Maddie at xoros.net recently wrote a post, Passing Fallacy, on the idea of passing. That is, being perceived as the gender you are presenting as, rather than your assigned-at-birth gender. I really like where she takes her definition, though:

[passing] is a struggle to over ride what others impose and imprint on you in order to win the right to assert one’s self image, one’s self. It’s trying to win the right not to be made to feel like a failure, an othered, degendered oddity. It is trying to be “convincing” enough (read – meet enough of their stereotypes) that people are prepared to accept what you say. Rather than just listening to what you say.

That idea, of passing being an issue of whose reality ‘wins,’ is the main reason I try to say “perceived as a woman” rather than “passing as a woman.” Because it turns around passing and makes it about what it really is: a problem created by the gaze-er, not the gaze-ee.

Maddie continues on a similar line, and ends her post by saying

Therefore I would like to suggest that the phrase “failed to pass” be replaced with “failed to be accorded a basic level of respect”.

While talking at a high school last week, one of the students said, “Wow, you really look like a woman.” I told him I appreciate that, as I knew he intended it as a compliment, but went on to say that comments like that can be unintentionally (or intentionally) hurtful.

I turned to the teacher and said, “Wow, you really look like a teacher! If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you really were one.” Everyone in the class laughed, but I hope I got my point across that comparing someone’s identity – as a woman, as a teacher, as a member of a religion, as whatever – to a “real” member of that group hurts. It’s belittling. It’s, as Maddie says, disrespectful.

At the same time, I think passing in my own eyes is keenly important to my confidence in my identity as a woman. That is, I’m still working on perceiving myself as a woman, even when I know those around me do perceive me that way.

The easiest example I can think of is going to the bathroom. I feel incredibly awkward in the bathroom when I’m around other women I know (and, to a lesser extent, women I don’t know) because I don’t perceive myself as a ‘real’ woman in that situation. My coworkers don’t care. My friends don’t care. I’ve had a friend who I’ve known over a decade ask if maybe I was depressed because I was PMSing (and had to remind her I don’t menstruate). I “pass,” and the people in my life afford me the respect of treating my stated gender with just as much weight and “reality” as theirs.

But I need to give that reality weight in my own eyes. To continue to travel down a road toward my own self-respect.

One of the things I’ve been trying to do toward that end is flip around my usual daydreams or mental wanderings. My tendency is to imagine how much ‘better’ things would be now if I’d only transitioned earlier. But, recently, I’ve been trying to look at my life from a different perspective: what would 8-year-old me think of my life? What about 13-year-old me? 15? 18? Even a year or two ago, what would I have thought of my life today?

That starts to give me a sense of joy about where I am today, a sense of wonder at how far I’ve come. I’m not able to keep that positive emotion for long, but occasionally I can catch it, like a guttering flame.

It was already kind of an emotional conversation, so it was only a slight surprise to me when tears started down my face, as I replied, “Do you really think I have a choice about being out?”

I live within five miles of where I grew up. I keep up a relationship with my immediate and extended family. I work at one job where I’ve taken classes since I was 19 or 20, and another where I’ve taken classes since I was nine. I have two roommates, each of whom I went to high school with. The vast majority of my friends have known me since before I started transitioning (in one case since I was maybe three years old).

To keep all of that – and I do want to keep it – means that I inherently have to be out about my status as trans. When such a history exists, the option for stealth living diminishes greatly: I’d need to refuse to acknowledge my trans-ness with people who did know, cut off contact with people who couldn’t handle that, and not acknowledge it to new acquaintances.

I meant all that when I said “Do you really think I have a choice about being out?”

But being out doesn’t necessitate doing a solo performance about my experiences as a trans woman. Or sharing that part of myself via this blog.

I continued explaining my thoughts to my friend, saying that I still don’t feel like I’m perceived as a woman. I don’t feel like a woman. Accurate or inaccurate, I assume people are going to know I’m trans, and judge me for it.

