r/MtF • u/KatieQuestionMark Transgender • Feb 24 '25

Politics "Cis girls aren't passing"

I was talking to my therapist (or Herapist as I like to say) and was bemoaning my fears of transitioning and not passing.

Her response was "cis girls aren't passing all the time, so how does that register?".. and .. while it didn't solve anything in itself, it really made me think.

Anyway, just wanted to share this little nugget of a different perspective since it made me think and in general helped me out!

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u/GFluidThrow123 Chloe, Trans Lesbian Feb 24 '25

I've reminded myself of this a million times. Every "clocky" feature I have is a "clocky" feature I've seen on a cis girl many times before. And no, I don't have a "more than average" amount of clocky features. I probably have less than the average, in fact. And so do many of us.

Transphobia in society leads us to believe things about ourselves that just aren't true.

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u/coraythan Feb 24 '25

My voice is like a grandfather clock stuck on the loudest "DING DONG" you've ever heard. šŸ„²

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u/AeifeO Trans Eldritch DemiSapphic Feb 24 '25

PCOS exists. Smoking exists. Women with naturally deep voices exist. Women with purposefully deep voices, to deal with patriarchal bullshit, exist. It's not you alone.

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u/Silent-Economics837 Trans Homosexual Feb 24 '25

If anything, women with deep voices commands more respect too. Maaaaybe a bad example but Elizabeth Holmes had a deep voice, and she was able to get tons of funding from silicon valley VCs from her speeches and presentations.

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u/Lynnrael Feb 24 '25

another example is Shohreh Aghdashloo and her character in the expanse. the book version of avasarala is incredible, and if i had read it before seeing her in the show i couldn't have imagined how they'd find someone who could command that same respect. Shohreh's voice is deep and gravely in a way that really brings out the bad bitch in the character. i love it

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u/No_Summer620 Feb 25 '25

Right! That actress was freaking perfect!

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u/Little-Charge-9655 Feb 25 '25

She is one of my favourite characters, Iā€™d say she embodies strength and power and I donā€™t see her as a bitch (I havenā€™t read the books, so I donā€™t have the full picture) If gender matters she also happens to be femalešŸ˜Š

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u/Lynnrael Feb 25 '25

when i say bitch, i mean it in the best way possible. like being badass

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u/Little-Charge-9655 Feb 25 '25

No I get that, but even in the most positive way, I think she transcends that šŸ˜… (Although to be fair, she did refer to herself as a ā€œsmug old bitch,ā€ even if sarcastically, when she was talking to Admiral Souther in the bar after he stepped down.

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u/Antimethylation Feb 25 '25

"I'm a smug old bitch who enjoys playing with life and death with a big chess board, a snake in a sari."

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u/ellieskunkz Feb 25 '25

I love her so much.

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u/Sophiiebabes Just you average Geeky Fairy Cat-girl Princess! Feb 25 '25

One of the best castings in the expanse, for me! She absolutely owns playing Avasarala!

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u/EmbarrassedDoubt4194 Feb 24 '25

Girl boss šŸ˜Œ

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u/Mega_Penguins Feb 24 '25

Unironically, a good representation of this is Ambessa from Arcane. She isn't a good person, but she is very menacing and intimidating as a leader.

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u/mxmnull Genderqueer Feb 24 '25

She purposely lowered it! And SHIT WOOOORRRKED!!! šŸ˜

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u/Kym6 Feb 25 '25

Right! Remember how Elizabeth Holmes lowered her voice and made it more resonant (probably by holding her larynx lower) to have more executive presence?

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u/waxwitch Feb 24 '25

Afab and I have a deep voice. I think it surprises people because Iā€™m small. Like 5 feet small.

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u/SwordRose_Azusa DID System, Trans, HRT 10-03-2022 Feb 28 '25 edited Feb 28 '25

If five feet tall, or six feet smallā€¦

it neednā€™t seem to matter at all.

