Words matter.  A good builder will discard a defective brick rather than incorporate it into a foundation.  Words are the building blocks of thoughts, and sometimes it is worth considering whether the materials we are using are up to the task.

Consider the word "clocked".  It sounds horrible.  One gets clocked by a falling rock, a vicious left hook or an inattentively operated vehicle.  The word carries emotional weight, implying an adverse, often malignant event.

Seeing the word so often used in the context of transgender social interaction, I have spent quite a bit of time distilling what it means.  Objectively, it means that one is recognized as transgender.  It may include misgendering, but does not require it--one can be clocked without being misgendered.  Nevertheless, these terms are often closely related, and each should be considered in turn.

Misgendering is frustrating.  Gender identity runs deep within our psyche, and transgender people, in my experience, tend to expend a good deal of ender in presenting or enacting their gender.  Our internal coherence is rocked by incoherent public experience.  Further, since misgendering may persist, it begins to feel like an picked scab.  I hate being misgendered, and I hate the extent to which cis folk don't get the pain.  Three things are certain in the trans life--death, taxes, and that your completely cis friend who was once misgendered from behind or in a dark room will say, "Hey, that happens to me too."   

That said, misgendering is usually unintentional.  People don't want to perceive me as male.  Subconscious processes make a gender determination long before they give the matter conscious thought.  Sure, there are people who intentionally misgender, repetitively misgender or misgender out of ignorant commitment to the false equivalence between gender and birth sex.  And, for me at least, I tend to respond to it differently.  Being accidentally misgendered might make me sad, depending on the day and my attitude going into the event.  Being intentionally misgendered makes me angry.  Though it might hurt either way, intent really does matter.

This brings me back to "clocking".  Again, it does not objectively mean anything other than that the person in question perceived the trans person as trans.  People can, and usually do, in my experience, recognize that I am trans but keep it to themselves.  Look at the sort of questions asked here:  "Was I clocked?" 

I submit that if you don't know, it really doesn't matter.  And, if you know you were "clocked" (for example, if you are adept at reading the other's eyes and body language in such a matter that you perceive their perception), but nothing was added to it, it doesn't matter.

Unless.

Unless you think being perceived as trans is, in and of itself, an adverse event.  Hey...been there, done that, but I'm over it.  In the end, I decided that not wanting to be seen as trans feels just a bit too transphobic for my comfort.  Think about it...when you see (i.e. "clock") another trans person, how do you react?  Personally, I smile.  My brother.  My sister.  Why should I take offense if someone else recognizes that I am transgender?  I've thought about this question a lot, and I can't come up with a decent answer.

In my opinion, the word does more harm than good.  I wasn't clocked.  I was recognized.  Changing the language instantly creates a better frame in which avoid negativity.  I recommend it.

I agree.  When I came out, I resolved that I was done with being in a closet.  I left the closet called "denial" and I have no desire to enter the closet called "stealth".

I can tell that I get recognized regularly.  I see the slightly too long looks and the rapid breaking of eye contact.  I am tall for a woman, I have somewhat masculine facial features, and I dress a bit more flamboyantly than cis women.  (Nothing gaudy or over the top, but I'll wear a skirt when all the other woman are wearing trousers.)  So I stand out, and people notice me.

People here are polite, so a negative reaction is that they might avoid me.  Fine by me, since people like that are probably boring anyway.  There are plenty of people who react positively when they recognize me as trans.  As long as people who see me negatively don't get in my face, I really don't care.

For me being outed as trans does upset me. A lot actually. No, I don't think being a transwoman is a bad thing but I also don't want to be known as trans if I can help it. I wish I could say I didn't care what other people think but I totally do. For me being outed as trans is like invalidating my female identity. I certainly don't believe that a transwoman is any less female than a cis woman, but cis people DO think that way. This is totally my hangup,  but when I'm outed as trans it just reminds me I will never be a real female in the eyes of others. I once had one of my mother's friends tell me I was very pretty and that I was a good imitation of a woman. A lot of people consider us a "imitation"  of a woman. I certainly don't consider myself an imitation and having other people see me that way upsets me a lot. That's why I try to be as stealth as possible. And nobody think I"m saying that being trans is something to be ashamed of, I'm totally not. These are just my personal feelings.

