It’s something I’m really struggling with, thanks to it it feels like I’m obsessed with the idea of ‘passing’, like whenever I see other trans women who don’t pass it gives me a little burst of dread, thinking that it’s impossible to pass and I’d never be able to. That horrible fear of looking “like a man in a dress” like there’s actually a problem with that outside of the societal expectation I’ve had slotted into my brain.
I know that you don’t have to pass to be trans, and that all trans women are equally valid, and that what I really need to do is to let go of the idea of passing altogether, and just be happy being who I am on the inside.
I was just wondering if any of you girls have been through something similar, and if you had any advice. Xx
Time.
It takes time to unpack a lifetime of transphobia directed at you. It makes it hard to accept yourself, it makes it hard to come out and then it makes you second guess and invalidate yourself.
But it’s all shit that the world has place on you. And you can undo, but that also takes time. You need to give yourself permission to take the time needed to work on it, without beating yourself up for being not being able to undo a lifetime of indoctrination in an instant
like whenever I see other trans women who don’t pass it gives me a little burst of dread
As a someone who does pass, these moments fill me with guilt and a degree of imposter syndrome as I wonder why I got to be lucky when I am no more valid than anyone else. And then that’s more guilt as I then become self-conscious of something that I know so many people strive and yearn for. But these moments also prompt memories of my early days when I was absolutely not passing, and how fragile, scared and humiliated I felt.
Letting go of passing as a concept entirely is probably unrealistic for most of us, but when you have these moments of dread it’s healthier to recognize your common fears, struggles and vulnerability. Don’t let dread win, because you only ever notice 100% of the people you do notice. Some of us eventually live in stealth, and then have internalized intrusive thoughts from that as well.
In a sense I guess I’m saying the grass is always greener, so it’s better to learn comradery with those that feel the same as you do, as opposed to using them as a yard stick for yourself. It’s not something that will just click and fade away, but a consenious choice to be the kindness we all want to see in the world.
I spent a lot of time and money striving towards passing. And then I got there, and I found that it cost me something I really value. My queerness is largely invisible at work. Random trans folk I see look right past me. Visibility is important to be (though I didn’t realise that at the time) and I lost a lot of my ability to be easily visible
Random trans folk I see look right past me.
I had this happen with a whole group of trans women staying at the motel I used to work at. I passed to them to the point that there was no “oh hey!” moment, no Charlie Kelly meerkat eyes. It was a strange experience, at once sad and satisfied?
Now I work at a dispensary and smoke or vape weed every day. For better or worse, I’ll never voice pass consistently in a world with legal weed. Which I guess is fine. I’m not especially fond of the “oh whoa” moment on the faces of straight men who have decided from a distance I was a hotgirl™ and they were gonna treat me a certain way, but I guess I’d rather disarm straight people than be invisible to young trans girls.
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Something that helped me a little is that, if anything, these feelings are an exhibition of our sisterhood with all other women. Even as much as they wish they didn’t, 99.9% of women regardless of gender at birth, wish they could change their looks in some way, wish they could remove that thing they’re most insecure about. All we can do is the same that all other women do, find the version of ourselves that makes us the happiest.
But inside that there also has to be some realism. The ladies we envy, the models and movie stars and idols and influencers and who ever else, they are a statistically tiny portion of the population. There’s a couple of billion women who will never, and could never, look like that and that’s okay. We are probably one of them, and that’s also okay.
the models and movie stars and idols and influencers
Most of them don’t actually “look like that.” They are photographed from the best angles with expensive camera equipment and lighting. Then they select the best photos from a series of mediocre to great shots. These selected photos are often then edited. There are billions of women who could look like that if they had $20k to drop on a professional makeover and photoshoot
Don’t feel guilty about wanting to pass. It’s a complicated issue that plagues most of us.
I felt just like you-- I still do when my thoughts get dark.
I started doing this when I started playing roller derby. We come in so many shapes and sizes. My “derby wife” is cis and we have the same body.
Most of us “look trans”, cis people included, because we vary so much.