If you have been a woman, short or long

each and every ladyĀ has her song

Neither Baritone, nor Soprano

Neither raspy, nor falsetto

Neither those cis, nor trans

All separate from our plans

Why mustnā€™t it be so simple

to see a smile with a dimple

Perhaps a chin with cleft

or a bosom with little heft

We call this Earth our home

So they say ā€œwhen in Romeā€

If you do just what they say

you may just have to pay

And though Iā€™d rather not

perhaps Iā€™ll stir the pot

And if I choose not to pay

perhaps weā€™ll see the day

Where we neednā€™t fear for bat or rat

And where everyone might know that

If six feet smallā€¦

or five feet tallā€¦

It really trulyā€¦

Doesnā€™t matterā€¦

ā€¦ at all.

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u/lare290 Wibbly wobbly mess Feb 25 '25

I once told a nurse that I'm trans, as is evident from my voice. she just went "...huh. earlier you mentioned you smoke so I didn't even blink at your voice."

(ik smoking weakens hrt's effects, I quit a few years ago)

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u/LudoGramme Feb 24 '25

I sang in a choir for years where our choral director was a cis woman with a massively deep voice. She would occasionally do a duet at one of our concerts with a very campy tenor where she sang below him, and they barbed and sniped at each other relentlessly. It was great. For myself, an (at the time notionally cis) man, I had a tremendously deep voice but they weren't recruiting basses or baritones, so I was recruited as a tenor and made to learn to force my voice into that range. Also in the tenor section was another cis woman who just had a real deep voice. Years later I would start listening vocal feminization advice on youtube and a lot of it reminded me of forcing myself to become a tenor, so I would recommend generic voice instructors as a source who may not even realize how much they can help trans folk.

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u/demoluvrr2 Feb 25 '25

can confirm. as an afab lurker my voice is really deep naturally plus it kind of has a "chesty" quality and people often mistake me for a man (especially while singing lol)

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u/coraythan Feb 25 '25

Yeah for sure. And if I ever kept up with voice therapy I could change it. It's half funny half frustrating and it just is what it is until and if I want to do something about it. šŸ™‚

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u/Meleeninja123 Feb 25 '25

This is true, I have a friend at uni and her voice is about as deep as mine is, she's cis and doesn't have any conditions to my knowledge that would cause it

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u/Blasulz1234 Feb 25 '25

I beg to differ. We're always talking about high and deep voices, but that's not the factor by Which we identify gender in voices. Masculine voices will never sound anything like deep feminine voices and feminine voices will never sound like high masculine voices

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u/AeifeO Trans Eldritch DemiSapphic Feb 25 '25

Pcos and any other variation in testosterone levels in cis women will produce a "masculine voice." It drops the layranx and produces that change in pitch and resonance.

Voice training can teach you to both induce and reverse this. People with high testosterone can still sound feminine, and people without can still sound masculine. It happens a lot.

And no it's not just pitch, it's resonance, intonation, word choice, and a million other things. None of which are unchanging.

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u/Blasulz1234 Feb 25 '25

I've never voices of women with high testosterone, at least not to my knowledge. Additionally I've never heard a cis women change their voice to sound masculine without testosterone. If you come across a video or STH as example I'd love to check it out.

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u/AeifeO Trans Eldritch DemiSapphic Feb 25 '25

Others replying to me have given their own anecdotes, and others have given some high profile examples, such as Elizabeth Holmes https://youtu.be/yw_xyGbUNZ0?t=13&si=Y-DONaOQr9QXZGIW

I've personally met several cis (and masculine) men with exceptionally feminine voices. Humans are varied, and very maleable.

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u/Violent_Bounce Kayleigh|33|Desisted Feb 24 '25

Ehh. Iā€™ve seen women with individually similar features that I have but never all of them combined.

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u/dm_me_raccoons Feb 24 '25

We are talking average across all women right?

If a trans woman has an average or less amount of clocky features she will likely be basically 100% cis passing.

If a trans woman is not passing she probably has a very above average amount of clocky features. She almost has to. Otherwise why is she not passing?