And so claiming that trans identity – being Loud and Proud, as it were – is a way of preempting that derision. Because if I acknowledge it first, if I pretend it’s something I’m OK with, then it lessens the ability for others to use my trans identity as a weapon to hurt me.

I’m pretty sure, intellectually, that most of the people in my life who have known me since before I transitioned do perceive me as a woman. And that, when meeting new people, they perceive me as a woman, too. But I’m still trying to perceive myself as a woman. I wholeheartedly agree with gudbuytjane that the concept of passing is an oppressive force. That…

Passing is a system used by cissexist cultures to control trans people, to ostracize, and to justify violence perpetrated against them. Although passing is presented as a trans endeavor or desire, the truth is it is a system for cis people to identify trans people and to alert other cis people to their presence.  Whether used to mollify trans people with suggestions that other cis people don’t know about their trans status, or to shame them because other people do, it is centered in the cis person’s perspectives and assumptions.  It is the constant reminder that in the power relationship between cis and trans, cis dominates.

But I’m still struggling with internalized transphobia. How do you deal with not living up to your own standards of ‘woman,’ of not passing in your own mind’s eye?

Last night I was talking in my kitchen with a different friend, while my roommates were holding a party in the living room. She and I were catching up, and so not really interested in the noisy, drunken revelry happening down the hall. I was saying I’d been having a rough time of things, and she reminded me about all I accomplished over the past year-and-a-half: living full-time as Rebecca, completing one successful solo show as part of an evening of solo shows, and one successful single-billing solo show all by my lonesome, getting a raise, and so on.

Her deluge of compliments literally left me teary-eyed, and not from joy. Even with a list of accomplishments that, objectively, I know is amazing and something to be proud of, I still fall so far short of my own unreasonable standards for myself. Professionally, personally, artistically, intellectually, appearance-ally. (OK, I made that last word up.) So far short that the very act of being complimented drives me to tears.

I’m working on getting past all that, working on actually being proud of myself. And I fake it pretty well, because few things are more awkward than having someone compliment you and denying the compliment (let alone bursting into tears).

But it’s slow going.

A lot of the material from this video came from this post. I’m still working on getting the rest of the video in some semblance of order… Would people be interested in seeing the whole thing (I’d need to break it up) or is a ‘best of’ clip video acceptable?

I think also some of my mixed feelings [on passing] are to do with how I dislike the idea of passing politically. It is so loaded with ideas of deceit and dishonesty. I would far rather consider the time I spent appearing to be male as passing – as I was indeed then seeming to be something I was not.

I really like that as a concept, and I’m not sure it’s something I’ve heard expressed before so clearly. I don’t have any further thoughts right now, although I’d like to expand upon this idea at some point in the future. I just wanted to highlight the comment, for those who may have missed it.

I hate it, every single time. Name, sorted. Then… clunk. Sex – M or F. Sod.

It seems like an easy question, right? For most people it is. For me, it should be an easy question. I live and identify unequivocally as female. I’m not a genderqueer person for whom the very either/or question is wrong. So why the rising sense of panic?

The problem is this, my birth certificate says I am male, my gender presentation is female. They do not match. Until I can afford expensive genital surgery, I cannot change the marker on my birth certificate. No matter what I put, in a cissexist world, I am situated as a liar.

(…snip…)

Now imagine what you do in a Customs line when you enter a country. Imagine you’ve heard from acquaintances who’ve been turned away by the US, or that worst-case-scenario lurking at the back of your head about Homeland Security issuing a memo about “cross-dressed terrorists.” What do you put then? What do you wear then? How do you present?

Imagine how vulnerable you feel. Driving (what if a cop pulls me over). At the bank (what if they think I’m trying to scam my own money). At the doctors. At school. At work. At anywhere they want a piece of ID, anywhere they want you to tick a box that divides humanity into two. Anywhere they want you to fill out a form. Confess, little tranny girl, confess. Tell them what in their minds what you “really” are. Or else. And they’ll get you anyway.

I’ve been thinking about this sort of thing all week, because I’m flying to DC tonight, and Queen Emily’s post sort of sums up what I’ve been worrying about. And, unfortunately, I would say it’s not entirely unreasonable that I’m stressed.

