Does it honestly matter whether you pass as your gender or not?

[Da Monkey]

The thing is though, when we don't pass most of the time it is from people who are not transphobic, it is just how they read us. I think it's a bit unfair to think if you don't pass it's from transphobia.

If someone is unsure of a FTM the first thing they look for - even WE do it -- are breasts and how can someone tell the difference between a person presenting as a masculine woman or a transgender male? If you are on testosterone and it's obvious with your voice and possible facial hair and you are not binding people won't think anything of it, they will probably just think you are fat or awkwardly proportioned.

It is only transphobic when someone acts negatively towards you based on the fact that they know for sure you are transgender.

And that happens mostly in bathrooms than just walking down the street.

[kyril]

I'm not saying that not passing is due to transphobia. I'm saying that many trans people's debilitating fear of not passing is because of transphobes. Read through the thread and you'll see a ton of people talking about safety and fear of being assaulted if they don't pass.

Is it sensible to be concerned about those things? Sure. But I, personally, can't be bothered.

[angiejuly]

Just popping in to say I love you angie.  Keep your chin up. 

Aw thanks you made my day.

[angiejuly]

I`m not done yet.  I am seeing another balance and chain reaction here. A pattern and patterns can be broken.   Back to the bad feelings. Hate , anger, rage, fear, ect. A world full of thoughts that follow those feeling shape the world around them and us. We live in a world so out of balance from people well trained to stay within that relm. People segrigate themselves in groups and unanamously amongst them agree that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Narsassisstic views of group psycosis.Well, its all out of balance around us and it will do the same thing everything does out of balance.

There is no other way arround it. Since we live in a universe that has 2 sides to everything and we live at the bottom of a struggling society through bigotry train within that society to keep us there. Doesn`t that make you wonder why ancient , happy, thriving civilizations that honnored us with the highest respect from all the people arround where taken over had there everything taken away and in place a system that honors monitry value in its place and those who issue it.

I personnaly feel nature ( mother) will not allow all this devistation to her creation.

Brace youself for the rath of natures balance to bring it back. when that happens once again we will be honnored as the advisers of balance that we where in the ancient times. It just takes thousands of years and major changes and time seem to speed up at the end of the ages. picies has been a time of servutude, suffering, famin, and riligions that take away from there instincts so they can be controled through mythicalizm. Through this age  you will see a pattern of civilisations in touch with nature being wiped out where ever they can be found. Replaced with famin, starvation, suffering, servitude, and death. The negative feelings that the people produce only gives those in power more power through this age. Aquarious will eventually pan out to freedom not order, and servitude.

However we need to be safe till then. Do not fall into those bad feelings. Use pitty instead.

I love you all. Ang.


Almost forgot! My post here was to give you a positive light on something I am seeing as negative energy. Positive energy will make a positive flip. Those who are bigoted to us will soon see there biggest fears unfold in front of them. They will prey only to have no answer. As long as you do not give credit to creation outside of what you see, taste , smell, touch, hear, and do not give credit to your atrubutes and acomplishments outside yourself. Your fears will be pitty for those who do , do this.
Ok thats it.

[bojangles]

Speaking just for myself, if "passing" (I really hate that term, actually) didn't matter to me, I would not have medically transitioned. Of course, I didn't have a lot of choices. I don't think I would have lived much longer if I hadn't transitioned. I was emotionally exhausted.

Speculating about many, I suspect that most of us would have a hard freaking time living decade after decade and not being read as our true gender. Some of us don't make it.

And for those of us who did live that way for decades, well, let me go back to myself again. It can really do a number on us psychologically, and for me it did. In spades. I project confidence to the world now, but inside I'm still the little kid who wants his thirty-five-year-old father to call him "son" JUST ONCE, the adolescent who is mortified by what's happening to his body, and the young adult who resigned himself to being what everyone else perceived him to be. And, yes, the middle-aged guy who stared into the mirror one day and realized with profound despair, My god, I am forty-four, and I am going to die as a woman.

I carry all of that around with me, and the biggest reason I'm making any progress at all in combating it is that I PASS. A few people are quite content to just know who they are and be fine with that, regardless of how the millions see them. I'm not one of those people. Being treated as the man I am by other people makes all the difference in the world.

I totally relate to this. Heck yeah, it matters to me.

[Arch]

I suppose I should clarify my statement:

Speaking just for myself, if "passing" (I really hate that term, actually) didn't matter to me, I would not have medically transitioned.