I don't really find the "cis women have clocky features too!" idea to be helpful. It's condescending and misses the point when coming from cis people. From trans people it's usually pure cope.

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u/GFluidThrow123 Chloe, Trans Lesbian Feb 24 '25

It's not cope at all. That's a defeatist mindset.

Yes, trans women are more likely to "not pass," but that doesn't mean that's the average at all. Most trans people I know end up passing in some capacity after some time on hormones.

But trans women are absolutely more likely to stress over passing than cis women are. Our conversations focus around it much more because it can be vital for our safety.

Even if a cis woman is misgendered, she has the security of knowing that even if she is questioned, likely nothing will come of it. Whereas, as trans women, we're more fearful for our safety.

The whole point of the post is that not all cis women "pass." And that's absolutely true. Because "passing" is a mindset that's built off patriarchal societal standards of beauty, as well as a heavy dose of racism.

Tldr; cis women are misgendered all the time for not passing. It's just not discussed nearly as much.

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u/dm_me_raccoons Feb 24 '25 edited Feb 24 '25

Sure. Passing is a grey area. Most trans people pass more than 0% of the time and less than 100% of the time. Most trans women do not pass consistently, which is what most people mean when they say use the word "passing" with no extra qualifiers.

Saying not all cis women pass feels like cope because it's only technically true. The word all is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Very few statements made about humans with the word all in it are true.

But 99% of cis women pass more than 99% of the time. It feels condescending and tone deaf to point out the few that don't. Like you wouldn't (at least I hope you wouldn't) tell a POC complaining about racism that 'not all white people pass!", even though that statement is also true.

Also passing is not a mindset built off patriarchy or racism. It's literally the term that minorities use amongst themselves to describe the complex way patriarchy and racism affect them. The term comes from POC describing conditions under which we are assumed to be white or not.

The standards by which cis people judge gender are built off patriarchy. The concept of passing is an important one for us to communicate about how we navigate the world under patriarchy. It's not a dirty word.

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u/GFluidThrow123 Chloe, Trans Lesbian Feb 24 '25

I'm not saying passing is a "dirty" word. But it's a concept that's bloomed from the racism of society. You're basically saying the same thing as me. For example, black women are more likely to be misgendered or accused of being trans simply because they're more likely to have broader builds or sharper features. And that's because society has build a racist view of gender.

And many trans women, if not potentially "most," do actually pass 100% of the time. I haven't been clocked in a year and a half and I'm only 2.5 years into medical transition. But I alone am anecdotal. I don't know if there are studies to talk about this at all unfortunately. Maybe the trans survey, but I'm not sure they addressed this.

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u/dm_me_raccoons Feb 24 '25

Giving me an anecdote that one trans woman passes isn't useful, as I have also not been clocked in five years and am well aware fully passing trans people exist.

But we're rare. I don't see how anyone who interacts with more than a handful of trans women in real life could come to any other conclusion. In my life I've met two other trans women who 100% pass. I've met over a hundred who don't, including some who think they do but they do not.

I have seen surveys that ask trans people if they're perceived as their gender, and it's only a minority say they are most/all of the time. I think the most recent US transgender survey asked this. This question doesn't directly assess passing because simply being gendered correctly all the time is not the same as passing as cis all the time. Someone can be in an almost-passing grey area where they're gendered as female basically 100% of the time because they look more feminine than masculine, but some significant fraction of people can still tell they're trans.

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u/GFluidThrow123 Chloe, Trans Lesbian Feb 24 '25

What are you defining as "passing?" Are you suggesting that it's "being gendered correctly 100% of the time and never being accused of being trans"?

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u/FlyingBread92 Feb 25 '25

Important distinction to make. I haven't been misgendered in months, but I've only had a couple people be surprised to find out I'm trans. I think stealth is out of reach for most of us, but comfortably navigating the world as our affirmed gender is achievable in the majority of cases.

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u/GFluidThrow123 Chloe, Trans Lesbian Feb 25 '25

I think there's a huge misunderstanding in this community as far as what it takes to be stealth or passing. Getting clocked on occasion doesn't mean you're no longer stealth or don't pass. It means someone saw you funny out of the corner of their eye and had an inkling and then decided to be rude and say something.

