ok , "pass" is such a sensitive topic, but what would be the absolute minimum could you live with. 10 % male show at certain angle, 20% without make up , 5% without make or any range between 0 % and 100% " pass". Would you be able at 0% if that was the only way to stop the pain. or is it just impossible below 90%.
Being mam'd on a consistent basis without makeup and presenting andro.
For me it's the same as Evelyn. Although that's obviously separate to my internal feelings about myself.
Quote from: Bols on July 24, 2014, 04:32:32 PM
For me it's the same as Evelyn. Although that's obviously separate to my internal feelings about myself.
I think it be pretty cool to be at least enough to have people say ma'am no matter what you were wearing even if it was a first glance.
When I transitioned, I had no idea I would ever pass. I decided I would transition anyway, even if my origins were obvious.
It helped that I knew several non-passing trans women who were very happy with their transitions.
Comfortable in your own body and care not what others think.
There is no % other then you are 100% you.
Izzy
Everyone wishes to pass 100%, and I do too. I don't know how I'd live if I wasn't at least 90% passable, and I don't know how I will life if I turn out to be unpassable.
I don't know... I wish I did, but the time when I was at that androgynous/guessing-time stage was so traumatic for me in all other respects (b/c transition was so new and I was still struggling a lot with it) that I couldn't say whether I'd be able to adjust eventually. I'd like to think I'd be one of those strong women who can bravely get on with life regardless, but - I just don't know.
I'm nowhere near this, but when I do try to pass as a woman, I'd just like to avoid stares. If I can do that, I'll be comfortable. I hate it when I become the center of attention.
Quote from: Jenna Marie on July 24, 2014, 06:23:08 PM
I don't know... I wish I did, but the time when I was at that androgynous/guessing-time stage was so traumatic for me in all other respects (b/c transition was so new and I was still struggling a lot with it) that I couldn't say whether I'd be able to adjust eventually. I'd like to think I'd be one of those strong women who can bravely get on with life regardless, but - I just don't know.
I guess realistic it's very hard thing . given the nature of our social realm at the present where we're making progress towards acceptance ,but still quite a ways to go. How much social anxiety can you endure and what kind of support system you have. Like back in the early seventies I lived in New Mexico. At that time there were quite a few communes of various ways of life. I was lucky enough to encounter a lesbian commune. In that kind of situation transition is absolutely no problem because its a community. There were women of all degrees of humanness all living together and not caring of differences . Maybe some day society will get to that place where the word "passing" is archaic and has no meaning.
So I'm getting mam'd on a more consistent basis being 2 weeks after laser. My face is smooth it was a BIG STEP getting that beard shadow off.
I'm currently sitting here dealing with a lot of mind flip at the moment. WOW. I'm rather chortle.
;D
I would love 100% but I would be ok with 85% especially because I'll be starting late into 30, or early 31...aka my second 30th birthday
Is this % of the time you get gendered correctly or % of your overall appearance that is in line with the gender you identify with?
For the first one it would be really tough for me if it wasn't at least like 95%, ( this is understanding that at there probably isn't any way possible for me to go from 95% male to 95% female with the wave of my magic wand. Short term I am sure I will survive).
For the latter I think i would be more OK with a lower%, knowing that a lot of the presentation is not just looks. 65-70% I think in the looks might be the best I might get. No HRT yet (insure doesn't cover it) so this opinion/ guesstimate may change.
Quote from: Michaela Whimsy on July 24, 2014, 10:55:59 PM
Is this % of the time you get gendered correctly or % of your overall appearance that is in line with the gender you identify with?
For the first one it would be really tough for me if it wasn't at least like 95%, ( this is understanding that at there probably isn't any way possible for me to go from 95% male to 95% female with the wave of my magic wand. Short term I am sure I will survive).
For the latter I think i would be more OK with a lower%, knowing that a lot of the presentation is not just looks. 65-70% I think in the looks might be the best I might get. No HRT yet (insure doesn't cover it) so this opinion/ guesstimate may change.
I think what % is acceptable to navigate everyday life with all the problems that can arise and be satisfied that this is truely going to make you feel normal and satisfied you made the right decision
Barring invasive examinations, my acceptable minimum percentage is close to what cis-women enjoy or endure, whatever that is. Is your absolute minimum dependent upon how transphobic the society is in which you live?
