those who do and those who don't

[stephaniec]

Just curious from reading another thread the question came up so I snatched it because its a slow day and I run out of ideas. do you think the trans community itself and society at large gives a different value to the ones who can go unnoticed through life compared to the ones who can't . Do you think the trans community is hurting it self by the different value to individuals who are able to "pass" better. Does society judge one transgender better than the other or are we just all lumped together. If this is a problem how can we deal with it better. Any body who can travel without being noticed other than how beautiful they look want to share an opinion.

[Joanna Dark]

I'm certainly no model but I pass 100 percent of the time or pass well enough that I don't get stared at and men always smile and say hi to me, but yes I do think society at large differentiates between trans women who pass and are feminine looking and acting, aka the pretty ones and ones who don't pass. A lot of that has to do with going unnoticed but even if someone who passed well was placed next to someone who did not pass at all, a lot of people would say something along the lines of "Well the pretty one should have transitioned, but the other one, not so much." Or something like that. IMO, I could be wrong.

[Sephirah]

Society judges people by every possible factor. It's the nature of the beast. There's a reason they call it 'the rat race'. Whether you pass, whether you don't, whether you're wearing the right thing, or not, whether you can dance the grim fandango or have two left feet. Society, as an entity, likes to compare and contrast.

[Jenna Marie]

If you're asking whether there's such a thing as "passing privilege" (=someone who is taken for cis is treated differently and often better), I think the answer is yes.

However, I DO think there's a distinction between "taken for cis" and pretty. I've been 100% mistaken for cis since about six months on HRT - I even had people argue with me when I say I'm trans - but I'm not pretty. I'm fairly ordinary looking, really. The thing is, the majority of cis women aren't super pretty either, so the best way to blend in might be to look ordinary...

[JoanneB]

Trick question....

Passing implies others not knowing. But if they did know, I think their feelings would be no different.

[Miss_Bungle1991]

Society judges people by every possible factor. It's the nature of the beast. There's a reason they call it 'the rat race'. Whether you pass, whether you don't, whether you're wearing the right thing, or not, whether you can dance the grim fandango or have two left feet. Society, as an entity, likes to compare and contrast.

That is a good point. The only way anyone, cis, trans, whatever could get away from being judged by anyone is to go live out in the woods with the animals. If you live anywhere, you are going to come across people that judge you for whatever reason they can think of. That's just the way it goes.

[mandonlym]

So yeah, my avatar is a picture of me before HRT (I use it because all my other pictures are public and can be reverse image-searched, and for the sake of my vanity since I'm an older lady now!). I was often mistaken for a lesbian in queer contexts even when I had a short, male hairstyle. So I pass pretty readily, and have lived my life as a woman considered to be of above-average attractiveness.

I've had a lot of experiences with cis people that have pissed me off related to this. I actually have a cousin who's trans, but is more marginalized by my own family because she's not considered to be "beautiful." When I stayed with my best friend in California her roommate expressed discomfort about having a transwoman stay at their apartment, but said after she met me that I was fine because she expected me to look like a man and I didn't. An ex-boyfriend told me the story of how he was once "fooled" by a transsexual, and when I objected to his use of the word "fooled" and how I wouldn't like it if he talked about me that way (he knew I was trans before we met), he said, "I wouldn't say that about you because to me you're just a woman."

And in all those cases I've tried to communicate that it's a big problem that non-passing transwomen are being categorized as "not women" when we're all "another type of woman," whether we pass or not. It's like being a Muslim woman or a woman from Germany or what have you. Being a transwoman is being a particular type of woman, and we all share that experience whether other people can tell or not. That's what I try to communicate. And I respect certain people's right to say they don't want to belong to the trans fold, just as many women who are born within a particular community end up choosing not to identify with that community as an adult, but I personally would be uncomfortable just disappearing among the crowd of cis women and not identifying myself as trans.

But I also know that I have a lot of work to do in terms of getting over my own transphobia and socializing widely in my own community. I derive self-esteem from being attractive, and I know that triggers feelings of insecurity in other people but it's hard for me as an insecure human being (like many others) to control this behavior. Plus I've also experienced the phenomenon of people befriending me because they think it makes them look good to be associated with a passable transwoman, which has been another source of annoyance. But part of my reason for joining this forum is to hopefully work through those issues.

And finally, yes, attractive people get advantages in this world, but can also be shunned because they trigger other people's insecurities. But it doesn't mean we need to settle for that and we can't ourselves fight our own prejudices, especially when we all belong to the same community.

[suzifrommd]

Fact is that people who pass have privileges that people who don't pass do not have. People who don't have privileges that others have always want to know what it's like. This creates an air of mystery and awe around those who pass or are stealth about their past.

That being said, not everyone cares about passing. Some of the happiest trans women I know don't pass (and are quite beautiful).

And being stealth can be very stressful. The fear of being caught can be crushing.

I think this condition is inevitable as long as passing carries privileges. I don't see any way out of that. People are wired to gender others (procreation of the species pretty much depends on it) so it is a very, very, very hard mental pattern to break.

However, we must do a better job of educating people of the process we go through, so that people are at least AWARE of the privileges they are giving passing people. Most people CAN be educated, but we're so fixated on the few that hate, that we as a community have given up trying. Instead we're outsourcing the job to authors like Janet Mock, and actresses like Laverne Cox, forgetting that Mock's job is to sell books and Cox's job is to act.

[FalseHybridPrincess]

I dont think not passing is an issue,,,but what society thinks about it is one...

There are all these missconceptions about trans people only because nobody cares to educate society about this subject...
The other day my friend told me that, before he knew im trans and before Ive said to him all things I knew about it , he thought trans people where gay people who just wanted to have sex easier with the same sex...go figure

So if I wasnt able to pass and people would accept me as a woman knowing what it means to be trans , I would be happy really...
but when I know that most people think about this as my friend used to or even worse things,,,then one of my goals cant be achieved ...