I know that I am damn lucky I’ve had extremely minimal and superficial experiences with direct transphobia, most of it revolving around cluelessness rather than straight-out bigotry or maliciousness. Likewise, I know that I do still exercise a lot of privilege in non-gender related areas: I’m white, I’m middle-class, and I’m the daughter of a lawyer, all of which combine to make me a troublemaker when it comes to knowing my rights and not taking things lying down.

But that doesn’t really hep with on-the-street bigotry. And even though it does reassure me that, eventually, I’d get anything with TSA or airport security cleared up, it doesn’t mean they can’t hold me for hours and hours or make my life hell for a while.

For tonight, I bought my tickets in my male (legal..) name, as I my name change won’t be finalized until July 20. I’ll be changing after work into baggier clothing, pulling my hair back, and knowing that this is going to be a lose/lose situation: If I pass as male, I’ll be disappointed that it was so easy and, if I don’t, it’ll most likely be because someone’s complaining about my documentation.

Hopefully, this will be straightened out by my August trip – I’ll have updated documentation – but it’ll still be stressful to have genitals that don’t match what a close-up security search might expect.

But… (and you knew there had to be a ‘but’ coming…)

Before I launch into my main thoughts, I need to get a nitpicky issue off my chest: She uses a lot of quotes, many more than I think are needed, and it bothers me. For example, here she says, “…a number of leading companies have established policies and guidelines that protect and support “on-the-job” (OTJ) or transitions.” Fine. Great. You don’t need to have quotes around on-the-job. (Or most of the many other phrases and concepts she quotes.) Likewise, I don’t like that she uses the word tranny and I’m very unconvinced by her comparison that “the infrastructure that supports TS transitions is very analogous to the “Underground Railroad” in the U.S. which helped African-American slaves escape from the South.”

Now that we have those nitpicky items out of the way, lets talk about the content of her site. As I said, her site has a lot of useful information. Some things I’ve found useful or interesting:

• Cost of transitioning
• Historical and cross-cultural examples of non-binary gender expression
• Pictures, history, and details of SRS (note – the page I’m linking to is a warning page explaining that many of the pictures are rather graphic)
• Theories on the cause(s) of being trans

Suffice it to say that I’m impressed with her collected resources.

So what’s my beef with her site? Much of it comes from her page on Life After Transition, most of which is her own writing and expressing her own opinions, rather than collecting information gathered from elsewhere. To begin with, she uses the term transsexual transition (basically meaning having surgery) in contrast to transgender transition (hormones) and places surgery as the end-all be-all of being done with transitioning. I don’t agree that it’s fair for anyone to decide for someone else how much they have transitioned, or when they’re “done,” as those are both extremely subjective experiences. Yes, surgery is an easy milestone to identify and it’s simple to see why popular culture has linked that with the concept of having “finished” transitioning, but I’d say transitioning is as much mental as physical. Certainly the outward signs of living full time, hormones, surgery, etc, are more easily identifiable, but that doesn’t make them the only component of the transition.

More importantly, Lynn sets up a false dichotomy between staying out as trans post-transition and going stealth:

At this point transitioners tend to separate into two major groups: Those who will stay visibly present in society as “postop transsexuals”, and those who will move on much futher towards social assimilation as women.

The “transsexuals” will build their postop lives from within the social environments they encountered during transition. Most of their friends will be other transitioners, preop and postop. They may spend lots of time maintaining contact with the transitioners’ e-mail groups and bulletin boards on the net. Many of them will become activists. Many will remain in support groups as “mentors” for other transitioners, and this will tend to reinforce the visibility of their chosen path, since most transitioners never meet assimilated postop women – instead only meeting postop “mentors” who chose to stay “inside the community”.