Quote from: Nicolette on July 25, 2014, 09:44:58 AM
Barring invasive examinations, my acceptable minimum percentage is close to what cis-women enjoy or endure, whatever that is. Is your absolute minimum dependent upon how transphobic the society is in which you live?
not necessarily , it is a contributing factor, but the range you can achieve with HRT and and possible surgeries to make you feel your voyage is worth while
100% would be great! :3 I guess I'm gonna have to grow thick skin, though... I am only just about to start transition.
I could live with around 75% or so. That's what I told myself at the beginning of transition, was that I'd be happy as long as an average rational person could look at me and gender me female. That way I'd feel comfortable correcting the minority who I didn't pass to.
And yeah, I was pretty damned happy back in February when I was around that 75% mark. Hearing "sir" still hurt on the couple days a week it happened, but most people I'd never met before were gendering me female, and I was pretty damned happy about that, and went full-time very shortly thereafter. (After getting fired from my job. >:() And I think I could have been perfectly happy if that was as far as I ever got. I'm glad I've matured mentally since then, but physically I felt pretty damned good at the time, and so excited that I was starting to pass more often than not, and I do think that with enough time, I could have found a way to be perfectly happy there.
I really don't think there's a set mark of "passing" that can automatically make someone happy, though. It's all mental. Some of the happiest trans women I know are the ones who are only moderately-passable, but forgive themselves for it and accept themselves as women anyway. And several of the most miserable trans people I know are ones who are absolutely gorgeous and passable, but are still hung up on not being cis. It's all a matter of forgiving yourself for your "flaws," (and we ALL have them in our own minds, even if nobody else can see them,) and deciding that we're not going to hate ourselves for them. That's the real key to being happy, is just being your authentic self without shame, and with a strong self-conviction that your identity is just as valid as anyone else's, whether you're passable or not.
Maybe that's a bit hypocritical for me to say, because I put myself through a mental hell of self-criticism before I started passing most of the time, and I was waiting to pass before I started feeling validated and accepting myself, but it did take that acceptance for me to move from a place where I was miserable and constantly hung up on the last 10% of the time that I wasn't passing, to being happy for the 90% that I was. I decided to quit being jealous of my 100%-passable friends.
I've heard a lot of trans women say very proudly "I'd rather pass 30% of the time than never," because they realize that they're happier than they were pre-transition, and take that as being enough for them. That's the ultimate realization, is that nobody is more "authentically female" than anyone else, and that passing is really pretty arbitrary, all things considered. It's basically just organizing people into a hierarchy based on a genetic lottery of age and ancestry and susceptibility to HRT. Which seriously isn't fair. I refuse to tell myself that somehow my identity is less valid just because my mom's side of the family has a history of broad shoulders, pointy Italian noses, and MPB.
touchy subject indeed.
As with the term, passability is simply a realm of being transgender for someone who embodies the remnants of not only bodily character but as well the confines of remnant maleness. Now, this is not to say that this someone wants to do such, but she is reminded by that failed percentage of passing that she is not yet in the reality of a natal woman in a glance.
Painful and sorrowful feeling to someone who knows they are a woman yet unable to be taken as one, believe me I do know.
However, the reality of this perception does change when finality of any maleness is succumbed to being entirely and utterly a woman.
Passability is no longer applicable because even if 100% passable the precept of passability suggests someone who is masking something, when in fact when one becomes a woman within the visual aspect and already is a woman within since birth, congruity is achieved and that someone is simply just an ordinary woman.
So in the retrospect, no percentage of passability is adequate to embody the womanliness to me. Otherwise, I would be just a trans person, and that for me at least was no answer to my lifelong natal requirement, need and a dream of a girl, then a woman and NOT a trans person!
I have no idea, I mean I want 100%....if it were at which percentage could I no longer live, and would just kill myself with then, I mean I don't know, I am not about to be speculating about suicide again, my friends would read it and then would have an intervention.... Perhaps the phrase 'live with' was more like meant to 'be comfortable in your own skin with'?
I dont expect to always pass, but I intend on always passing, but anytime someone misgenders me I expect me to be really uncomfortable in my own skin till the sting of that dissipates.
