Why is passing so important to us?

[rmaddy]

Another consideration as well, at least for me, is that "passing" isn't about hiding (even if I had a magic spell that transformed me overnight into a cis woman, I still wouldn't be stealth/hide my past) or simply adhering to societal norms... It's about who I truly want to be, regardless of all that. To take the desert island button scenario (when removed from society would you still change gender thing), in that context I'd still want to be passing. Not because it would get me anything or because of society roles at all, but because the connotation of passing means that I appear more female than male. I don't want to appear male, for myself. (But, again, if I do appear male and don't pass, it's not the end of the world for me at all.)

I look at it a bit in the feminist homemaker sense I suppose... A woman should not be required by society to be a mother and homemaker, but if a woman chooses to be such then that is still in keeping with true feminism. A trans woman should not be required by society to pass in order to garner correct gendering or access to certain forums, but if a trans woman chooses to want to pass for themselves, not because of the social concept of passing but because what passing inherently entails (being more feminine than masculine), I don't see anything wrong with that.

Why call it passing at all then?  Are you not really saying that you would choose to express your self as feminine on that remote island and that the housewife should be able to be a housewife and that these things are inherently ok?  Perhaps you are familiar with Occam's Razor--eliminate that which is unnecessary to the hypothesis.  Passing?  Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothese la...

[Roll]

Why call it passing at all then?  Are you not really saying that you would choose to express your self as feminine on that remote island and that the housewife should be able to be a housewife and that these things are inherently ok?  Perhaps you are familiar with Occam's Razor--eliminate that which is unnecessary to the hypothesis.  Passing?  Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothese la...

Calling it passing or not though is just a semantics issue. It certainly doesn't have to be called passing. The concept itself, of being recognizable as female thus inherently meaning that I am more feminine than masculine, is what matters to me, and passing is just the word that is used to describe that, nothing more and nothing less. (To elaborate briefly, essentially I look at the problem as a culturally driven, and thus entirely reasonable, yet still somewhat pathological need to "pass", regardless of what we call it, and without inherent judgment to the concept of simply wanting or preferring to "pass".)

[Julia1996]

For me there are a few reasons. First of all, how passable you are dictates how you are treated by society. If you're passable you can pretty much have a normal life, as normal as possible anyway. Those who don't pass face ridicule and discrimination by a lot of CIS people. Another reason is because I'm female I want to be recognized as such. Not a transwoman but a woman. Another reason is my sexual orientation. I only like straight guys. It's important to me to pass and be attractive to men. I'm not saying women are supposed to be attractive for men. I'm saying for ME being attractive to men is very important. And before anyone gets all offended by something I said, these are the reasons passing is important to ME. I'm not saying these reasons apply or should apply to anyone but me.

[KarlMars]

It's not as important to me as it used to me. I embrace that I am a demi boy and not the macho guy I tried to be 2 years ago. I feel that my soul is made of balanced androgynous energy. I'm not worried about being misgendered but my eventual goal is to medically transition from female to male. I will be going to a liberal college in my conservative town that has LGBT staff and community in it. The college is mostly female but started letting some male students in for financial reasons.  I deliberately avoid people who think gender roles are important. I have a supportive church community, and supportive friends despite this conservative city.

[V M]

I think it's probably more important to some folks than others, it makes me feel good when I pass but if I don't I just think "Meh" and shrug it off

[DawnOday]

Passing for me is not important. Having respect and visibility is. It's about human rights. Not prejudice.

[rmaddy]

Calling it passing or not though is just a semantics issue. It certainly doesn't have to be called passing. The concept itself, of being recognizable as female thus inherently meaning that I am more feminine than masculine, is what matters to me, and passing is just the word that is used to describe that, nothing more and nothing less. (To elaborate briefly, essentially I look at the problem as a culturally driven, and thus entirely reasonable, yet still somewhat pathological need to "pass", regardless of what we call it, and without inherent judgment to the concept of simply wanting or preferring to "pass".)

Unjust and unwarranted requirements on a segment of the population are never semantic.  Dress how you want, because you want to.  Plot whatever course you want in life.  Just don't think that if you don't meet the expectations of someone else that you have somehow screwed up.

