'Passing' vs 'being read'
http://angerisjustified.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/passing-vs-being-read/1/1/11
'Passing'. Oh how horrible the term is. It is used to describe a binary trans person being accepted as a cis member of their true gender. For example; 'He passed in the shop; the checkout clerk called him 'sir'.'
It's a word with connotations of deception, of the person hiding themselves in order to be taken for something they're not. Which is self-evidently false, in the case of trans people; it is possible that it could be used in combination with the person's assigned gender, but it's not a word that I would ever bother with. Used in the context of the person's true gender, it's merely yet one more brick in the stereotype wall of the deceiver, the 'trap', the 'not-real' stereotype that many trans people get on the wrong side of every day. Let's be clear here; a trans woman is a woman, a trans man is a man. Non-binary people tend to be left out of the equation as far as 'passing' is concerned; since society doesn't recognise us, we can hardly 'pass' as our true genders/non-genders.
