Anniversaries
It recently occurred to me that within the next few weeks – January 5, to be exact – I will have been living as Rebecca full-time for a year.
I’m not sure what to make of this.
On the one hand, it feels rather momentous: Of the 25 years I’ve been alive, 24 have been at least partially presenting as a man, with only as a woman. But all the years ahead stretch out into woman, with this past year being the first brick laid onto that path.
On the other hand, though, I’m still so incredibly conscious of where I do feel uncomfortable. Where the transition still seems like an ever-present weight on my mind, my shoulders.
I had a few situations recently where I realized, in the presence of people who just met me, that they didn’t know I was trans; I was passing as a “real” woman. (We’ll get into a discussion about the problems with the word ‘passing’ another time. Any suggestions as to alternate language would be welcome.)
The first was at a Christmas party. I’d gone with a friend to a party hosted by some people she knew from work. We chatted with two other women by the trays of cookies guests had brought, and the Door Country wine that made me exclaim and share memories of going to Door County as a child. (I really want to order some online, and may have to give in if I can’t find any locally.) The discussion turned friends who were pregnant, and it wasn’t until walking home with my friend did I realize that they thought I could get pregnant, too. The conversation was, for me, a very different conversation than it presumably was for them. For me, the discussion was entirely hypothetical.
Then, this past weekend, I was at a friend’s house playing some boardgames. I was there with two girls, both of whom knew me pre-transition, and two guys, who I’d just met. We ended up playing Boys v Girls, something I used to hate but now can kind of enjoy. Sort of. Anyway, the teams had been self-named “Too Many Balls” and “Not Enough Breasts,” respectively. (I was the most well-endowed on my team, go figure.) I had a moment where I planned to chime in, with my default sense of humor, “Of course, our team has some balls, but yeah, ours don’t compare to yours.”
But I realized, “They don’t know I have balls. They assume I don’t have balls. Maybe I don’t want to out myself with that joke…”
As I said, I’m not sure what to make of this anniversary. I have trouble being super excited about it, since I’m only good at being self-deprecating and dismissive: Why celebrate the few things I’m doing right, when I can dwell on the many I’ve done wrong? Or not right ‘enough’?
Which is obviously a bullshit. But something I’m really good at.
I’m really looking forward to the next few weeks, when work is slow, to take some time for myself. And, yes, pamper myself a bit. Buy some things for myself. And try to get over this recurring block I construct for myself!
Themocracy
I definitely became a lot more comfortable with the construction of “passing” when I started parsing it in my head as “passing as cis” rather than “passing as $GENDER” — now, instead of talking about unqualified passing, I almost always am specific about “passing as cis,” even though the construction is longer.
I mean, the whole concept is complicated and can be problematic in a lot of ways — the whole pressure by society for trans folks to pass as cis is pretty messed up — but realizing that I didn’t need to talk about passing “as a woman” as if I was not allowed to fully claim a gender identity helped a lot.
(I remain conflicted as to whether I want to claim a non-queer gender identity in all contexts. But I damn well reserve the right to do so if I so choose, and let that choice be context-dependent)
Welcome, Violet, and thanks for the post.
I think that makes sense, in theory, but I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it, in practice. (Maybe I’m just over-tired.) Specifically, I feel like I’m falling into the trap of ‘woman = cis woman,’ and having difficulty distinguishing between “passing as cis” and “passing as $GENDER.”
I think it’s because I assume everyone viewing me won’t see a difference between the two. But maybe that problem is an internal one – that I need to do a better job in my own head of separating being cis from being a woman. That I’m totally on-board with ‘woman’ being an identity that doesn’t necessitate being cis, but have difficulty applying the idea to myself: that it’s OK if I’m a woman who isn’t cis. Of embracing (or, at the very least, being OK with) that knowledge.
Moving beyond that, “passing as cis” still seems to hold some to the same problems of “passing as a woman.” Namely, that you’re not really whatever you’re attempting to emulate, but you’re a passable imitation.
But maybe I begin to see your point: That we’re not cis, so it’s OK to discuss ‘passing’ as something we’re not. But we are women, so the idea of ‘passing’ as a woman is ridiculous. (Or men – I’m not meaning to impose gender on you, but speak in general.)
