Hi. Oregon and Washington are both pretty friendly places for us ...
As for passing, I've learned not to really care what others think. I used to be super self conscious about when someone would look at me or glance at me. The worst part was being in an elevator and hearing the people behind me snickering about something that may or may not have been me.
I eventually got to the point where I ignore the people around me and go about my business. There's an occasional bad self confidence day where I get hyper-focused on everyone around me, but I cope with them.
I think the goal is that you should be confident with who you are inside. Once you've built up your confidence, people around you will pick up on that and not give you a second thought. It's when you look nervous and "outside of the norm" that people start paying more attention to you.
It's sort of like in the movie Inception when the "Street characters" would pick up on something outside the norm and they'd start looking for what was out of place and then attack the intruder.
Oh, and I've been living as a woman for about 3.5 years everywhere except work. Without hormones. If I can pass, I'm sure you can find a way to pass just fine.
EDIT: Boy am I not typing well today ...
