Does Passability Equate To Safety?

[chefskenzie]

In my area there are 4 MTF girls.  2 are not passable, and everyone knows about them.  2 of us are very passable and almost nobody (other than SO's) know.  The 2 that are not passable get harrassed in stores, made fun off, etc.  If they go into the womens bathroom there is a huge scene and commotion.

The 2 of us who pass, never get looked at oddly, are accepted fully.

So for me, I do feel safer being able to "pass".  That equals safety.  The deep south is full or redneck bible thumping bigots who would like nothing more than to get the  pervert (their words not mine). 

[katrinaw]

I believe it helps, but only as far as any woman is safe today... Stay with groups and friends... IMO

L Katy

[Sydney_NYC]

Other,

It depends on the situation. I am a tall woman, few guys are interested in tall woman because they seems to be intimidating or men think that we want a taller guy and therefore think we aren't interested. I call that an asset, because I can walk everywhere I want without the risk of being a tiny and therefore easy target, so the fear of being raped is smaller than let's say a petite woman. That's just physics. LOL.

Fortunately I pass very well especially considering I'm 6'7". Compared to my wife who is 5'4", I get hit on a lot more than she does. Many times right in front of her. I even had one guy continue to hit on me after asking if I had a boyfriend, I told him this was my wife. I find this more common with taller men. It could also be a regional thing to. In the Northeast US (NYC area) I get hit on more than she does. However when we were down South in TN, she got hit on more than me on our last trip.

I do feel that passing does create more safety. I ride the NYC Subway and PATH trains all the time and have never had an issue with being harassed as trans. I did have some guy cup a feel on my butt once and and I yelled at the guy in a feminine voice to keep his hands to himself very loudly on a crowded subway train and he moved away from me quickly. (Warning Possible Trigger Here) The same thing happened to another trans woman I know and she doesn't pass as well and her voice is normally very good, but it come out male because she was shocked. It quickly turned into her being harassed for being trans and was called by the guy who pinched her as all kinds of horrible names. Luckily the next stop was hers and she got off and nothing physical happened.

[Hikari]

Basically I have only went out late at night before I was told I passed pretty well, and I never expierenced any safety issues, but I am pretty sure no one aside from the people who card me for alcohol really seem to know in everyday life.

I feel the likelihood of danger to be less if I am passing but I mainly worry about it for my own narcissistic self imagine. Still it does feel lots safer to me now that I know I pass pretty well.

[BunnyBee]

The times I have felt actually threatened, I was passing.  Ofc the fear was heightened by panic I felt that this already dangerous situation could take a turn for the worse if I were discovered to be trans.  So in that case, passing did not make me safe, it made it much more dangerous, but then again if I wasn't passing I could have evaded that ordeal, but then I might walk three blocks down the road and get trans-bashed by somebody else or something.  I don't know.  Being female, or actually, I would say, being feminine, regardless of gender or sex, is dangerous in this world.

I do not know how much my fear is out of proportion with reality.  I feel like, honestly life is a lot safer than it feels like it is.  Part of the problem is all the scary stories we read about make us afraid of the bogeyman, and part of it comes from actually being in a couple situations where I legitimately felt frightened and then letting that feeling of violation just really run crazy in my mind afterward.

[Erica_Y]

I do believe it does as you would fit typical gender roles and as such you are treated as your gender whether that is situational safe is the same for every person of that gender at that time. Not passing opens you up to peoples prejudices and belief systems which can be dangerous to benign depending but it is an extra level of risk that is potentially totally open ended at best to how things turn out. You may need to use more caution than you normally would and in the end some people are totally okay with this and others are not.

[spooky]

I don't think that passing equates safety.  I  think it's much more complicated that that.

Passing may increase safety, but even that can be conditional.

I remember a time when a man grabbed me on the street, not knowing I was trans. At the time my voice was not passable and I called out for help and for him to stop. It was broad daylight on a busy street. In that moment everyone clocked me and he became more angry and passersby became uninterested in helping--people stepped around us, suddenly very intent on staring at their feet. To this day if I were attacked again I probably wouldn't call out for help. Is that safety?

And what about those of us whose primary battles will be with ourselves? I think that being passable will make other areas of life easier, and so may help, but ultimately cannot save you.

[Sydney_NYC]

I don't think that passing equates safety.  I  think it's much more complicated that that.

Passing may increase safety, but even that can be conditional.

I remember a time when a man grabbed me on the street, not knowing I was trans. At the time my voice was not passable and I called out for help and for him to stop. It was broad daylight on a busy street. In that moment everyone clocked me and he became more angry and passersby became uninterested in helping--people stepped around us, suddenly very intent on staring at their feet. To this day if I were attacked again I probably wouldn't call out for help. Is that safety?

