to open it up to you, dear readers.

So the question is - are these photos all of the same person, totally genuine and not photoshopped mashups?

Original image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/98646064@N00/550228699/

Girl 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/98646064@N00/541761697/

Girl 3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/98646064@N00/573447905/

Girl 4: http://www.flickr.com/photos/98646064@N00/773165893/

Girl 5: http://www.flickr.com/photos/98646064@N00/783830567/

So before I definitely cry Fake, what's your opinion?

21 Comments:

At July 16, 2007 8:42 PM, Siobhan said…

Tricky, because the 'later' pictures are most likely real, yet there's almost obviously some historical retconning going on there.

(I mean, her boobs are bigger when she was young - is that physically possible?)

It's a shame really, and it angers me that she's using some kind of 'false evidence' to back up her defence. If she has, indeed (I don't know, didn't have the time to skim through her stream to see what these anti-gypsy comments were that she's talking about) been the victim of racial abuse, then she's every right to be upset. But trying to construct a defence based on a fictitious 'history' only serves to (a) cheapen the issues, and (b) add fuel to the fire.

This is all (natch) aside from the fact that her text-and-image pieces are bloody hideous, and some of the worst typography I've seen in a long time.
At July 16, 2007 9:04 PM, Joanna said…

In some shots she has images of her "boy" self... but these then do not conform to the images of her horseriding which must be the same time chronologically...

I'm sorry to hear she's had anti-gypsy comments - that's certainly not my agenda. I'd be questioning these images whatever the racial makeup...
At July 16, 2007 10:19 PM, N said…

Oh yeah, there shopped. Girl 2 is the second pic based on that body. In the first one Pissed off the head wasnt put on right and the tattoo was wider than both necks. If you upload the pic into photo shop and enlarge it you can see all the joins and brush work.

In some pics her tattoos are different patterns, sizes or in slightly different locations. I think its deliberately bad, for a reason. Exhibit A, exhibit B (interests). Wendys too canny to be fooled as easily as all the other people that comment on Maras pics, so i think shes certainly involved. Im uncertain about how Ishkandar fits into all this, but im very suspicious.

Other flickr accounts by the same person are: girljayla, Rigboys, sarahslade, redtartanterror, and scaldee.

Im sorry about the anonimity but i know of several people on flickr who shes out to slag off through her aliases. I just pity the poor fools who believe in all this troll-shit.

PS: i think the gypsy hate-mail story is a smoke screen and as real as her tattoos. The non-public photo thats in some groups, of a tattood 15 year old Mara in a tartan dress, has a twin axle caravan in the background. This has lo-profile alloys on it of a design that was introduced only a year or two back, not 1982. The horse drawn romany caravan in that picture has distinct shadows, whilst nothing else has... And why has she the tattoos before 'she went to Romania"?
At July 16, 2007 10:31 PM, Joanna said…

Thanks N. I knew there was another account with some of her pics, but had misplaced the addy...

And yeah, the head placement is very odd in some of them.
At July 17, 2007 7:10 AM, Emma G said…

This is the same person you questioned awhile back. At that point you asked about a TG art movement you might be unaware of. The pictures then were definitely photoshopped, but I was willing to allow the benefit of the doubt that the intentions were for personal explorations. Apparently, there's a bit more deception as motivation. Most of the shots, when viewed at original size (many are rather small) are obvious manipulations. The neck changes sizes above and below the tattoo. In on "street" sho, everyone else's shoes cast shadows, her's do not. The retouching is very blatant on the face. And the masking used to composite the horse riding photos is very sloppy along the edges, and badly pixelated, from using different resolutions in the composites.
I'm rather sorry I put up an unintentional defence for her motives before.
At July 17, 2007 7:39 AM, Joanna said…

Thanks Emma. I appreciate if they are some kind of art work, similar to TG captioned images (that I also do) but they fall foul of the group rules for AngelFlickr in that they are photoshopped heads/bodies etc. For that reason I removed them from the group.

But since she is now claiming that they are really her.. then there is more of an issue, because they clearly are not.

To follow up from N's post.. I have now had "supportive" statements from Scaldee and sarahslade on the Angelflickr group. Must be confusing juggling all these multiple identities!
At July 17, 2007 8:36 AM, Joanna said…

Take this image... and view it large.

Frames 1 and 3 are absolutely identical images, with some changes to the face.

Also, bizarrely in Frame 1 there is the addition of a photograph she is holding in her hands... which looks like this image on a "related" stream, but with a moustache drawn on it.

Now either this is deliberate - and is some kind of odd art project, or someone is completely hatstand.
At July 17, 2007 9:37 AM, Stephanie Delacey said…

What worries me is that I once got a comment from Mara claiming that I was the spitting image of Sarah Slade - or at least could pass for her mother!!!
At July 17, 2007 5:37 PM, Gillian said…

Fake as a tranny fanny
At July 18, 2007 12:21 AM, Isobel said…

I'd thought that she was a relatively sophisticated troll, and as such not to be fed. Her use of the racial abuse card, which remains independantly unsubstantiated, and her meek-and-mild identification with the persecuted TG underdog are quite skillful. I almost feel as if I admire her for her audacity, but then I remember those photos...