This either/or choice dismisses my life experience of someone who is keeping their pre-transition social environment successfully, while interacting and engaging with the trans community, while attempting to “move on…towards social assimilation as [a woman.]” I realize that I’m in a minority within the trans community in terms of the amount and type of support I’ve receive from friends and family, but I really think it’s possible to have my cake and eat it to. As one of my coworkers said recently, when confronted with a document that had my legal [male] name, “Oh, that’s weird. I don’t even think of you as [male name] any more.” I don’t think I need to live in stealth mode to have normal social interaction with other women, assuming I’m not chosing to surround myself with bigots.

If that false dichotomy weren’t enough, she creates the implicit assumption that such stealth passing is more advanced, with very loaded phrases to describe the (fales) decision to assimilate or not. Here’s a selection:

• “…move on…”
• “…get on with their new lives as women…”
• “Those who do best are the women who DO NOT LET UP IN EFFORTS TO MOVE FORWARD [sic]…”

Lynn continues, claiming those who are less certain of the high status she has placed on living in stealth thusly:

All these mixed feelings have led to a kind of rebellion in some quarters against the idea of working hard to pass, and especially against having surgeries such as FFS in order to pass well. Some women think that it’s better to relax and just “not pass” and not worry about it. Some activists even take pride in looking like “trannies” and being in people’s faces about it. Others just can’t take the daily hassles of “not passing”. They reject the notion of “not caring” and do whatever they can to finally pass comfortably, including undergoing extremely painful and costly facial reconstructions to feminize their faces.

I wouldn’t say she’s completely wrong in that paragraph but, again, she’s creating a false contrast between those crazy activists who don’t care how they look and the poor, put-upon trans women who simply want to look good without acknowledging that both sides have valid points to make. (And that isn’t to say I don’t try to pass, or enjoy when I do pass. But I respect the political decision of those who inhabit a more gender-queer space without calling it sour grapes by trans women who supposedly wouldn’t be able to pass.)

I guess what it boils down to is I think she’s a pesemist about the choice to live as a man or a woman while still acknowledging one’s status as trans. From discussing the issue of stealth, Lynn says the following:

Continuity of employment during transition and being able to continue past personal relationships can provide wonderful support for TS women who are open during their transitions and in the early years afterwards. However, this advantage often comes at the cost of being treated as “trannies” instead of as women. Their strong connections with the past often marginalize them in their new gender and keep such women from fully assimilating.

Again, I realize she’s saying “often,” not “always,” but this is very much not the experience I’ve had at work, and I think expecting the worst from people can often result in them meeting your expectations.

I don’t fault Lynn for acknowledging that there are a lot of bigots out there, and that transitioning is a tremendously hard process, often made worse than it needs to be by the assholes of the world. But I guess my experiences have given me cause for optimism about transitioning, and about the people around me. And I think Lynn sets up a lot of situations where she doesn’t give credit to people who remain out, and doesn’t acknowledge that doing so can be a personal or political choice and not simply an inability to pass.

Thoughts?

-R

PS – Phew! This post became a lot longer than I originally intended, and may have become disjointed as a result. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments, or anything is unclear. Thanks!

First, I was at the beach today for a friend’s picnic birthday party and, when nature called, went to the disgusting port-a-pottys.  The Surgery has been occupying my mind lately but, all sorts of deep and philosophical body-image and personhood discussion aside, peeing standing up rocks. Those port-a-pottys were absolutely inhuman in their filth and I could barely manage to stand in them for the thirty seconds it took to pee. Had I needed to sit down, I would have held it (like the cis girl who did try to use ‘em and instantly gave up upon opening the door).

Second, I had another round of laser on my legs this weekend (and need to go back because they only booked me for an hour when I said it would take an hour and a half…grrrrr…).  The woman performing the laser, who I’ve known since I started going to this place four or five years ago, is really nice and we were chatting about this and that. She obviously knows I’m trans, since I’ve been going there since before I started transitioning, and has been really sweet about it. Well, yesterday she also had someone in training in the room, and we were all chatting. One of the two women was complimenting me on my skin, and I said something about how estrogen helps it. The woman-in-training said, “Oh, are you on birth control?” Score one for passing! (I said, very simply, “No, I’m trans and am on lots of hormones,” and she responded, “Oh, ok.”)