I think a lot of the problem is rooted in how society so deeply views cis genders (and cis bodies) as better than trans genders (and trans bodies). It doesn’t have to be that way, but it’s really pernicious, even when I try to get rid of it in myself.
Personally, I find it interesting to compare my feelings about passing regarding being trans and queer in gender ways to my feelings about passing and being queer in sexuality ways. US society has come a lot further in accepting LG identities, to the point that I don’t have the automatic “that is worse” or “that is less natural” response to my queer identity on the sexuality axis. And yet, I still see demands from society to hide sexuality-queer identities — to pass as straight.
Because the way sexuality-queerness is not written on the body like transness is, passing or not-passing as sexuality-queer is a lot more of a choice. And people make that choice each way, in different situations.
I don’t often pass as cis. I could mean that in the observational way (I am rarely read as cis), or I could also mean that in an active way (of the things I could do to minimize how trans-appearing I am, I don’t do many)
As for my gender, whether I identify as a woman depends pretty strongly on context. Where people around me understand non-binary genders, I tend to prefer to identify as “in the trans female neighborhood”, rather than “as a woman”. In areas where people are unlikely to understand non-binary genders, I’ll take the “woman” label more willingly.
… then again, I wonder if my reluctance to wholeheartedly take up the “woman” label is also based in my own internalized femmephobia and/or transphobia. It is so hard to tell.
I think internalized transphobia has a lot to do with my own trouble claiming trans or woman as pure and proud identities.
I use perceive or see and try to avoid using passing, personally, and I use it both ways, if I “pass” or “don’t pass”.
Example of ways I use it:
“I was perceived as a boy by the new person I met.” or even “I was perceived as a cis boy by the new person I met”
“I was perceived as a girl even though I presented myself with a male name”
“Most strangers I meet see me as a guy, unless I’m forced to show them my ID”
I feel like it removes the implication of pretense that the word passing brings along. Perceive/see means it is about how others look at me, not how I look, and they might be right or wrong in their assumption. It doesn’t frame it as something I did wrong, as a failing on my part. That’s what I think at least.
Hia Timortinel. Thanks for the comment.
I like your take quite a bit. It makes the act of passing as being perceived. That shifts the idea from something inherent – “I pass as…” – to something an outside eye is judging, perhaps wrongly – “they perceived me as…”
I’m taking up using the term “blending,” which is what I want to do: just blend in and belong.
I just read Bear Bergman’s book “The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You” in which xe suggests using the term read, as in “They read me as straight,” both because of the history of the term passing and because of who the words put the onus upon.
Thanks for stopping by, Jonah! It sounds like I need to read more Bergman. Any book(s) you’d recommend starting with?
I accidentally screwed up the commenting system, and it deleted your reply, Jonah. Here is is, and email me if any future comments of yours don’t get posted successfully.
[...] mentioned recently that I have a big anniversary coming up. Thinking about it, though, made me realize I have two [...]
I know this is an old-ish post but I just discovered your blog (love it, by the way).
I just wanted to agree with Jonah and say that I prefer “read as”. I find the whole concept of “passing”, not just the language, problematic.
Now I say things like “I think that person read me as cis”. Or, “I’m pretty sure I wasn’t read as trans.”
Also, I almost always include the “pretty sure”-type language, because I very infrequently know for sure how someone is reading me. In my experience, people rarely give clues as to whether or not they are definitely reading me (or others) as trans. But in my view it’s usually irrelevant. The most important piece to me is that I’m read/treated/respected as female without any language or behavior that would indicate that I was being treated any differently than a cisgender woman.
Thanks for the comment, and I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog!
And I’m totally on the same page in terms of ‘passing’ versus ‘read as.’
I think that’s an important point to make. It’d be nice (it would make me feel good about myself) to know that someone actually perceives me as a cis woman. But it’s effectively just as good if they treat me the same way they’d treat a cis woman.
If they perceive me as trans but don’t let it change how they interact with me, then so what?
(Obviously it can matter, to my own perception of myself if nothing else, but it’s a much smaller issue than if they’re treating me somehow other than equally a cis woman.)