I am sure by now many of you have heard through the grapevine about PittGirl, a Pittsburgh blogger who has been writing anonymously for some time now. Her writing is witty and edgy, and has quickly become one of my top five daily reads. However, she recently outed herself and shut her site down.  I don’t know the full story, but it appears that she chose to out herself before someone else did it for her. (That person should be ashamed of him or  herself!)  She was subsequently fired from her non profit job and is now getting all kinds of lovely hate mail from people who are hanging her out to dry. In reality, I think these nay-sayers are more upset because she is authentic and honest, and doesn’t feel compelled to apologize for it. Even when she was blogging anonymously, she still exuded this authenticity that is often lacking on the web. I am sure some people miss the mystique behind PittGirl, but honestly folks, her content still rocks!

Her situation made me think about the degrees of transparency (and anonymity) I have gone through in my decade of blogging. Good grief, has it really been THAT long? Anyway, I have always been out of the blogging closet. However, all of my other closets were the problem. I initially only gave the world the parts of me I thought people would accept. I hid all of the other parts of me away in a deep dark place, under lock and key. Over the years I have let more of me show, to the point where today I embrace an extremely transparent and open me. There are very few things I keep to myself these days.

My parents are have always been a bit uncomfortable with how open I am in my blog, especially regarding my birth father and my sexuality.  I don’t know how much that concern is based on safety, or if it has more to do with us disagreeing on the issues involved.  I love my parents dearly, but we often find ourselves on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

I have one cardinal rule that I will not break under any circumstances – I will only tell my own story. Unless I have prior approval, I will not pull anyone else into my story.

I am thankful that she (her name is Ginny) is back up and running on That’s Church. I dig the new platform and cannot wait to see what she has up her sleve!

So….how transparent are you in your blogging? Are you in, out, or somewhere in between? How has this changed over the years, if at all?