[Roll]

Unjust and unwarranted requirements on a segment of the population are never semantic.  Dress how you want, because you want to.  Plot whatever course you want in life.  Just don't think that if you don't meet the expectations of someone else that you have somehow screwed up.

I agree in full with your sentiment, all I am saying is there is a difference between focusing on the word (which is a matter of semantics) and focusing on the conditions that make the word mean what it does. Basically just that we can call it whatever, it won't make the underlying issue go away(the driving need to "pass"). The desire to blend in existed before the word passing was even part of the vernacular certainly.

[rmaddy]

It's not just the word that is problematic. If you don't see that our community is populated by aa lot of people who are terrified to be recognized as transgender, you aren't paying attention. We need to expose and actively resist ways of thinking that cast transgender people as less than. People are choosing to live in the closet because they don't think transgender people have value. This may be their choice, but it doesn't make it any less tragic.

Have you noticed the age demographic in this discussion?  Younger people are more willing to trade dignity and openness for acceptance. I predict that many of them will recognize, far too late, that this was a rotten deal.

[Sophia Sage]

Sophia,

If I read you correctly, you transitioned to put an to end external misgendering, to which I can only say, "I'm sorry."  I hope that worked out for you, and even more so that this helped you align with inner truth.

Renae

I suffered from gender dysphoria.  I was getting misgendered by myself and others.  Misgendering happened because of my embodiment, and to a lesser extent because of my socialization.  So I changed my body, got my voice down, and immersed myself in women's culture.  I maintain a closed narrative.  Now I'm gendered correctly by myself and others, full stop.

My truth is that I'm female.  A gendering I elicit without qualification today.  So there's nothing to be sorry about!

Unjust and unwarranted requirements on a segment of the population are never semantic.  Dress how you want, because you want to.  Plot whatever course you want in life.  Just don't think that if you don't meet the expectations of someone else that you have somehow screwed up.

For someone suffering gender dsyphoria, this mindset you lay out may or may not work.  Because that's not how gendering works.

This is how gendering works:  People see your body, and they subconscious and automatically assign it as "male" or "female," based on fairly sophisticated "models" or "schematics" or "prototypes" that a lifetime of experience has taught us.  It's the same neural mechanism for distinguishing cats from dogs, or any other kind of basic level category.  That initial assignment may be changed given new information -- like the wrong voice, or a terrible faux pas, or a story of transition.  And again, that re-assignment process doesn't happen consciously. 

People can't help but assign gender, based on the "prototypes" they've learned over years and years of subconscious information gathering from on all the people they've ever met. 

If we want to be automatically gendered correctly, we have to resemble one prototype much more than the other. 
And stick to it.  That's how gender assignment actually works, whether we like it or not.  Now, most everyone here can agree that gender is declarative, rather than performative, but this understanding comes from our own experiences of dysphoria or cross-gender identification.  Out in the big bad world, the declarative mode is becoming more and more tolerated, even indulged, but I would argue that the gendering one receives from such a situation, where we are asking other people to consciously work against their own subconscious understanding, is not the same as the gendering that comes automatically.

This process, by the way, also happens when we look in the mirror.  Which is why so many people in this community either detest mirrors or love them, depending on where they are in their process.

It's not just the word that is problematic. If you don't see that our community is populated by aa lot of people who are terrified to be recognized as transgender, you aren't paying attention. We need to expose and actively resist ways of thinking that cast transgender people as less than. People are choosing to live in the closet because they don't think transgender people have value. This may be their choice, but it doesn't make it any less tragic.

Have you noticed the age demographic in this discussion?  Younger people are more willing to trade dignity and openness for acceptance. I predict that many of them will recognize, far too late, that this was a rotten deal.

Our community is populated by a lot of people who are terrified to be misgendered, because that is what's at the source of so many suffering from dysphoria. Misgendering happens much more frequently when your embodiment doesn't match the phenotype of one's true gender.  It also happens more frequently when one doesn't maintain narrative privacy.  It doesn't happen at all, in my experience, when body and and narrative are aligned with the binary.