Quote from: Julia1996 on September 02, 2017, 06:39:42 AM
For me being outed as trans does upset me. A lot actually. No, I don't think being a transwoman is a bad thing but I also don't want to be known as trans if I can help it. I wish I could say I didn't care what other people think but I totally do. For me being outed as trans is like invalidating my female identity. I certainly don't believe that a transwoman is any less female than a cis woman, but cis people DO think that way. This is totally my hangup,  but when I'm outed as trans it just reminds me I will never be a real female in the eyes of others. I once had one of my mother's friends tell me I was very pretty and that I was a good imitation of a woman. A lot of people consider us a "imitation"  of a woman. I certainly don't consider myself an imitation and having other people see me that way upsets me a lot. That's why I try to be as stealth as possible. And nobody think I"m saying that being trans is something to be ashamed of, I'm totally not. These are just my personal feelings.

Hi Julie,

I love your posts, and I appreciate the distinction you are making.  If I understand it correctly, you don't feel that being transgender is something to be ashamed of, but the fact that much of society does affects you nonetheless.  I agree with that, actually.  It sounds like you have been treated poorly as a transwoman, and that your desire to not be seen as one is an act of self preservation.

I certainly can't argue with that, even if I think greater exposure over time will benefit us more collectively than stealth.  Hopefully I was sufficiently careful in my original post to frame my solutions to this problem as just that...my solutions.  Still, would you agree that the term "clocked" adds often unnecessary emotional baggage?  It has the effect of casting all recognition as hostile. 

A person who recognizes that you are trans has done you no harm unless she or he adds to it some sort of offense.  It is largely a matter of subconscious or minimally conscious visual processing.  If the person uses this recognition to engage in offensive behavior or violation of your privacy (outing you), then that should be called out, loudly and consistently.  My concern is that thinking which casts the innocent act of recognition as either offense by the viewer or failure by the trans person only deepens our predicament.

Renae

Im actually doing a real life study on this exact topic in a chapter of a book Im writing.

I present as female everyday in my industry which is construction. I have had no FFS but have been on hormones for 9 months without a lot of facial changes. I do pass reasonable well and find most people don't give me a second look when it comes to activities in the general public.

As mentioned Im in construction and as an owner Im dealing with suppliers, clients, sub trades, and do all the quoting for projects face to face with these individuals.

Do I get clocked? Pretty much everyday do to my voice and being up close and personal with a lot of folks. I would say 98% of all the individuals I deal with have given positive feedback and have said that my being in transition would not effect relations personally or with business.

Ok shocking to some but I don't mind being clocked at all wether it be positive or negative. Why, because giving visibility to an entire field that has normally been very homophobic and un accepting to girls like us will start to educate those individuals.

I will give one shout out to a big box store that has actually sat down with their department heads and worked on policy do to my circumstances. Way to Go Home Depot.

Saying all this do I think that everyone I deal with is fully accepting? Probable not. Im a realist so I know what goes on behind my back but then again thats not my business.

This being the first year I have come out to everyone personal and business I still don't have enough data to make any resounding conclusions but by next year I think I will see changes in our business probably good and bad.

The biggest concern of being clocked etc. The possibility of quotes not being accepted like previous years. Will see when the numbers come in next year.

My personal thoughts. It use to really bother me when I was mis gendered but have come to the realization its going to happen until all the surgeries are done next year and that this is just a phase I have to go through so might as well spin it to a positive and educate a few people along the way.