Reading through her profile and photostream, there are obvious chronological discrepancies in her life story (emphasis on story) as well as the photos.

She was banned from The Transgendered Generation, probably at about the same time, and presumably for the same reason. The fallout from that nearly destroyed the group. It may still do so.
From what I've been able to read of the arguments, lots of otherwise cogent people identify with her because she claims to be persecuted.

N mentioned Ishkandar. From what I remember of his appearance some months ago, I can see a certain faux-innocent provocation repeated in what Mara says.

I've no experience of the other pseudo-clones mentioned, so I can't comment. It would be interesting to identify the originating ISP account numbers for them all to see if they are one and the same person, wouldn't it?

This is from an e-mail she sent me about being banned:
"I have just been told by a friend that I have been banned, now I dont usually bother about such things, but since I won a considerable amount of money winning a shemale contest recently, I have been bombarded with hatemail from some of the TG community and banned from certain groups on flickr."
What contest? I was under the impression that Flickr generated an e-mail to inform the person who's banned.

@ Stephanie: thinking about your comment from 'Mara', that might lend weight to the theory about Wendy's involvement... Hmmm...

I think someone is laughing very loudly at all this... and it's not me.
At July 18, 2007 5:29 AM, Joanna said…

Locked the thread on AngelFlickr last night, just got worn down by Mara's continued pseudo psychobabble.

Strangely a few hours later, WendySutherland joined angelflickr, just to comment on poor wee Mara. She's definitely involved.

I've banned the lot of them for now, all versions of her identity until I can work out how to proceed.
At July 18, 2007 7:58 AM, Becky said…

Talking about "versions of identity" have you seen the testimonials on her flickr profile? Nearly all of them are blatantly obvious fake profiles set up by her self.

The amount of effort that's gone into this fakery beggars belief.
At July 18, 2007 3:41 PM, rachel said…

ROFL - at Mara... for the avoidance of doubt!
At July 18, 2007 7:03 PM, Joanna said…

It's really quite strange really...

This is her at 17 (apparently)

Yet this is her at 16

She is supposed to have been "cruelly tatooed" at 16 yet those tattoos are a late invention since they don't appear in any early pics of 41 year old mara.

I really wish I could find the original pics out there on the internet. The one of the girl on the horse must be out there somewhere.

Also - is there any way to check the exif data of images once they have been uploaded and squished by flickr? Wondering if I can tie the various accounts together via any of that info...?
At July 18, 2007 10:26 PM, Isobel said…

The account holder can withold the exif data from being displayed, and in this case it has. Oh what a surprise!

I've just had a read of that Angels thread. WTF?

I had another look at that Ishkandar fellow. I don't think they are more closely connected than being in a lot of private porn-type groups together. I've been told that Mara's tattoos extend to her penis. Thankfully for her, 'shopping is a lot less painfull than an ink needle.
At July 20, 2007 12:38 AM, Emma G said…

I don't envy any group admins having to be forced into the role of policing a group. I find myself feeling both sorry for "Mara" and incredibly angry. On one had her life would seem pretty empty to have to perpertrate such an elaborate hoax. On the other, I resent her circumventing all the personal questioning, emotional confusion, fear etc, that coming to terms with any level of being TG requires. The racial component is simply a "trump" card which makes her that much more difficult to confront.
There is a certain irony in anyone chosing to pretend to be TG. I'm wondering what they feel they're missing. I can think of quite a few moments in my life that I'd give her willingly to experience.
Good Luck Joanna on sorting it out.
At July 20, 2007 9:27 AM, Isobel said…

Do these features look familiar to anyone? That's another pseudo-clone, I believe. They seem to be popping up everywhere these days. It's funny how they all use the same voice or tone, isn't it?

Coincidentally, Wendy, like so many of these pseudo-clones, is ex-army.
At July 20, 2007 9:32 AM, Joanna said…

Looks familiar :) Can't see any images though. This one's Jewish.. AND Romany. Glad I am half-jewish too, can't be accused of being antisemitic if I question him/her ;)
At July 25, 2007 10:22 PM, Bea said…

Ah - it's not just me then who reads and sees with my antenae twitching and my suspicious mind running twenty to the dozen ...
At August 10, 2007 5:18 PM, Alli' Cat' said…

OK, so I've arrived at this party rather late - but maybe that's a good thing. I notice that the majority of the pictures / accounts referenced in this discussion, for the purposes of comparison, have been deleted.
Probably just a coincidence ;-)
At August 10, 2007 5:28 PM, Joanna said…

Yeah either the photos have gone, or she's decided to make them friends only so general viewers cannot view them.

The accounts are still there, just the names have been changed on a few of them this week.