I have done the "I'm a boy in my head" thing for my entire life. Somehow, although I hated my body, I was able to live with it. But I became more and more dysphoric over the years. So much so that I had to go back into the closet and just not deal with it.

I had a lot of fears about transition, but it boiled down to a couple of key issues. I didn't want to jeopardize my relationship, I was afraid of the unknown, and I didn't want to deal with all of the social and economic drawbacks of living through and after transition (in short, I didn't want to be a verified freak--sorry, that's how I saw it).

But I wonder how much I would have hated my body if the world readily saw me as male despite my equipment. What if the world accepted that there are many different types of men, and some have bodies that significantly deviate from the standard type? I think it's entirely possible that when I was a teenager, I hated my chest and my bleeding and all of that because I and everyone else associated them with femaleness--not necessarily because I had some sort of preexisting mental body map from birth. Our actions, beliefs, and expectations shape our brain chemistry and pathways in various ways. I grew up thinking that certain equipment was exclusively female, so I conditioned myself to hate those parts and to imagine myself without them. I know that this is an unpopular view.

I can't really say for sure that if passing weren't important, I would definitely not have transitioned at all. But the weight of all of that internalized self-hatred became too much for me, and the only way to stay alive was to convince everyone else that I was male. I could only accomplish that by transitioning physically.

Sorry if this is a bit muddled. I've had a great deal of coffee today but no food. Time for lunch...

[Arch]

It is only transphobic when someone acts negatively towards you based on the fact that they know for sure you are transgender.

And that happens mostly in bathrooms than just walking down the street.

I would disagree somewhat with this definition. If a person sees you as not fitting into the gender convention or stereotype that he/she/etc. holds, and that person acts negatively toward you because you don't fit into the box, then I would call that behavior transphobic.

Oh, and I've had pretty much equal negative reactions in the bathroom as out of it. Don't know if that's typical.

[kate durcal]

My physical transition isn't mostly about what other people see. It's about 3 parts making my body feel right/look familiar, 6 parts having the right hormone balance to make me not suicidal, and 1 part appearance/vanity.

Kyril,

Ah! Your post stroke a note with me, Ditto to your quote above. I am a tigress by nature, nurture, and by experience, as such "situational awareness" is of paramount importance to avoid conflict and injury. Fortunately for me, where I live you can carry a canceled weapon. My favorite is my trusty 1911, never had to use it, and I hope the need will never materialize.

[insideontheoutside]

But I wonder how much I would have hated my body if the world readily saw me as male despite my equipment. What if the world accepted that there are many different types of men, and some have bodies that significantly deviate from the standard type? I think it's entirely possible that when I was a teenager, I hated my chest and my bleeding and all of that because I and everyone else associated them with femaleness--not necessarily because I had some sort of preexisting mental body map from birth. Our actions, beliefs, and expectations shape our brain chemistry and pathways in various ways. I grew up thinking that certain equipment was exclusively female, so I conditioned myself to hate those parts and to imagine myself without them. I know that this is an unpopular view.

That's an interesting point actually. When I was younger, everyone saw me as male. They had to be specifically told otherwise by my parents or teachers. In college I got more androgynous but for the first 2 years it was still most people took me as male until they noticed me say "here" during attendance. So now I wonder how I would have felt if everyone would have taken me as female throughout my early life. I think my problems actually started when I made the discovery that other guys were not like me physically. It was even more shocking when I found out other girls weren't exactly like me either. So that started this whole chain reaction in my head where I just wanted to be a "normal guy". I did that whole thing when I was very young going to sleep and wishing I could just wake up and my body was ok. The thing is though, I'm never going to have that "perfect body". No amount of surgery or pills or HRT would give it to me. That was the roadblock I dealt with. Not so much the "passing" thing because that was something I could get over. So for me, it was about 80% physical, 20% what other people thought.

I still find everyone else's stories interesting. Even if they're different from mine it's proof that there's so much variation and everyone finds their own solutions and ways of dealing. For me it was a long road to get to the point where I wasn't comparing myself to "all the other guys". But I had to kind of pin point that too because for a big chunk of time I was just angry or depressed and thought it was for so many different reasons.

[kyril]

I suppose I should clarify my statement:

I have done the "I'm a boy in my head" thing for my entire life. Somehow, although I hated my body, I was able to live with it. But I became more and more dysphoric over the years. So much so that I had to go back into the closet and just not deal with it.