Huggs Niki Marie

The consequences of being clocked seems to be what most are focusing on.  I see a bunch of positive posts about clocking and good experiences that came of it too. People use other words than clocking to describe the exact same experience all the time. I was seen. I was outed. I was noticed. I was recognized. I was figured out. It doesn't seem much to affect the gravity of the experience in itself that is the source of a person's stress.

Words may matter, but how much they matter is entirely within a person's power. I would think it better to master your reaction to words than to try to avoid words themselves. Or to give these words negative connotations and therefore more power.

You could call it anything you want... if a person has terrible experiences with clocking, it's probably not going to help them a great deal to shuffle the descriptors for it around. If it helps you, that's great. I mostly see people just using it as a word specific to the community because it conveniently describes a trans experience... not much in the way of associating it with being punched in the face or anything.

If I'm recognized and I have a bad experience as a result, I think the word recognized is as likely to end up carrying a subconscious element of dread as well.

At some level it matters to me,  but at another it doesn't. I don't yet fully identify as Female,  don't know if I ever will,  and I'm fine with that; so for me (differently to Julia),  I don't feel I have a female identity to invalidate.
I've posted separately on my deep curiosity on if and to what extent I pass,  but that's just one measure of the success of my own transition.
I'm 40, I have a lived history as a man (at least that's how I presented). An ex-wife,  children,  family, friends mean stealth isn't even an option, and I personally would never deny the person I was before,  they weren't a bad person.
The most important thing for me is that I'm treated as Female,  and in my day-to-day life I get that,  despite the odd pause in some interactions. That's my own personal measure. [emoji5]

Sent from my MI 5s using Tapatalk

As has been noted ad nauseum, the first transphobe to be defeated is yourself. Quite obvious and apparently, ......not so much. Regardless of your personal feelings about your transness, it still sux to imagine that someone, even someone you don't know is mocking, laughing at, deriding or belittling you. You may own whatever situation you find yourself in but we still, at the end of the day live in a social matrix where acceptance is part of the paradigm. My heart goes out to any of us that find garnering the respect we crave from others is compromised because our presentation falls short of the herds scrutiny.

Back in the age of dinosaurs, in the NYC area, the popular phrase was "Got Read". I have to agree getting clocked is bad on several levels vs OK so I am not totally stealth. But then I have heard from lots of females how they too were accused of being guys.

"Clocked" doesn't have to be a negative term, one can be clocked at 5 minutes 32 seconds in a race. In both situations, it means correctly measured.

Someone recognizing you are trans isn't necessarily a bad thing. They could be an ally, or be trans themselves.  That many trans people don't like being clocked means potential friends don't approach me and I can't approach potential friends is stupid. I'd love to be friends with other trans people and trans allies. Being trans is incredibly lonely, and I don't only want to be able to meet other trans people online or in some structured setting like Pride or a support group.

Quote from: JoanneB on September 02, 2017, 10:33:45 AM
Back in the age of dinosaurs, in the NYC area, the popular phrase was "Got Read". I have to agree getting clocked is bad on several levels vs OK so I am not totally stealth. But then I have heard from lots of females how they too were accused of being guys.

I've always used the terms with a distinction.  If somebody notices or realizes I am trans, that person "reads" me.  If that person goes on from "reading" me to confronting or questioning or harassing or denouncing me, then that person "clocks" me.  "Reading" is a subjective awareness on the part of the perceiver.  "Clocking" is a social interaction, often aggressive and hostile and painful.

Trans folks develop a pretty sophisticated ability to "read" each other, because gender identity is a focus of attention for us.  (In fact, we are more adept at "reading" than most cis folks will ever be!)  In my terminology, I "read" trans people pretty readily.  But I exercise care not to "clock" them.

Any word can be used to describe the issue and it's still going to be a negative event for a lot of us.
Honestly, I personally don't want to get read as trans because it's a hassle: a hassle to explain (to the few that ask questions to your face), a hassle to deal with the stupid assumptions those that don't ask questions likely jump to, a hassle to be at the whim of someone else's opinion of your existence.

