Op-ed: I'm a Trans Man Who Doesn't 'Pass' And You Shouldn't Either

http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/05/20/op-ed-im-trans-man-who-doesnt-pass-and-you-shouldnt-either
The Advocate/ by Aiden James Koscieza,    05/20/2015

" Words that seem to be standard terminology as little as four years ago are now out of fashion, or even taboo. When I began my gender transition, in 2011, for example, I called myself a " transsexual ", a word I no longer use because of it's implied connection between gender and sexuality."

I read the comments on this one. A lot of people weren't pleased with the article. Both sides made good arguments. It was a lively debate.

Quote from: Dee Marshall on May 21, 2015, 10:12:05 PM
I read the comments on this one. A lot of people weren't pleased with the article. Both sides made good arguments. It was a lively debate.

yea the "passing " question always seems to do that.

There was a lot made about the term coming from Black people who can pass. The difference being that they "pass" when people see them for something they're not, whereas we "pass" when we're seen as something we are. This seems to be a lot of the root of the writer's problem with passing. I think his alternative terminology was clumsy and won't catch on because of it.

I think I prefer to think of it as, in the past, I commonly passed for male.

well, this is a pretty tough problem to figure out because of the reasons to 'pass' within your environment.

And that was the other side of the coin. Some people pointed out that passing can literally be a mater of life and death.

True enough 'passing' can be a matter of life and death, but I still don't like the concept.  I did what I did to my body and started HRT so I could be at peace with myself inside my own skin.  It's the male capacity for sudden cruelty and violence that makes not 'passing' dangerous.  Having worked for the adult mental health service I'm familiar with the fact that those with mental illness get beaten up and sometimes killed for not 'passing' as being normal (whatever that is).  Having worked with refugee families I know that as a group they sometimes get beaten up and killed for not looking and acting like westernised 'normal' folk.

I'm not particularly well today so I don't feel like making any lengthy arguements, but the problem as I see it is that a large percentage of the human male population is unable to 'pass' as being civilised and reasonable human beings.

I generally agree with him about our image of ourselves. We shouldn't need to hide, and I'm as guilty as anyone of feeling like I'm not a genuine woman if I don't pass.

However, I think he's putting way, way, way too much on the word "passing". That word is not what's causing the issue. It's the fact that for most people, seeing is believing. Our brains are wired to gender people (procreation of the species sort of depends upon it) and unconsciously people gender other people.

Take me, for example. I'm a transgender rights activist. No one believes more than I do in our right to be seen as who we are. And yet there are trans women that I find myself gendering as male no matter how hard I try not to because something in their presentation fires the "male" neuron in my brain.

To me the core of the problem not only for trans , but for anyone the doesn't measure up is for our society to get its act together and being the human beings that we have the potential to become and not the thugs that allowed someone like Hitler to come up with the concept of a pure race.