Quote from: Sarah7 on April 07, 2013, 01:29:52 AM
To me passing doesn't mean passing as a woman, it means passing as cis. To be stealth, it can't be "nearly impossible" for someone to read you as trans, it has to be actually impossible.

I feel like it's a way of reclaiming control over my body and how my body is perceived. Of having the freedom to choose who does and does not know my history. Of having agency.

I agree, one could say "being who you have always been" is passing. It seems like getting through the "I am trans" mentality and living in the "I am woman/man" mentality.

Passing to me is not feeling "less than". What I mean by that is feeling confident in myself that others now see and hear me without questioning my gender. I spent a lot of years with the shame of people asking me, "Are you a boy or a girl". That is hard on anyone and it tears you down after awhile.

Passing is ordering in a restaurant with my head held high. It's walking in the bathroom and knowing you belong in there. Recently it's walking into a College and not hearing whispers behind my back in a class.

Passing is freedom.

I am just coming to the end of my first month of living full time as a girl. I have been out and about an awful lot. I like cooking so I am at the grocery store almost daily and at the mall several times a week of late. As I walk around the busy mall I find that there are plenty of curious glances but in every store I have bought things from the sales assistants have been very friendly, when I sit down to meals with my wife at cafes and restaurants it is not unusual for the wait staff to address us as 'ladies'. When I look at the poor physical condition of a lot of women I am glad that I don't pass for one of them. I wear age appropriate clothing and cosmetics etc but I think that dressing 'nice' even when it is still casual is often what makes one stand out from the crowd and then people look more closely at the facial features and wonder...

For me. I am passing for the kind of woman that I want to be. Even though it might mean some extra looks.