If there's a correlation between youth and transitioning to one's target gender (as opposed to transitioning into a "trans" social identity) it's likely to be that the young aren't as deeply enmeshed in the wrong life.  They haven't married, had children, had decades of the wrong hormones altering their bodies.  The young move on to live the lives of men and women, because they can. 

Of course, whether this is acceptable or "a rotten deal" depends on your personal truth.  If your personal truth is on the binary, then "trans" isn't an essence or identity, it's transitional, just like transition.  If your personal truth is aligned with the feelings of dysphoria and the process of transition itself, then it's likely better to be out, just like people who are gay or bi and can only make this socially known by being out about it (whether through words, or actions, or both).

What you and I don't get to do is to select what someone else's personal truth is or should be, especially in a place where gender is determined declaratively.  For someone who identifies on the binary, to live with the correct embodiment and a closed narrative isn't living in a closet... it's being completely free, finally, to live one's personal truth.  For many of us, the social identity of "trans" is a closet.

[Sophia Sage]

I agree in full with your sentiment, all I am saying is there is a difference between focusing on the word (which is a matter of semantics) and focusing on the conditions that make the word mean what it does. Basically just that we can call it whatever, it won't make the underlying issue go away(the driving need to "pass"). The desire to blend in existed before the word passing was even part of the vernacular certainly.

I think Renae has a very good point, though, about focusing on the word.

I say this because I think the word comes loaded with connotations that are not healthy for us.  First and foremost being that the concept of "passing" implicitly suggests that one is not presenting one's self authentically.  Much like the word "stealth," which suggests hiding in shadows instead of living one's life openly and truthfully simply as the men and women we know ourselves to be.  Again, though, so much of this depends on that internal truth!

The driving need for most of us, I think, is to be gendered correctly, by ourselves and others.  So let's expand our vocabulary and say what it is we're really doing.  I'm not "passing," because I'm being true to my inner truth, so what I'm really doing is "eliciting female gendering."  (Not to suggest, though, that at this point I'm doing anything that might resemble "work" for that, it just happens all the time.) Likewise, I don't do "stealth"; rather, I "practice non-disclosure" in order to "maintain narrative privacy" -- what I call having a closed narrative. 

It think the vernacular really does matter.

[KarlMars]

Passing for me is not important. Having respect and visibility is. It's about human rights. Not prejudice.

Excellent point of view!

[rmaddy]

I suffered from gender dysphoria.  I was getting misgendered by myself and others.  Misgendering happened because of my embodiment, and to a lesser extent because of my socialization.  So I changed my body, got my voice down, and immersed myself in women's culture.  I maintain a closed narrative.  Now I'm gendered correctly by myself and others, full stop.

One of the professional truisms I live by is "Never be disappointed with a good outcome."  I am truly delighted about how well this is working for you.

If we want to be automatically gendered correctly, we have to resemble one prototype much more than the other. 
And stick to it.

In 2018, agreed, and yet I am personally uncomfortable with an approach which says "This is the way it works and we must accept it."  Well, yes...or else we must change the world.

Our community is populated by a lot of people who are terrified to be misgendered[As opposed to being recognized as transgender], because that is what's at the source of so many suffering from dysphoria.

It would be easier for me to accept this if there were not a discussion ongoing in another forum where a substantial cohort are explicitly saying that they would rather be misgendered than have their transgender identity implied by an honest question.  It would be easier for me to accept this if I did not read every day on this site some sort of lament that being transgender is horrible.  It would be easier for me to accept this if we didn't have a few post-ops regularly writing that there is no difference between them and cis women.

If there's a correlation between youth and transitioning to one's target gender (as opposed to transitioning into a "trans" social identity) it's likely to be that the young aren't as deeply enmeshed in the wrong life.

100% agreed.  Late-stage transition is a mess.  The only potential advantages are that we may be somewhat more likely to have adequate finances and full legal independence.

Great post.

[Colleen_definitely]

I strive to pass because it makes things less complicated.  I like being able to blend in and not arouse suspicion.  This is something I've done my whole life, especially when I was struggling to survive as the male I was expected to be.

The general public seems to accept me as a natal woman and I'm perfectly OK with this.  I'm not a preacher, I'm not a flag waver, and I don't advertise my birth defect.  (though I don't deny it if it comes up, but this is rare)  I was also blessed with physical features that allow this to happen once I put a lot of hard work into my voice and mannerisms.  I am thankful for the genetic lottery that I sort of won, and proud of the fruits of my labor.