Personally, I don't feel at all like I'm stuffing myself into another closet by not wanting to be read as trans. I like being able to control when or if I want to 'come out' because it puts the power back in my hands.

Pre-everything, we're at the mercy of the perception of others ("will she see a man or a dyke?" "will they see a woman or a man in a dress?") 24/7 if we're openly doing our best to present as the opposite gender. Is the cashier/waiter/teller going to be an a**hole or overly nice? Are they going to be passive aggressive and turn your day to s*** or not?
Getting clocked carries with it the same burden.

While I don't have any experience with this yet (and am in dread of it moving forward), I would like to offer a small perspective from the pre/starting transition side... I don't know if this will mean anything, but even if it does a tiny bit I figure it's worth saying. Even before I admitted to myself I was transgender (a whole week and a half ago that feels like an eternity), if I recognized someone as trans in any situation, be it in public in person or on TV, or anywhere, my reaction was this amazing feeling of hope and love (and a fair dose of jealousy). It's only happened on a few occasions (setting aside flipping through channels and coming across exploitative stuff like Jerry Springer back in the day), but in every case it was a great comfort, even if I couldn't figure out explicitly why at the time. (For example, I remember years and years ago when I first saw Candis Cayne in something random on TV that never explicitly stated she was trans but it was still recognizable, and felt compelled to read up on her for hours afterward.)

Essentially what I'm trying to say is that visibility(being clocked) may sometimes be horrible (and again, I am terrified of it from the bottom of my soul, but then I don't like being looked at in general), but by the simple fact of being visible there is also an inherent gift for other people out there, many of them children, who need examples, role models, and heroines or heroes. Maybe that helps, maybe it doesn't, but I figure it (probably) can't hurt. (Which isn't to say anyone should be expected to be "visible" in the slightest, but that simply there may be hope to find some solace in that as long as someone is visible, there is some good along with the much bad.)

(From a MtF perspective) Most of us are clocked by other transgender women who have are not clocked by cis individuals or at least a cis person who has not been involved with a trans person who is more aware. So being clocked isn't always a bad thing and many cis women do get clocked as transgender. If someone in the know clocks me, doesn't tell me and still respects me as a woman, then I really don't care. Ignorance is bliss as they say.

I agree with the OP that most of the associations with the word are wholly negative.  I don't remember the last time I ever heard it used in a context that was positive. If ever.  It's such an odd word and so much a part of transgender slang.  Which leads me to suspect that it comes from the early days, what I like to call the "John Hopkins Era," when passing was a requirement for for full medical/surgical MTF transition.  And gynophilia was ABSOLUTELY verboten.  Back then being openly recognized as a transsexual was to be avoided at all costs.

It would be interesting to get input from some of the older transitioners (who transitioned in that era) as to their memories of when they first encountered the word.

Quote from: rmaddy on September 02, 2017, 02:44:52 AM
Unless.

Unless you think being perceived as trans is, in and of itself, an adverse event. 

You have no idea how many transgender people hold that self-defeating view.   And not only "being perceived as trans" but just "being trans."  You would be shocked.  The old "nobody would EVER - WANT to be trans" argument that is I think made more vigorously by trans people than even by transphobes.
I'm sure some of them will be sure to make that very point on this very thread.

The first few times I read that someone had been "clocked," I assumed they had been physically assaulted. To me "clocked" a punch to the face that results in unconsciousness or disorientation. Reading that term makes me cringe, because it is such a violent association. I wish we could use another word for it.

I'm unusual in that, as a transmasculine guy, I don't WANT to be read as male. My transition is private, and though partly physical/surgical, also very internal. I want to transition and BE a guy for *myself* without anyone recognizing me as anything but femme girl. So, for me, if someone sees me as a guy/genders me correctly as a guy, I'd be horrified. I only want people to see the surface, where my girl side resides. My guy side is dominant, but private. Weird, I know, but that's my version of non-binary.