I had a lot of fears about transition, but it boiled down to a couple of key issues. I didn't want to jeopardize my relationship, I was afraid of the unknown, and I didn't want to deal with all of the social and economic drawbacks of living through and after transition (in short, I didn't want to be a verified freak--sorry, that's how I saw it).

But I wonder how much I would have hated my body if the world readily saw me as male despite my equipment. What if the world accepted that there are many different types of men, and some have bodies that significantly deviate from the standard type? I think it's entirely possible that when I was a teenager, I hated my chest and my bleeding and all of that because I and everyone else associated them with femaleness--not necessarily because I had some sort of preexisting mental body map from birth. Our actions, beliefs, and expectations shape our brain chemistry and pathways in various ways. I grew up thinking that certain equipment was exclusively female, so I conditioned myself to hate those parts and to imagine myself without them. I know that this is an unpopular view.

I can't really say for sure that if passing weren't important, I would definitely not have transitioned at all. But the weight of all of that internalized self-hatred became too much for me, and the only way to stay alive was to convince everyone else that I was male. I could only accomplish that by transitioning physically.

Sorry if this is a bit muddled. I've had a great deal of coffee today but no food. Time for lunch...

Speaking as someone who was overwhelmingly able to live the way I wanted to live pre-transition, and who was easily accepted as one of the guys, and whose female body parts never caused any huge inconvenience:

I needed to transition because my brain needed testosterone. That's pretty much all there is to it. If I could have gone on living the way I did pre-transition, being called "she" and "her" and "ladies," but with T in my system, it would have been a livable life. But I needed T to make me not suicidal; it's the only thing that ever worked.

I'd fundamentally prefer to pass. I'd like to be seen as male. I'd like a male chest. I really really want a penis. But those are wants, likes, and preferences, not the life-or-death need that I have to be on T.

[Arch]

Then again, there were all those years that I hated hated hated my body, even if nobody else saw it. When I started transitioning, I bound even when nobody else could see it. Now I pack even when nobody else can see.

[Renate]

I needed to transition because my brain needed testosterone.

I think that this is a very important point that is glossed over too often.
Hormones are brain food.
I know that I needed estrogen to fully develop my "me".

[Arch]

I needed to transition because my brain needed testosterone.

I definitely felt compelled to find out if my brain needed testosterone, but I was well aware that there was no way for me to tell for sure whether T was meeting a purely physical need (as in my brain needed it), a purely psychological need (as in I needed it emotionally, as part of transition), or a combination of the two.

Maybe I can look at it this way: what if the T had failed to change my voice and I still sounded exactly the same and everyone still read me as female? Would I have been okay with that? For me, the answer is no. No matter how much good I got out of transition (physical changes, psychological benefits, legal documentation), I am confident that I would have felt that being read properly by other people was still of paramount importance.

[VeronikaFTH]

Being totally aware of your surroundings and the people in those surrounding is a very key skill to cultivate - whether you live in the big city or not. Sometimes this does mean modifying your behavior. Some people might not be "cool" with this but I can tell you it's better to be aware and avoid a situation then be subjected to something bad going down. I've even been in a few occasions where there were not easy options to just avoid it. Luckily, I'm a damn good actor when I need to be. I've been to places where I walk in, and pretty much walk right out. I've always considered myself empathetic as well. If some place just has a weird vibe, I will avoid it. This includes bars, shops, restrooms, whatever. I know not everyone has a heightened sense of what might be impending doom but just getting familiar with your surroundings, other people's body language, etc. can literally be a life saver.

And I know that even with being aware and confident, things can still happen. But I feel like at least the odds are lower and I really do believe in the power of the mind. There's also been a number of studies having to do with criminals and victims. Criminals have come right out and said they specifically look for "easy pray" - that is the people walking with their heads down at the ground, unaware of their surroundings, people who were obviously nervous or "out of place", people fumbling for their keys ... The majority of criminals or people bent on doing others harm seem to have a sixth sense and are able to spot those easy targets. They're able to "smell fear" and things like that. If you're ever in or around a dangerous situation the worst thing you can do is appear nervous or fearful or freak out.

I hope that no one here has to deal with a dangerous situation but I hope that these few tips might help out just in your general life - to me more aware of your surroundings and situations that have the potential to be a problem.