Maybe this makes me a coward for not being out and proud.  I got the hero stuff out of my system a long time ago doing terrible things in lands far away. 

For now I am content to simply pass by without notice everywhere I go.  If you want to be loud and proud, go for it.  Heavens knows we need all the positive image we can get, but I can't be it.

[Julia1996]

It's not just the word that is problematic. If you don't see that our community is populated by aa lot of people who are terrified to be recognized as transgender, you aren't paying attention. We need to expose and actively resist ways of thinking that cast transgender people as less than. People are choosing to live in the closet because they don't think transgender people have value. This may be their choice, but it doesn't make it any less tragic.

Have you noticed the age demographic in this discussion?  Younger people are more willing to trade dignity and openness for acceptance. I predict that many of them will recognize, far too late, that this was a rotten deal.

Personally I don't feel being outed as trans is dignified in any way. It's totally the opposite. I'm open with those I need to be, my boyfriend and family. I don't owe anyone else "openness" or any explanation of my former life. It's no ones business that I'm trans. I will never think passing as female and living a normal life as a woman, not a transwoman, was a  rotten deal. That's been my goal since I transitioned.

[amandam]

I have to agree with Julia. Passing is important in most of today's world. There are some places that don't care so much, but we all can't live there.

[Colleen_definitely]

I'm also totally with Julia.  How on earth is passing as a woman a bad thing?  That's all I've ever wanted my entire life and now that I have it, it's the most amazing feeling I can imagine.

[SadieBlake]

SadieBlake,

Of course I am expressing my truth.  What else do I have to say?  Beyond that, I am contradicting what I see to be a societal lie, one that has imposed itself on us,
...
And, I don't really understand what disagreement exists between you and me, at least on principle.

Well there would be where you opened your post with this:

"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.

Passing as a concept originated with blacks in the US who could pass for white, thereby avoiding discrimination. "We" didn't invent the term or the concept.

And I disagree that the concept or construct of gender is purely societal, where almost all of the elements that matter to me are very much based in biology, including, as I said above the reason most people are trans.

....
Where you lost me is when you say that you accept the importance of passing because society does, and then assert that you feel good about being gender transgressive, implying that it makes it easier for other trans people when you buck the system.  Bravo to the latter, as far as I am concerned.

I'm not sure how you get to thinking I "feel good about being gender transgressive"
From:
"For the record I hate that I have few choices but to transgress gender norms"

To be more clear about my personal history, around '98 I accepted that I had no choice but to accept that in one way or another I would spend the rest of my life being sometimes visibly transgender and always emotionally feminine. It wasn't until 2015 that I accepted my need to medically transition and accepting being both non passable and far from my desired appearance as a female person as part of that.

I think it's critical to remember that for many trans people and especially trans women passing or not can be a matter of life or death. Honestly you characterize this as a problem with a simple solution. I simply don't think that word (passing) means what you think it means ;-). Being trans is very different for different people, allowing for that is key in my experience.

Finally, let me take on this:

Late-stage transition is a mess. 

Ahem.

I began HRT at age 59 and my orchiectomy, penectomy and pi vaginoplasty was performed a couple of weeks after my 61st birthday. I don't consider my transition to be in the least bit a mess, nor do I regret the nearly 20 years I spent getting to know myself as female. I'm quite glad that as I was transitioning quietly and emotionally, the world changed a lot also and I'm far better accepted and understood now than I was then and accordingly I think my transition was the smoothest possible route within all the other constraints in my life.

[Charlie Nicki]

I like being able to blend in and not arouse suspicion.

This basically. If I want attention I want to be able to control what type of attention I get and when, I don't want to be constantly stared at, commented at, and made feel like a weirdo everywhere I go. I strive for a normal life.

[JillianC]

This basically. If I want attention I want to be able to control what type of attention I get and when, I don't want to be constantly stared at, commented at, and made feel like a weirdo everywhere I go. I strive for a normal life.

+1.  I also agree with Colleen and Julia less complications and less hassle.