And what about those of us whose primary battles will be with ourselves? I think that being passable will make other areas of life easier, and so may help, but ultimately cannot save you.

In your case, a passible voice when yelling (it does take practice to get it) would have made a big difference just like the Subway incident comparison in my previous post. However, just being a woman we are less safe than a male walking down the street. I don't worry about being attached on the street because I'm trans, but I do worry as a woman no differently than a cis-woman walking down the street. I do have a martial arts background and being 6'7", even as a woman, I'm less likely to be attacked. I have been sexually harassed in public several times as a woman and every time I was mentally prepared to fight back if I had too.

[katrinaw]

Personally Passability may help, but if you're walking alone (females) your risk is higher, if they clock you as being TG your risk is heightened again... To be safe you must not expose yourself to risk, however it's not really a 100% safe world, right... Regardless whether you pass or not

Just my rambling thoughts (someone who needs to be as passable as possible, but for my own reasons)

L Katy 

[spooky]

In your case, a passible voice when yelling (it does take practice to get it) would have made a big difference just like the Subway incident comparison in my previous post. However, just being a woman we are less safe than a male walking down the street. I don't worry about being attached on the street because I'm trans, but I do worry as a woman no differently than a cis-woman walking down the street. I do have a martial arts background and being 6'7", even as a woman, I'm less likely to be attacked. I have been sexually harassed in public several times as a woman and every time I was mentally prepared to fight back if I had too.

My point was that even with a passable voice--which is where I'm at now--I couldn't. This incident will always linger in the back of my mind and whisper, "Just in case..."

[BunnyBee]

I don't think that passing equates safety.  I  think it's much more complicated that that.

Passing may increase safety, but even that can be conditional.

I remember a time when a man grabbed me on the street, not knowing I was trans. At the time my voice was not passable and I called out for help and for him to stop. It was broad daylight on a busy street. In that moment everyone clocked me and he became more angry and passersby became uninterested in helping--people stepped around us, suddenly very intent on staring at their feet. To this day if I were attacked again I probably wouldn't call out for help. Is that safety?

And what about those of us whose primary battles will be with ourselves? I think that being passable will make other areas of life easier, and so may help, but ultimately cannot save you.

My situation was similar, only I didn't give myself away to be trans.  It was on the almost full train, and people still were looking at their shoes and not helping.  He didn't grab me, but his hands were on me and he was saying inappropriate things and violating my space and his friend was kind of egging him on, and blocking me in so I couldn't get away if I wanted to.  I just smiled and tried to say what I thought he wanted to hear and when his stop came it felt like hours later, miraculously he and his friend left.  Then, everybody was asking me if I was ok and told me they would have protected me if he didn't leave me alone.  Yeah, sure.

So being perceived to be cis doesn't mean people will help you.  Though I'm sure if you're perceived to be trans there's even less hope.

Anyway, I very much agree with how you assess it.

[kira21 ♡♡♡]

Look at statistics.

Fifty-three percent of transgender respondents to NTDS have been verbally harassed or treated disrespectfully in places of public accommodation, and 44 percent have been denied service because of their transgender identity.

Twenty-two percent of respondents who have interacted with law enforcement officers have been harassed by them, 20 percent have been refused assistance, 6 percent have been physically attacked by an officer, and 2 percent have been sexually assaulted by an officer. Transgender people of color faced higher rates of prejudice and violence, with up to 38 percent reporting harassment by officers.

Seventy-seven percent of transgender people have felt physically unsafe in public.

Twenty percent of transgender people have experienced discrimination in a social service agency, from both clients and staff.

On top of these high rates of discrimination and prejudice, transgender individuals also experience high rates of sexual violence. According to several studies, more than 50 percent have been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives.

In examining reports of hate crimes against transgender people, researchers found that 98% of all "transgender" violence was perpetrated specifically against people in the male to-female spectrum;



In the United States, an estimated 19.3% of women and 1.7% of men have been raped during their lifetimes; an estimated 1.6% of women reported that they were raped in the 12 months preceding the survey. The case count for men reporting rape in the preceding 12 months was too small to produce a statistically reliable prevalence estimate. An estimated 43.9% of women and 23.4% of men experienced other forms of sexual violence during their lifetimes, including being made to penetrate, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact, and noncontact unwanted sexual experiences. The percentages of women and men who experienced these other forms of sexual violence victimization in the 12 months preceding the survey were an estimated 5.5% and 5.1%, respectively.




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It looks like passability does help to some extent but its definitely not a silver bullet.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2012/05/murder-statistics-of-transgender-people/

http://www.ovc.gov/pubs/forge/about_why.html

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm

[BunnyBee]

Ty for that, it's good to have it quantified.

50% of trans women have been sexually assaulted, where for women as a whole its more like 1/5, I've heard.  That is a significant difference to say the least, but both numbers are very bleak and shameful.