"Passing" is a destructive word, as are most words associated with it. We never should have let it into our lexicon, and we ought to do what we can to get rid of it.
Every day, we see new threads in which people lament that they do not pass, worry that they will never pass, wonder if they pass or crow about the fact that they always pass. Mixed in there somewhere are the percenters, who pass __% of the time, but usually a number that suggests--you got it--a passing grade. What is striking among the participants of these threads is that they are firmly united by a belief in passing as a concept. Passing is their yardstick, and the thought that there isn't or shouldn't be a yardstick applied to human beings rarely comes up. More on this in a moment.
Pass has many uses in the English language, but we know which one is meant--to succeed. We know this because those whose use the term also use its opposite--fail. You would think that people on a support site would use such a word with caution, but it is thrown around with equal abandon to that of its antonym. People post about their "male fails" or "gal fails". It finds its way into timelines as a milestone. The rhyme makes it cute. A joke. Never mind that the person in that situation was likely scared, miserable or both at the time.
A distressing number of people post that they make decisions on whether or not to transition based on their perception of their ability to pass. "I will transition, but only if I can pass" really means "I will pursue what medically is in my best interests, but only if no one knows that I did so." To be sure, there is usually a certain generosity of spirit in the responses--"Oh, you could pass..."; "If I can do it you can do it." Occasionally a "Will I pass?" thread is met with crickets. Judgment has been rendered. The yardstick reigns supreme. Pass, or fail.
When somebody does not pass, they are "clocked". It's not a pretty word. One gets clocked by a left hook or an errant frisbee. It is an act of violence--intentional in the first case and unintentional in the second--but an act of violence nonetheless. It leaves a mark.
To the entire system described above, I say, if I am so permitted to do so here, "Bull>-bleeped-<."
Let's start from the bottom up. What does it mean to be "clocked"? Stripped to its essentials, it means to be recognized as transgender. Again, "pass" is a perfect antonym. To pass is not to be recognized as transgender. This is the literal case--what actually happens. The person who wishes to pass wishes not to be recognized as trans. Some take this to an extreme, emphatically insisting that they are not transgender, are no longer transgender or that they are exactly the same as any cis person of their target gender.
This is not true. A cis person has not felt the discomfort of being assigned the wrong gender at birth. A cis person never needed to be treated medically to remain cis. A cis person never needed to correct those who misgendered them, whether at birth or some point further down the line. A cis person generally can't even grasp what this would be like.
You are trans. You will always be trans. Even if you are never recognized and if you have fully transitioned, you will still be transgender. You literally bear the scars. Metaphorically too, I would submit.
This is not a bad thing. Someone who has successful treatment is to be congratulated. I was told that I came through my appendectomy "with flying colors"--metaphorically waving a freaking flag. Although I did little to achieve it, I felt strangely proud to have returned to wellness post-operatively. "Never have to worry about that again." Similarly I feel happy to have regained function in my shoulder and hand after two joint reconstructions. Still, my treatments are written into my medical record. They are facts about me, not points on which to feel ashamed. They may seem less relevant over time, but the facts remain, and may occasionally become relevant again, for example, to the doctor trying to determine why I have my next bout of abdominal pain.
I have scars on the underside of my breasts. Should I be embarrassed or ashamed? Hell no...I'm a tigress and I chased down what ultimately fed me. The same applies to you regarding your transition. Why do you act like you're ashamed of it?
We can still be honest about the frustrations we feel when our transgender identity becomes an issue. I once skipped a medical school reunion because at the previous high school reunion, every conversation I had revolved around my transition. I learned nothing about anybody else, and this sullied the experience. Nevertheless, this was their failure, not mine. I refuse to own it. And, at the next reunion, I took charge of the conversations. "But enough about me...what's going on with you." I framed my transition as something interesting, a potentially refreshing change from whatever rut the other person might have been stuck in. I made new friends and I took pride in what I had accomplished--in transition and in life. An effing tigress.
We can do better. We can get rid of stupid words. We can talk about recognition by others, and how we deal with it. We can talk about the ways we work with them to make them more enlightened citizens. We can react with patience to those who, through lack of experience and education, don't know how to make sense of our gender expression and are getting stuck on it. We can make medical decisions because they are in our best interests, not because they will be invisible to other people. We can be trans in a way that makes trans something really amazing and unique. We can throw away this yardstick and ever other yardstick we use to place or deny value on other human beings.