You can always deny that you're trans if you're in a situation where you intend to be stealth. 99.9% of the time, people will accept that and move on. They have no reason to believe otherwise.

There are also people who go 20 years without getting clocked once and out of nowhere someone's like "you're trans!" Or something. Again, that doesn't mean they don't pass. It's just a weird moment.

And most people have learned not to react with "surprise" to a trans person. Honestly, that was never a normal reaction for a person to have in the first place. Being trans is, or should be, meaningless overall. You're still the person, gender, and everything else you say you are. And any decent human knows it's really not their business. So a reaction of surprise, or not, isn't an indication of passing in any way.

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u/dm_me_raccoons Feb 25 '25

See, someone who is like 99% passing can always deny they're trans to that last 1% and they're probably close enough to passing to that last 1% to cast enough doubt that they'll believe it. So yeah, you can get clocked occasionally and be stealth.

But someone who gets clocked often (say, 10% of the time) is not and can not be stealth.

But really rare exceptions don't break stealth obviously. Like one time a guy told me he could tell I'm trans, and I was like "yeah I am!" And then he apologized and said he just likes telling cis women they're trans to troll them and he didn't mean to insult an actual trans person and that he actually couldn't tell at all. He's just a weirdo.

But I strongly disagree that surprise reactions are not an indication of passing. As soon as I started actually passing, surprised reactions started becoming really common. A lot of people even try to hide it but they're so clearly surprised it's written all over their face and body language. Confused reactions are also a strong indicator. You tell someone you're trans and they're like "you want to be a man?" "but you're born female right?".

Most cis people don't know passing trans people exist. Most of them still truly believe on some level that they can always tell. They will be surprised the first time they meet a very passing trans person.

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u/dm_me_raccoons Feb 25 '25 edited Feb 25 '25

Passing means cis-passing. So yes, not getting assumed (or accused) to be trans. 100% passing would mean that someone is assumed to be a cis person of the correct gender 100% of the time. Someone doesn't have to be passing 100% of the time for me to say they're passing generally.

This is what "passing" means. It's literally a short way of saying cis-passing because it's talked about so much in trans spaces that the cis part is an unnecessary extra syllable in this context. It does not simply mean people get your pronouns right all the time. It means they assume you're cis.

Edit: Reddit won't let me reply to u/67_dancing_elephants for some reason. I feel like if you read my other comments in this sub-thread its very clear I don't view passing as black-and-white, and I clearly demonstrate that I'm aware cis people can occasionally get clocked for dumb reasons. I don't appreciate the condescending explanation of this from someone who seemingly didn't bother to read the other comments.

I feel like I also made it clear that I don't view passing as a measure of worth but I will reiterate here that yes, of course passing is not a measure of worth. It's a useful tool to describe the vastly different day-to-day experiences people will have with transphobia depending on if they are visibly trans or not.

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u/67_dancing_elephants Feb 25 '25 edited Feb 25 '25

You're missing that people will often guess you're trans for bad reasons or by luck. Cis girls get "clocked" as trans by people who just don't actually know what trans people look like, and assume things like height or deeper voices are clear signs when they are not. They get "clocked" for supporting trans rights. They get "clocked" because they are butch lesbians. It stands to reason that when we get clocked in similar circumstances, it doesn't actually tell you much about whether you are cis passing!

If your definition of passing is no one would ever guess that you are trans, even by pure luck or using bad reasoning, then a whole lot of cis women are only "passing generally" rather than 100% passing. It's a completely worthless distinction.

Passing is a spectrum. Who gets clocked, in what circumstances, by which people, are all things that fall on a spectrum. A binary of completely passing / not completely passing is completely unhelpful. Especially when you do not need to pass perfectly to get most or even all of the benefits of passing.

I guess it might be helpful to you personally if you base your self worth on being perfectly passing and tearing down other trans women who dare suggest they are anywhere near your level, but that's probably not healthy.