On passing, there was a post about the subject over at the blog Xoros, titled Passing By. It’s pretty brief, but worth a read. From the post:

So what is it about the attempt to pass that is so attractive? Quite simply it’s the lure of just being a face in the crowd. Not being obviously trans, not being someone people stare at and get confused by. Not being visible. It’s something that hetero cis people take completely for granted all the time. It is their judgement that passing appeals to, their approval that yes, you look “normal” that is being sought. It’s also the desire to be accorded the courtesy of being addressed as the gender you are, like they are.

Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?

-R

Well, today the special events director, RW called the guy who did it. She started the conversation something along the lines of, “So I wanted to discuss the…incident…that happened this past weekend at the benefit. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

At that point, D responded, “Wait, are you joking? You mean when I grabbed [male name]‘s fake boob?”

The full story below…

So last Friday, before the benefit, D came by to pick up some things for a gig he was working the next day. He saw me in the hallway and said, “Oh, hi [male name]. I didn’t expect to see you like that…” He hadn’t seen me since I’d transitioned at work, so I said, “Yeah, I’m actually going by R now.” He paused, shrugged, and I helped him get out the stuff he needed for the gig. I assumed that was the end of that.

Apparently, he thought I was in costume for the show we were doing that evening (which I was and am not in) and was getting into character… He didn’t stay to see the show, so when he saw me at the benefit he assumed I was still in character and decided to be silly and honked (what he thought was) my fake drag boob.

He couldn’t figure out why I was pissed (somewhat understandable from his perspective) and was thus super-confused when RW called saying it was an ‘incident.’

He was apparently quite mortified when RW explained things to him, and was super apologetic. She said it seemed like he’d probably send me an apology, by way of her (as I’d said I didn’t want any contact with him). All in all, I think it’s probably the best way a bad situation could turn out, as I’d rather him be oblivious than an asshole…

At the same time,  part of me would rather have D know I was trans and just be a jackass than think I was just a guy in drag… I could deal with being groped by a bigot, but not ”passing,’ even by someone who I wasn’t out to and so had no reason to try and see me as a woman?  That does hurt, and I don’t know how easily I’ll be able to forgive him for the that, something that – even after talking with RW – probably wouldn’t occur to him as a cause for insult.

-R

PS – I’m really offended he thougt my breasts were fake! I’ve worked fucking hard to grow these, and I’ll be damned if he calls them fake!

(Circus Sidenote: the show was good, but I was a little disapointed. I only learned later that it was intentionally acrobatic- and clown-focused, which is awesome, but I feel a little spoiled working at a circus organization. Cirque’s performers were undeniably top-notch, but I sort of feel like the difference between a very good aerialist and an amazing aerialist is larger than the difference between a very good juggler and an amazing juggler (or magician or contortionist). I did, inevitably, see one thing – a crazy trapeze acrobatics act – that I’d love to try with a mechanized winch and a gooood safety harness.)

Anyway.

On the El ride back up north (the long El ride back up north; gods is the United Center public-transit-inaccessible) I ended up being the last person from the group on the train with two of the facilitators. As I’ve said before, I like them a lot, so was kind of interested to see how they behaved in a more informal setting, as by that point we were all too tired to really be in ‘groupleader/groupmember’ mentalities. Likewise, as I’m one of the older memebrs of the group so sometimes feel more alligned with the facilitators than the other group members anyway.

So we were sitting and chatting, and T started talking to V about how someone at the last station had come up to her and someone else and said to the other woman, “You look fine,” but then turned to T and said, “Man, why you dress that way?” T continued, talking about how shit like that really hurts her confidence and makes her doubt herself. Now I’ve been very jealous of how both T and V look and how they hold and carry themselves, so it was interesting to hear someone I look up to express such worry over what other people are thinking of themselves. I think in some ways it was good, in that it made her seem more approachable and understandable, but in another way it was disapointing to see anyway – especially someone I’m looking up to – brough down like that.

-R