What constitutes passability?

[Nero]

This goes beyond clothing, looks or the particular activity you're engaged in at any one time, and really is about sending invisible waves of femaleness (or maleness...) to those around you.

I agree that vibe and 'being' are so important, but before we generalize about this, can you acknowledge that we don't all start out with a level playing field? Someone who is young, 5'7", looks very female and has a pretty good voice can send out 'waves of femaleness' and will just be accepted as a woman. Someone who 6'2", doesn't facially pass, has hair issues and, perhaps, not an especially female voice putting out 'waves of femaleness' will have people assuming they're gay or a crossdresser. This has nothing to do with how female you are inside, some of it is just dumb luck.

I agree. I've had passable ftms (those with naturally androgynous faces and voices) tell me 'it's all in the attitude'.
Well, it doesn't matter how much 'attitude' or confidence you have if you have a feminine face and a voice like Marilyn Monroe.

Posted on: July 12, 2007, 06:08:26 PM

My concern in this thread is that we're somehow stigmatizing people who don't pass, perhaps because their 'vibe' isn't right, when a lot of times, it's due to physical issues or just getting better with voice, presentation, whatever.

There is a stigma throughout the TS community to those who don't pass - one that I've felt here in the past.
People think that because a lot of pre-testosterone ftms pass (or claim to ), that an ftm who doesn't isn't trying hard enough or emanating the right 'vibe' from their being. (I can't take testosterone at this time due to medical issues)
People have suggested I do everything including losing weight - I have a very male pattern fat distribution, so rest assured that is NOT the reason I don't pass. I've been doing everything I can to 'present as male' for more than a decade. If there were something I wasn't doing right, I think I'd have figured it out by now. I really resent being given passing advice and criticism from ftms who were clad in skirts no less than a month ago.

The thing is - there are lots of genetic women who could pass for a young male if they chopped off their hair, wiped off the makeup, and put on men's clothes. It really is just sheer dumb luck.

[Sarah Louise]

No matter what you look like, you have to live your life according to who you are.  Let the public be damned.

Most people walking around never look that close at those whom they walk by, they are too busy with their own life to worry about others.  I think maybe we look closer at others because we are TS, we shouldn't.

Sarah L.

[Thundra]

Oy vey. Still with the passing thing.

Everyone should already know my POV, but if not, here it is again:

The point about passing, is that there is no point. If you have to pass as something, than it means that you are not that thing, because you are trying to pretend that you are that thing, and actively working to prevent people from knowing that you are not that thing. If you have to think about "it," you are not "it." Mature women do not wake up and think about whether they are a woman that day. They are a woman. Teenage girls wake up and wonder about how to be seen as a grown up woman, and vice versa boys and men. More on that below.

I take the blame for this one too:

Quote from: Leigh on January 21, 2006, 03:25:18 PM
What Makes a Woman", or a man for that matter

In one of the previous incarnations of Susan's I started a thread:  Passing or Acceptance?
Would you rather totally pass as a woman and not be accepted as one or be accepted totally as one but not pass as one.  200 + replies later the verdict was still not in.

Leigh

It came out of a discussion we had around the kitchen table.

See, in the lesbian world, in the world of dykes, and in the greater world community, many women would not fit your popular caricature of what a woman should look like, be like, behave like. The whole idiom of passing is based on a barbie doll mentality. It's high schoolish.

Someone made the correct observation that older women that have transitioned have a gradual lessening of fear about being 'outed' and more of a laissez faire attitude toward the whole passing mentality. I think that it is due to the personalities involved growing up. Let's face it. This whole thing is major trauma for all of you. It is accurate to compare it to PTSS, which leaves the person involved left in a state of perpetual childhood.

As Tink has pointed out to me, I have to back off and let you guys and gals go thru puberty.
To go through the awkward stages that most people take for granted. Passing is only going to be important to you until you become comfortable in your own skins, until you are allowed to let your personality grow, and until you are confident in the women and men that you are. Eventually, you go on with your lives and all of this bookish obsession with definitions and what is basically peer pressure will all fade away, just like for non-transitioning kids.

Of everyone here, I feel that Melissa has the best handle on "it." Concentrate on being you, and being happy being you, and the rest, you will find, does not matter a whit. Until then, you will all continue in your own version of teenage angst.

I feel stupid and contagious
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My Libido
Yay, a denial

~ smells like teen spirit, nirvana

[Hypatia]

I can't figure myself out sometimes. When I think I really do have myself figured out, and am well on the way to where I want to be, something comes along and knocks me back into confusion again. For example. The advice that follows? Not only do I wholeheartedly believe it and give similar advice to others, I genuinely felt it as true of me.

If you have to pass as something, than it means that you are not that thing, because you are trying to pretend that you are that thing, and actively working to prevent people from knowing that you are not that thing. If you have to think about "it," you are not "it." Mature women do not wake up and think about whether they are a woman that day. They are a woman. Teenage girls wake up and wonder about how to be seen as a grown up woman, and vice versa boys and men.

And then just when I was starting to feel really secure as described above, I try to talk with others and in comparison with them, I realize I was nowhere near what they are describing, and start to spiral down into the pit of gloom again, wondering just how badly have I deluded myself this time.

