Passing or Acceptance, redux

[sheila18]

all:
total passing because Genetic Girls are not guaranteed total acceptance so why should I expect that? acceptance?  I can work on that however total passing, minga!  no brainer I could save a lot of time and effort that need to be directed to other goals in life like my pilot's licence, white river rafting, tango dancing blah blah
love sheila

[Kate]

For me, being accepted as a woman is more important.  what is the point of  passing as a woman if you are not accepted as one?

Sigh.

I agree now. I'd change my vote to Acceptance if I could. After all those emphatic posts... me doth protested too much. I hope God at least allows me this DoOver. Art thou listening Up There? I GET it already, K?

Why must Growing Up take soooooo long?

Kate

[TheBattler]

Why must Growing Up take soooooo long?

Kate

sigh - cause changing is hard - We change as we grow and sometimes we do not want to change (me included). But as a part of growing up we must learnt to accept change (yes - I need to hear this as well).

Alice

[katia]

What Makes a Woman", or a man for that matter

In one of the previous incarnations of Susan's I started a thread:  Passing or Acceptance?
Would you rather totally pass as a woman and not be accepted as one or be accepted totally as one but not pass as one.  200 + replies later the verdict was still not in.

Leigh

The revival...

If you could choose just one of total passing or complete acceptance which would you choose, and why?


Clarification:

In this context total passing means looking/sounding and everything else external to that of a GG but NOT being accepted as one, i.e. being seen as an imposter.
While, complete acceptance is NOT looking like a girl, but being accepted as one.

In essence is looking the part (passing) or living the part (acceptance) more important to you?

Another way of looking at it is, is who you are alone (passing) more important than how others regard you (acceptance)

[edit]for clarification[/edit]

in this context i'd rather be [accepted] as a woman, yet in the real world you need to [pass] as a woman before anyone can accept you as such.

[Steph]

For me, being accepted as a woman is more important.  what is the point of  passing as a woman if you are not accepted as one?

Sigh.

I agree now. I'd change my vote to Acceptance if I could. After all those emphatic posts... me doth protested too much. I hope God at least allows me this DoOver. Art thou listening Up There? I GET it already, K?

Why must Growing Up take soooooo long?

Kate

But your posts did make for great debate didn't they Kate,  We work with what we know and as we grow we sometimes see things differently, it has nothing to do with growing up, just growing.

Steph

[Shana A]

I voted acceptance. Long ago I made the decision that I didn't wish to conform to other peoples standards of what woman (or man) should be. I am in between genders, and wish to simply pass as who I am and to be able to live safely.

zythyra

[kaelin]

As someone with dressing desires but not in order to convince, passing does nothing for me.

Love is always best, and that's what acceptance gives you.

[Jay]

That is really tricky question however it would have to be complete passing.

[Hypatia]

Acceptance - Because beauty is more than skin deep. A sense of belonging, healing my lifelong isolation. I am in this not out of desire for a particular look, but simply to be who I really am and to belong to the human race as such.

Passing is desirable to avoid getting laughed at by a crowd of teenagers or assaulted by queerphobes or harassed in the ladies' room. But if there were universal acceptance, that would not be an issue anyway. We feel a need to pass because of fear of rejection if we don't pass. So acceptance is really the only thing that matters.

This is not just a theoretical position for me, but drawn from real life. I'm not the best passer, but I very easily blend into womanspace with all kinds of other women who accept me and my womanly vibes as I am. That's where I feel right at home, and this acceptance is the be-all and end-all for me. I do want the SRS, but while waiting for it to become feasible, all I really care about is acceptance by other women. Taking hormones helps me a lot to feel and express my womanliness. I dress and makeup to pass the best I can, because that too helps with blending. But the core value is blending and acceptance. Passing is nice, but not essential as long as I'm in supportive company.

In fact, being a bit visibly trans might even be seen as a plus in the right context, because the most progressive people nowadays are eager to demonstrate their trans-acceptance. We're the progressive flavor of the month these days. Not that I like being "othered," even in a positive way, but they mean well, bless their hearts.

It's curious that if someone refers to me as being female, it Rings True, sounds right, makes me smile and feels right. But if someone refers to me as a woman, I tend to cringe a bit, it sounds... presumptuous, off-base, inaccurate. I can easily say I want to be female without any doubts. I hesitate to say I want to be a woman, as I really don't aspire to it. It's a secondary issue.

I don't know what any of that means though, lol...

That's funny, I've always heard it the other way around. To me, male and female refer to physical sex. This is relevant at the doctor's, for example: trans or no trans, I have a basically male physiology to be cared for, which sometimes makes a difference medically. Whereas man and woman refer to gender.

Thus I strongly identify as WOMAN while I'm not so sure about claiming "female." Except that I speak of my female brain, in terms of physiology. In my humble opinion, brain sex is the best of all possible explanations for transsexualism, and my brain has always functioned in a distinctly female way.

[gina_taylor]

What Makes a Woman", or a man for that matter

In one of the previous incarnations of Susan's I started a thread:  Passing or Acceptance?