Its wierd but I think that everything would be better if teachers at schools wouldnt only speak about homosexuality but also about transexualism...

[Joanna Dark]

When I stayed with my best friend in California her roommate expressed discomfort about having a transwoman stay at their apartment, but said after she met me that I was fine because she expected me to look like a man and I didn't. An ex-boyfriend told me the story of how he was once "fooled" by a transsexual, and when I objected to his use of the word "fooled" and how I wouldn't like it if he talked about me that way (he knew I was trans before we met), he said, "I wouldn't say that about you because to me you're just a woman."

Yup,the same stuff has happened to me. "I expected you to look like, er, you know."  "A man?" "Well, yeah, but you're just normal unlike those other people."

Ugh.

[mandonlym]

Yup,the same stuff has happened to me. "I expected you to look like, er, you know."  "A man?" "Well, yeah, but you're just normal unlike those other people."

Ugh.

Don't know why this makes me SO angry but it does. I guess it's easier to confront other people's transphobia than my own.

[stephaniec]

I'm certainly no model but I pass 100 percent of the time or pass well enough that I don't get stared at and men always smile and say hi to me, but yes I do think society at large differentiates between trans women who pass and are feminine looking and acting, aka the pretty ones and ones who don't pass. A lot of that has to do with going unnoticed but even if someone who passed well was placed next to someone who did not pass at all, a lot of people would say something along the lines of "Well the pretty one should have transitioned, but the other one, not so much." Or something like that. IMO, I could be wrong.

isn't this kind of what wrong with the gate keepers. Who determines who can go forward . Like with a job who gets promoted and who doesn't.

[mandonlym]

isn't this kind of what wrong with the gate keepers. Who determines who can go forward . Like with a job who gets promoted and who doesn't.

This was something I expressed to my therapist, who approved me for surgery after two appointments. His letter stated, apart from me being of sound mind and, etc., that his recommendation was based in part on the fact that people perceived me as female already and that I was already successfully socializing and dating as a woman. IMO that's society's problem for people who aren't in that position and it shouldn't be a factor in surgery approval decisions, as long as the transwoman in question can handle those kinds of judgments. Tricky territory, I know, but we need the right to self-determination.

[stephaniec]

yea, totally agree with self determination

[peky]

Just curious from reading another thread the question came up so I snatched it because its a slow day and I run out of ideas. do you think the trans community itself and society at large gives a different value to the ones who can go unnoticed through life compared to the ones who can't . Do you think the trans community is hurting it self by the different value to individuals who are able to "pass" better. Does society judge one transgender better than the other or are we just all lumped together. If this is a problem how can we deal with it better. Any body who can travel without being noticed other than how beautiful they look want to share an opinion.

Absolutely yes! and it does not stops at "passing" either; it goes like this; fem voice a plus, good looking a plus, white a plus, young a plus; so, fem voice, white, young, and cute... you won the lottery

Is this ^^ right?  NO! but it is why it is, and it is our challenge to change that. How do we do that? Well, I think that one way is living a life that is true to our beliefs

I once met a middle age Latin American person who was born in a male body. Through hard work this person achieved professorship at a very outstanding university in Bogota, Colombia. This person is a wonderfully witty and smart woman, with a deep voice, with an outstanding personality. Like many professional women she choses her own fashion style, and lives her life at the beat of her own drum.

She and other ladies like her, some in this forum, have been a model for me. I pass and pass very well but I have bass voice that betrays my biology every time. Still that does not stops me or concern me, I live my life like any other women... and so I am hoping that every encounter with a stranger would result into an ally or at least in one more tolerant human...

[izzy]

Those who pass dont get lumped into the trans community period. Its only the ones that do not pass get lumped.Society gets a disordered view because of this because it only reconizes the trans community who dont pass versus the ones that do.

[mandonlym]

Peky if it helps I slept with a musician who has perfect pitch just a couple of weeks ago who mentioned I had an unusually low voice (I'm a natural baritone) but didn't betray any hint of suspicion. So a low voice isn't necessarily betraying. In my experience, as soon as you show self-consciousness about something that's when you're most likely to be read.

[mandonlym]

Those who pass dont get lumped into the trans community period. Its only the ones that do not pass get lumped.Society gets a disordered view because of this because it only reconizes the trans community who dont pass versus the ones that do.

That's why it's important for us who pass to come out and not just to sell books or self-promote. It's important for us to be seen and heard and recognize ourselves as part of the trans community, so that others can do the same.

[Northern Jane]

"Passing" is a HUGE advantage!

When I transitioned (almost 40 years ago) being passable was a requirement for SRS. I was young, skinny, with a reasonable figure, and was pretty. I had also lived part time en femme for years so was "well integrated". After transition I faced exactly the same problems all you women faced (discrimination).

Ten or so years after transition, my stealth was blown. I lost quite a few casual 'friends' but I found that, because I "passed" well, after a time everyone seemed to forget that I wasn't born female.

I think people as more easily comfortable with "apparent sameness" and obvious difference makes people uncomfortable.

As for "the community" it may be just my perception but it seemed that a long time ago when "going stealth" was standard, the general public seemed more understanding, maybe BECAUSE post-ops integrated and disappeared - they were indistinguishable from cis people.

[peky]

Peky if it helps I slept with a musician who has perfect pitch just a couple of weeks ago who mentioned I had an unusually low voice (I'm a natural baritone) but didn't betray any hint of suspicion. So a low voice isn't necessarily betraying. In my experience, as soon as you show self-consciousness about something that's when you're most likely to be read.

than you for noticing me... you feedback and advice is greatly appreciated