I was so happy I was making progress, but then in perspective I see others who have been hugely successful at it, and not only does my progress appear teeny tiny in comparison, they rub it in by belittling me for daring to presume I could be in the same league as them.

See, in the lesbian world, in the world of dykes, and in the greater world community, many women would not fit your popular caricature of what a woman should look like, be like, behave like. The whole idiom of passing is based on a barbie doll mentality. It's high schoolish.

I am having a hard time getting what you mean by this, in the light of what was said by others in this thread... when no one knows your natal sex... when they can't believe you used to be male, for example... from very un-Barbie looking girls. They are using the whole idiom of passing too, but Barbie has nothing to do with what they're talking about.

Passing is only going to be important to you until you become comfortable in your own skins, until you are allowed to let your personality grow, and until you are confident in the women and men that you are. Eventually, you go on with your lives and all of this bookish obsession with definitions and what is basically peer pressure will all fade away, just like for non-transitioning kids.

I believe this wholeheartedly... I was feeling so comfortable in my own skin! A few months ago, I walked into a women's club, walked right up to a table of old ladies, introduced myself, and asked if I could join them, so they invited me to sit with them. I know really well by now how it feels when people read you as trans, but ignore it to be polite. I did not feel that this time, the vibes I got from them told me I was not being read as trans. I was simply being a woman because I know that's who I am. I wondered if it was because they were elderly, but I could tell the difference from before, and it felt like they took it for granted I was a natal woman same as them. Because through and through I felt I was doing nothing more than living my genuine womanhood, not acting or pretending or anything.

I went to a mall for a makeover a couple weeks ago, and afterwards walking around with a girlfriend, I noticed a distinct difference from when I first started presenting in public. I used to get stares everywhere I went and had long since become inured to it. Now, no one gave me a second glance. No double takes. It meant I wasn't being clocked. The difference was unmistakable. We went to shop in a women's clothing store, trying on things and coming out to show her, and I just felt exactly in my element, not faking it, finally just being the real me and loving it.

So why do I feel so discouraged, like all the progress I've made so far is nothing compared to the successes that girls here relate... and when I express my confidence they belittle me and show me how I am nowhere near their league...

Of everyone here, I feel that Melissa has the best handle on "it." Concentrate on being you, and being happy being you, and the rest, you will find, does not matter a whit. Until then, you will all continue in your own version of teenage angst.

I sincerely believe that what you have said is the truth, and what's more I sincerely believed I was living out the truth of it in my life, and making it work for me. I wasn't faking it or trying to make myself believe it, I simply felt the truth of it and felt that I was there already. So why am I feeling so discouraged now? None of this makes sense to me sometimes. Right now I don't understand anything any more. Was I just deluding myself? If so, what is real? How will I ever know what is real? I don't know any more.

[Krisstina]

I think Tink said it best keeping it simple it means (that know one can detect your actual birth sex.)
Kristina 

See my new baby   

Kristina,

While it's an okay quickie way of looking at passing, I'm not certain how connected to reality that is. When you say 'no one can detect,' does that mean people walking down the street, on the phone, people helping you in a store, your lover, your massage therapist, you're in a space where other transwomen might be, a doctor who gives you a physical... ? There are a lot of different situations with a lot of different levels of body intimacy (not to mention voice!). Do you have to pass in all those situations? Just a question.

ciao,
Gina M.

ps. Your little peanut looks beautiful in your avatar! I wish you much happiness and a good night's sleep.

Yes your correct that was kinda my point if taken in literal since it means you pass all the way down that long list of things you mentioned. Literally that is what it means but we all know that is an impossible standard so we have to look within that and measure are selves in degrees. That is assuming that  you are measuring, or wondering how you would, or how other people do measure it!

Thank for the comment on peanut smiles she is my second one to raise!!!!!!

[Hypatia]

Just speaking purely from my experience, this is not helpful advice to give to someone who's actively transitioning. We all experience many moments of doubt and, yes, there IS a LOT to think about and that doesn't for a second mean someone is not the gender they know themselves to be. Mature women have a lifetime to experiment with the female aspects of themselves, their relationships with other people, their relationship to their physical self and who they are as a woman in the world. Transwomen go through this process (at varying ages) in a very short period of time, usually with little support or encouragement.

Concentrate on being you, and being happy being you, and the rest, you will find, does not matter a whit. Until then, you will all continue in your own version of teenage angst.

And do you understand that many people who transition don't really know who they are? They've spent a lifetime living as someone else, often someone they really don't know or can't connect to and they're supposed to just transition, be themselves (whoever that is) and be happy right off the bat? How about some compassion or doesn't that mix well with teenaged smugness?

ciao,
Gina M.

I'm really glad you said this, Gina, even though in principle I agree that what Thundra advised is the ideal... it doesn't just happen because one tells herself it's the right way to feel, just because everyone repeats it like a catechism. It took me at least a year of inner work, and a lot of estrogen pills, before I was able to make this concept work for me, through and through from the inside out. Now I can feel it, but frankly, when I was only telling myself I was supposed to feel it, it was not working for me. It was very valuable to post a reminder that it doesn't happen perfectly and instantaneously. And even once it had begun to feel real for me, I still went back and forth with it, working out the kinks, know what I'm sayin. Work toward this goal, but don't beat yourself up if you're not there yet, also don't think less of those who still struggle and fall short of it. It just takes time and personal inner growth, like you said.