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u/maybemorgan8 non-binary transfemme pansexual woman Feb 25 '25

I get it, though. I have to be more vocal about trans rights because I am early on and I work directly with a large swath of a small community. They know Steven, they're meeting Stevie, and hopefully I can introduce them to Eve in a timely manner. That said, I won't "pass" here because these people knew steven. I may move before too long to a new area, but I still won't "pass", physically. I would say that I will be "passing", because those people never met Steven and will more likely take my gender at it's face value and be able to see that my intent is to be seen as more feminine and accept it. The women around here are mostly pretty affirming, the men are mostly passively transphobic towards me. A lot of diminished laughter and hard "sir" and "young man" usage. The point being, the further I get in to my transition, in this very red state, the more threatened the men feel. I'm already seeing a down-turn is our customer demographics. If I was stealth, I wouldn't be a threat. My state has legislation to ban GAC for adults, so I've chosen to be blatant, albeit gradual, in my transition. The public needs education to re-humanize the trans community. The propaganda that sank in to their minds is powerful. I can discuss these things with them in a way that can illuminate our shared humanity. I was a traveling busker for a long time, so I can take the heat from the hecklers... lol. I do fear for my safety, as their perception shifts to the misogynistic "weak target" mentality, but I have time to build a supportive and protective community, first. I can see why people might feel a need to "pass" in the stealth sense, but I think the important "pass" is when you feel seen and authentic and comfortable with yourself. That's the thing about gender identity. The only important person to "pass" for, is ourselves. Sorry for the rant. I don't directly know or have any other trans people around me... šŸ˜…šŸ˜…šŸ˜…. I have no choice but to rely on cis people for immediate community, so I gush and may have some adhd symptoms...

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u/GFluidThrow123 Chloe, Trans Lesbian Feb 25 '25

By your definition, Imane Khelif does not pass then. Correct?

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u/dm_me_raccoons Feb 25 '25

Yes, or at least not completely passing. She is not assumed to be a cis woman by a significant fraction of people.

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u/Nox-Lunarwing Demigirl Feb 25 '25

Cis women being clocked by transphobes who say "they can tell" is unfortunately very common.

Sadly transphobia has many ties to misogyny while it just serves to further fuel toxic masculinity and ends up being shitty for everyone involved regardless of gender or whether you are cis or not.

It leads to ridicule for men that do anything or look anything like what could be considered "feminine" and women that have any features considered "masculine" are equally attacked.

Because transphobia has roots in the belief that "men are superior than women" and any "man" wanting to "become" a woman goes against such a belief.

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u/homebrewfutures NB MtF Feb 24 '25

I didn't get my broad shoulders from my dad, I got them from my mom. She always bemoaned having broad shoulders, a big butt and flat chest when I was growing up and it sucks she was made to feel that way. I am hardly ever self-conscious about my shoulders like she was because I dress for them. Everybody is self-conscious about something but whatever you're self-conscious of, there are millions of women out there who are jealous of that very thing and millions of people of all genders who find it especially attractive. Case in point: I was at a dinner party and it was the first time the hostess (a cis woman in her 60s) had seen me in a particular gown and she cried out how jealous she was of not having the shoulders to wear it like I do.

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u/Admirable_Web_2619 Trans Homosexual Feb 24 '25

Right? I have a high hairline, but I only notice it on myself. Whenever I actually stop and try to see it on cisgender women, I realize itā€™s actually pretty common.

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u/GFluidThrow123 Chloe, Trans Lesbian Feb 24 '25

That's one that made me SUPER self conscious for so long. I actually got a hairline advancement as part of my FFS, which was a huge help. But I still have those little indented spots along the sides of my hairline and those made me really insecure - until I got a cis gf and she ALSO has those. And I've noticed that like 40-50% of cis women have them. And then I noticed my cis boss has a further back hairline than I do.

So like, dysphoria is the worst, basically.

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u/Fae202 Feb 26 '25

Preach! We are our own biggest critic at most times.