Leigh

To me passing is more imprtant than being accepted. Anyone can accept me for what I am, but if I don't try 200% for passing then what are they really accepting?

Gina 

[rhonda13000]

Total Passing, unquestionably.

I have lived in isolation, without social acceptance and very independently for most of my life.

If I must do it again I will, but total passing is very important.

[Hypatia]

I just wish I didn't have to live in such a shallow-mentality world that makes us feel passing is so all-fired imperative.

I go over and over the arguments where -- like the famous baseball manager said -- "Winning isn't the most important thing. It's the ONLY thing" -- trans ladies who I respect are saying in effect passing isn't the most important thing, it's the ONLY thing... and I do see what they mean... and I'm afraid to find their arguments persuasive, I'm afraid of starting to feel that way... then I look back over my previous answer, and I still believe what I said above, why I chose acceptance.

[Jeannette]

Tricky poll.  People accept me as a woman because I pass.  If I didn't pass, people could still accept me as a transgendered person or a human being but not as a woman or female.

[Hypatia]

Tricky poll.  People accept me as a woman because I pass.  If I didn't pass, people could still accept me as a transgendered person or a human being but not as a woman or female.

That's exactly what I mean, I don't want to turn into someone who perceives life in that way, and am afraid if I keep reading discussions about passing here I might start to agree with this. And I fear becoming like this.

Edit:
The more I think over and over this, the more I don't believe it. Never did. Still don't. No offense or disrespect intended toward those who see differently, but for me to believe this point of view would mean tearing down and radically reconstructing my whole understanding of life. I guess that's why I fear it. I felt more inner security the original way and don't want to lose that. But am I just deluding myself? What is real, anyway? How sure can any of us be that we can tell what is real apart from what is unreal? Are our lives built upon anything more substantial than ontological quicksand?

[rhonda13000]

Tricky poll. People accept me as a woman because I pass.  If I didn't pass, people could still accept me as a transgendered person or a human being but not as a woman or female.

That was partially why I answered in the way that I did.

Given that most of my so-called family and friends have refused to accept me and that I will need to re-create a new social structure, acceptance is.....irrelevant.

And yes, there is most definitely emotion behind that statement.

I suppose that the recent unexpected instances where I was completely 'En Femme' in public and had no trouble in passing is also driving the choice which I have made here......that tremendous feeling of profound comfort and tranquility of mind which I felt, the JOY which I felt, makes any rejection by the aforementioned others a total non-issue for me.

[Thundra]

Tricky poll.  People accept me as a woman because I pass.  If I didn't pass, people could still accept me as a transgendered person or a human being but not as a woman or female.

Says who?

I think you people all need to get out more, or at least expand your circle of possible friends & acquaintances before you draw these conclusions. Why the assumption that all people are incapable of looking past your birth status to accept you as an equal? I know that some people feel that way, but not all people feel that way. You are perennating your own stereotype with that assumption and further tying sexual characteristics to gender identity.

[Kate]

Why the assumption that all people are incapable of looking past your birth status to accept you as an equal?

The projections of internalized fears and insecurities from a lifetime of trauma onto a populace that is often much better at seeing our true selves than we are.

~Kate~

[Elizabeth]

Because I have been full time for three years now, and know I don't pass all the time, in fact up close I am sure I never pass, but that has not prevented me from being accepted. I have found that once people know me on a personal basis, passing becomes a non issue.

It's kind of an interesting question because the entire premise of passing 100% is to gain acceptance from those who might withhold such acceptance knowing the truth about us. The author of the thread throws a wrench in it by setting up the precondition that passing means not being accepted, exactly the opposite of what one would expect from passing. The the author goes on to say what if not passing meant one would be accepted, which of course addresses our greatest fear about not passing. That we will not be accepted. This again is counterintuitive.

Being not passable and accepted, I can say it's pretty nice. But having said that, it doesn't mean I would not want to be more passable. I want to be more passable because I want to look like a woman. Because that is how I feel inside. It has nothing to do with with being accepted. I know that real acceptance comes from how people feel about me personally, not any prejudices they might have or bigotry. Anyone that is so superficial that they would reject me out of hand simply because I am not a natal female, is not really the kind of person I am looking to be accepted by anyway.

In the end, we all have it in our power to be accepted, no matter if we pass or not. It really starts with self acceptance. In this regard, I recognize that there are many that must pass to attain self acceptance. So in a way, they need to pass to be accepted, not because of society, but because of how they feel about themselves. I do not possess this need. Once I got ok with myself, it just stopped being important what others thought about it. I doubted that anyone would approve if they were given control over it. No one was going to tell me to transition because it was the best thing for me, had I given them the power to decide for me. I was going to have to act in my own best interest, regardless of what others thought.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Hypatia]

Thank you so much for saying that so well, Elizabeth, it helps a lot!

[gina_taylor]

Elizabeth, I really enjoyed reading your post. I found it to be very touching and it does make a lot of sense as well.

Gina