I think passing goes a long way to avoiding problems in the first place, which is one of the reasons why I think FFS and related surgeries are so important...But as far as avoiding problems in general in public, no matter what you look like, This advice you gave above is just gold... it's completely true, all of it. And it will help anyone no matter what we look like, or if we are passable or not.

I live in the Chicago area, used to live in the city proper and I still spend a lot of time there for work. My company does road construction, so I am very often in some of the worst neighborhoods of the city, and sometimes alone. I walk in with my head held high, not agressive body language but not passive either, I just go about my business like nothing's wrong, even if inside I'm terrified. I have never had a significant problem with anything, never been mugged or beaten, or robbed, or even came close to any of this. I've seen situations developing, and casually made my exit or avoided the situation, but I've never been targeted, most likely because I don't look like a target.

People will smell fear, you've got to look like you belong and that you're in control and not a victim. Body language says it all.

[kate durcal]

I think that this is a very important point that is glossed over too often.
Hormones are brain food.
I know that I needed estrogen to fully develop my "me".

yet, knowing this, and the fact that our condition is a medical one, we are continue to be refused the treatment (Hormones) we so rightfully deserve so. This refusal is a violation of the most basic human rights!

[Beyond]

I've been refused service in a hospital's ER because I was "too masculine."

They broke federal law (EMTALA) when they did that.  An emergency room cannot refuse you treatment.  You could've sued them.  At the very least you should've filed a complaint with the hospital.

Original post: While I understand what people are saying, "passing" is a flawed concept for two reasons:

It infers deception

It continues a cycle of living for others



You MUST live for yourself.  When someone is first starting out you have to use an abundant amount of common sense and have a thick skin.  Over time your confidence grows and hormones do their thing.  Eventually most of us get to a point where safety becomes less of a concern, but it will always be in the background.  It will be there because our society is still woefully ignorant.  However, that should not stop us from being ourselves.  Again, transition is about standing up and being your true self.  Self-confidence is a powerful thing, whereas fear will get you noticed.

[bojangles]

Original post: While I understand what people are saying, "passing" is a flawed concept for two reasons:

It infers deception

It continues a cycle of living for others

I respect your view, but don't see it that way at all. Passing is important to me for me. Even though it helps others get it right, that's for me. The times in my life that passing as my birth gender became important had a lot more to do with living for others and deception...especially self deception.

[Gabby]

I'm a girl, I want people to see me as a girl.  It's upsetting to be constantly 'sir'd by employees and treated like 'one of the guys' by people I don't know.

What irritates is when a certain type of man gets pally with me saying something sexual about the woman I'd just been talking too.  They are clueless, I haven't done anything to change my appearance I've only just begun this, but this hasn't come out of nowhere this is a lifetime of living as the wrong gender.

The mental system is fully functioning, HRT will perhaps smooth this, physically it will hopefully make a nice difference and I cannot see why it wont.  No matter what it doesn't matter at all if I pass, my mental makeup works perfectly, all that matters is if I pass as me, I pass when I don't worry about being something.

Gender appearence plays a role but it's a secondary role accept where life chances are concerned.  I have always known the source of my problem, it has stopped me from getting married, has caused the mental problem of 20 years of crippling anxiety, some things develop like friendships and work, but there's something seriously missing it's stealing your most precious moments away.  This is painting to dark a picture there's plenty of precious moments, how I conduct myself, how being born this way has made me an insider who stands apart, I haven't been bought out, given something to shut me up, I'm not a stoolie.

Look at what being trans has given you and what is denied, it's a bag of good and bad, rectify the bad how much you can and reach out for what is reasonably within grasp.

So back in the middle ages they'd be no HRT or SRS, but the mental faculties were the same, dump gender in that sense as it makes no sense.  But the physical needs to come into congruence for life to develop properly.

[jussie]

I personally thing it's more important how you feel inside. Whilst it's would be lovely to have everyone see me as the Girl I am, I know they currently don't but I take comfort in knowing that I'm being truthful to myself and for the moment that's enough for me to get by relatively happy.

[-CRaSH-]

This is coming from a CIS male. I'd say it's definitely important for you transexuals to resemble the gender/sex that you want to be.

If you don't look the part, then you won't be as accepted by your CIS peers.

And sometimes when a CIS is open to dating a transexual that transexual must look the part. Not trying to be rude, but I will not date a MTF pre-op or post that doesn't look feminine enough.