I also wish there was a way we could recognize each other in a way that doesn't cause those who are trying to be stealth to feel outed. We have a new checker in my preferred grocery store who is obviously MtF, and I wanted to say hi or somehow communicate (I'm trying to set up a local support group - we don't have one in our small town) but I also don't know how she would react.

I think "clocked" is the perfect word, insofar as it captures the emotional damage of being incorrectly perceived. Mind you, a lot of that depends on how we identify ourselves, how we construct our categories versus how society constructs those categories. 

In my experience, the vast majority of the world associates someone with a trans history as someone who "is" a person (or a "kind" of person) of the sex they were assigned at birth.  Only in the community do the vast majority of us associate being trans with being one's declarative gender.  So in cis society, to be read as trans is to be misgendered.  And even those who are completely sympathetic will still treat someone they've clocked differently than someone who hasn't been clocked.  (There may be queer pockets of cis people here and there who don't react this way, but they are, by definition, in some way queer.)

Now, how we react to being read will depend on how we construct our own identities.  If you identify as trans, first and foremost -- identifying with your dysphoria, your transition, what have you -- then of course being read isn't going to feel like being "clocked" in the painful sense, just in the sense of being seen, being witnessed.  It's only if you identify on the binary first and foremost that being clocked will feel like being misgendered altogether.

Another example of a word being "hijacked" its cockney slang word as in clock face and means recognised. So I suppose in that sense its correct . Well it wont have to bother me a as I don't expect to "pass" .

Quote from: Janes Groove on September 02, 2017, 02:35:45 PM
It would be interesting to get input from some of the older transitioners (who transitioned in that era) as to their memories of when they first encountered the word.

This has to assume that those of us that did go through the gatekeeping of the era have kept up on all the current vernacular. What is called stealth today was called woodworking, as in blending into the woodwork and being invisible.

I started HRT before my senior year and finished social transition right out of high school at 18 in 1973 and into the woodwork I went. I had never met or even spoken to another trans person until I was 22 and checked into the hospital to have SRS and with no internet and such, was completely oblivious to all the insider lingo. When I did become more aware of others and the world around me, being read was what is now referred to be as being clocked. As far as I can tell, the meaning is the same?

My associations with other trans people was of very limited duration and consisted solely of hand written letters with someone I met in the hospital that only lasted a year or so then it was back into the woodwork for close to the next forty years. About two years ago, in a totally unrelated news and politics forum I happened across a young woman speaking openly about her own journey and I reached out to her privately and began a dialog. She helped to remind me of where I came from and I began an intensive period of research into all things trans including the advancements in the medical and scientific understanding of the condition as well as the sociopolitical aspects of what being trans is today. It was kind of an awakening or enlightenment, if you will. Stealth and clocking were new terms to me although the meaning was apparent.

Less than six months ago, I joined another trans forum and then this one and it has been somewhat eye-opening and very educational but I still feel like an outside observer and to some degree isolated because there are very few here I can relate to. That's beside the point and off topic but I've written about it before.

As far as being read or clocked, that just doesn't happen but there was one job I had in my mid-20's where word got around due to trusting my history with the wrong person and I totally hated people knowing that I was trans. Not that I'm really ashamed about it but I consider my medical history private and nobody else's business. In the real world, I'm still "in the woodwork" and much prefer things stay that way. Only a small group of longtime friends I consider family know of my past and I'll admit I would be very distraught if publicly outed for some reason. Being trans online anonymously is as far as I'm willing to go. If someone were to read or clock me that wasn't also trans, I'd probably just laugh and tell them to eff off but I can't say it wouldn't shake me up a bit.

 I had never heard the word used it this context until I joined Susan's Place which was in January. I had hears of transgender people being read before that. I'm just old I guess.

laurie