There's no set number or anything like that. The amount of passability I can live with is the amount that allows me to be accepted for who I am without having to face the constant judgment of others. It's sort of a give an take thing. The more passable I am, or the more comfortable I am with the people I'm with, the more I feel like I can let myself go. This is why I want to push my passability as far as I am able to. But I think I can also find a way to live with myself at whatever level of passable I end up being when I've done all that I can. If I had to set some sort of arbitrary goal, I would say maybe the level of passability where I could wear a dress in public without being horribly self-conscious about it.
I had a harder time passing as male than I ever have as female. Due to a lack of testosterone during puberty, my transition has been quite... different.
Quote from: Juliett on July 26, 2014, 12:07:19 PM
I had a harder time passing as male than I ever have as female. Due to a lack of testosterone during puberty, my transition has been quite... different.
I wouldn't say I have a hard time passing as male but I have been mistaken for female twice when I was 15-16 and been asked if I am male or female, which is weird considering I have no intersex cobdition that I know of.
I'd say 99% is the minimum I could live with. I'd still be pretty displeased if 1 out of every 100 people thought I looked like a guy, but as long as that 1 jerk didn't make a big deal or publicly try to "out" me then it wouldn't matter to me.
I cared about "passing" for about 3 days (quite literally) and then it ceased. Today, I could care less what other people think or their perception of me...just don't care.
I had a difficult time because I had put off transitioning for years thinking I could never pass.
Now that I can pass consistently as I tweak my look to be more feminine, I can't get enough of it. I'm only satisfied getting gendered correctly 95% of the time and I get extremely dysphoric if I'm misgendered.
I preface what I'm about to write by saying that I have no idea whether I pass 100% of the time, but I can't recall the last time I thought I might not be passing. AND I want to say that I have great admiration for those who might not pass 100% of the time.
When I decided that I had to transition, I knew that I was undertaking the most significant project of my life and was willing to commit as much time to practicing as needed to undo masculine socialization and was willing to go to almost any financial extreme available to me to alter any non-passing physical features. I was lucky enough to have the available credit (if not the cash) to allow me to do so, if necessary. I do NOT wish to suggest that women don't pass because they haven't worked hard enough. I'm merely trying to convey that to my mind anything short of full passing was unacceptable. It was essential for the way I wanted to live my life. AGAIN, I'd be horrified if anyone here read my attitude as a referendum on the behavior or attitude of others. I'm trying to give honest feedback about how I felt. And how I continue to feel about me.
My minimum would be:
(1) Removal of penis, testicles and scrotum; with proper urethra reroute.
(2) Enough facial and body feminization so that I could pass (unquestioned)
......as either female or male when dressed casualy in either's clothing.
.....(a) Female facial appearance with lack of facial and body hair.
.....(b) Reversal of minimal male hair loss.
.....(c) Female appearing breasts (up to "C" would be nice).
Quote from: Jane's Sweet Refrain on July 27, 2014, 07:14:28 AM
I preface what I'm about to write by saying that I have no idea whether I pass 100% of the time, but I can't recall the last time I thought I might not be passing. AND I want to say that I have great admiration for those who might not pass 100% of the time.
When I decided that I had to transition, I knew that I was undertaking the most significant project of my life and was willing to commit as much time to practicing as needed to undo masculine socialization and was willing to go to almost any financial extreme available to me to alter any non-passing physical features. I was lucky enough to have the available credit (if not the cash) to allow me to do so, if necessary. I do NOT wish to suggest that women don't pass because they haven't worked hard enough. I'm merely trying to convey that to my mind anything short of full passing was unacceptable. It was essential for the way I wanted to live my life. AGAIN, I'd be horrified if anyone here read my attitude as a referendum on the behavior or attitude of others. I'm trying to give honest feedback about how I felt. And how I continue to feel about me.
I think to OP is looking for honesty one way or the other for the purpose hopefully of helping others with this situation. It's such a weird condition to have because just in the matter of a few hours my brain is telling me wow, I "pass", then 3 hours later I look in the mirror and go oh crap! what happened. It would be great to be totally invisible , but the reality is a little different. I just know I'll die if I don't give it a go. Honestly I'm just not male material.
Quote from: Juliett on July 26, 2014, 12:07:19 PM
I had a harder time passing as male than I ever have as female. Due to a lack of testosterone during puberty, my transition has been quite... different.
Likewise. I started HRT (officially) at age 17. By 19 I couldn't pass as male among strangers so by the time SRS became available at age 24 'passing' was easier than 'not passing'.