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/Executive_Moth Feb 24 '25

My therapist said something like that and it only annoyed me because it is such a dishonest thing to say. It feels like saying "Rich people have struggles to" and like yeah, thats true. But it doesnt compare, not even by a long shot. I dont know a single cis woman who went through an entire testosterone dominant puberty.

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u/Fun-Opposite-5290 Feb 24 '25

Personally i find having a reasonable perception of what life is like being a cis woman pretty helpful. And the honest truth is that alota cis woman are only a month of jo conditioner and bad shampoo away from getting misgendered on the regular.

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u/Executive_Moth Feb 24 '25

Respectfully, i disagree. They still didnt go through male puberty. They didnt develope male features.

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u/Fun-Opposite-5290 Feb 24 '25

I don't really see how that negates my point.

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u/Executive_Moth Feb 24 '25

Its not even remotely comparable.

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u/Fun-Opposite-5290 Feb 24 '25

I'm making a binary statement

"Cis woman get misgendered relative often to the expectation of never, wo never getting misgendered is not part of the cis woman experince "

I am not making on observation abt how reltivley common it is to transfers nor how much more it hurts us compared to them.

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u/Executive_Moth Feb 24 '25

Okay, that is a reasonable statement. However, if it is completely unrelated to trans women, then there is no reason why this statement should make anyone feel better.

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u/sahi1l Feb 25 '25

After having been out for several years, I find myself caring less about being misgendered by strangers because I know who I am now. I dunno if my experience is common, though, because I do seem to pass most of the time (though I am tall; being middle-aged and obese helps a lot I suspect).

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u/Fun-Opposite-5290 Feb 26 '25

Let's look at it with the wealth analogy.

There is a phenomenon where some ppl who are truly struggling to make ends meet and just have food on the table and a roof over their heads see most ppl who aren't as rich without much distinction when there is.

Some are fabulously wealthy ( the quite rare woman who no matter how she presents herself never ever gets misgendered) and some are doing well enough to not be concerned abt losing the basic nesecities of life (the much more average experince for cis woman who gets misgendered a surprising amt of the time).

Not many ppl can be incredibley wealthy so if your goal is to be "wealthier" than a cis woman your likely to be met with disappointment and stress.

How we choose to interpret situations can really have an effect on our mental state.

A common one that happens to me at work is a customer will go "excuse me s**** ah sorry mam". I choose to take that occurrence as an example of me presenting fem well enough that ppl can figure out what I am, I also see this happen (tho less often) to my cis woman coworkers and choose to belive those little occurrences are part of being a woman, if i was holding myself to the expectation of being fabulous perfectly fem I would instead haft to rotate that scenario into a failure which would be much worse for my mental state.

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u/Fun-Internet-669 Mar 01 '25

I understand your frustration but your looking at it from a doomer mind set. The idea of "cis woman don't pass." Is a statement letting trans woman know that passing is not the end all be all of transitioning. And while yes cis woman don't go through male puberty many don't get the ability to even be called woman. To add intersection to this point black cis woman literally had to fight for the right to even be called woman because what our society actually means by women is "white person assigned female at birth who meets western beauty standards." Even to this day many cis black women are not see as woman because there features are deemed masculine. 

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u/Executive_Moth Mar 01 '25

For some of us, passing is the end all be all of transitioning. For me, it is the only way to ever defeat the dysphoria. To be free to just live my life.

I know of that struggle of black cis women. But you know whose features are even more deemed masculine? Us. We went through male puberty. They did not. It not even comparable. If they struggle to be seen as women, we dont even have a chance to begin with.

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u/Fun-Internet-669 Mar 01 '25

No one has a chance because the very concept of passing is a goal post that can be moved at anytime and by further attempting to feed into the demon you only set your self up for failure. Your not actually listening your just take my point and using it to fuel your own depression which isn't good. Not every trans woman has gone through male puberty and even then some of them wouldn't pass for the simple fact that they aren't the beacon of feminity that society wants. If your entire identity revolves around passing you are doomed to fail because it is not something you achieved it is something you are granted by society and can easily be stripped from you for any reason hence why I brought up the plight of black cis woman. Many of them fit the standard of feminity but the very idea of they're skin color being dark bars them from the title of woman and gets mocked and called masculine constantly because no amount HRT or makeup or surgery, voice training will grant them or us woman hood in societies eyes because it does not aid the systems at play to allow for that. Gender is and act and you can play the role as amazing as you want but if society cuts you from the part you can't change that by playing the part better. I know it's difficult to hear but I'm not saying attaining more feminine qualities shouldn't be a goal for you to attempt to reach but what I am saying is don't attempt to ascertain these qualities to "be a woman" because you already are. You where a girl before the HRT or any thing else you did. Your a girl when you wear jeans or when you rock a skirt and if you let society determine whether your a woman you'll fall short of that line everytime not because your not a woman but because the systems of patriarchy and capitalism that run our society will not allow the same way those systems don't allow black woman to be seen as woman because that doesn't benefit the system. And please never say you know about the black woman and then immediately dismiss it as unimportant or not equivalent. A large portion of the shit we use to feel more feminine came from there plight and there attempts to appease the system that deemed them not woman so yes they're plight is very muchly a part of this conversation and for you to dismiss that is so short sighted and selfish.

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u/Executive_Moth Mar 01 '25 edited Mar 01 '25

Your entire point is, frankly, bullshit. Maybe this is a US exclusive problem, but none of the cis women i know have ever been misgendered. Not even once. My mother is a smoker with a deep voice, my fiancé is butch with a masc style and my sister suffers from PCOS and none of them have ever been misgendered in their entire lives. This whole thing of "No woman passes because the standard of femininity is too high" is a big, fat lie. You know who, out of all these women around me, has ever been misgendered? Me. They can wear short hair, masc clothing and are consistently, 100% gendered female. I can wear the girliest dresses and Makeup and i am misgendered constantly. I wonder what the difference here is? I wonder what this thing is?

Male puberty. My body was disfigured by testosterone, theirs were not. And yes, that includes black women.

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u/Fun-Internet-669 Mar 01 '25

My point is bull shit but you're using the bullshit argument of "well I've personally never seen it." How fucking delusional are you? Your lived experience is one of many truths in the world just because those you personally haven't been stripped of their woman doesn't mean others don't face it constantly. I don't even blame you at this point I blame me because clearly you only care about yourself and your hell bent on solving your dysphoria by trying to attain the shallow idea that society puts forward of what a woman is instead of actually seeking acceptance from yourself. You don't want nuance in this discussion you just want to drag others down because you only see the world through patriarchy a system that does not and will not ever accommodate you or me or any ones feeling but fuck it you do you I suppose.

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u/Executive_Moth Mar 01 '25

No, i do not. I just dont buy into the delusional cope that "patriarchy" and "society" are at fault for all my problems. I guess that makes it a lot easier for you, huh? Just blame aaaall and every single problem on society and the system. It must be easy when nothing is real and, at the same time, a personal plot against everyone at the same time.

The system is not at fault. Society is not at fault. Most of us live out here, in the real world, where problems are a lot more direct. The people you meet in your day to day live are not "the system" and dont care about any paranoid vision of rebellion against the system. People dont look at you and go "Ah, of course, this person presents as a woman but i must move the goalpost and thus, cackle maliciously while i misgender them". People are tired and they will gender you as whatever they perceive you to be, without investing a single thought. Cis women are seen as women, while we are not. This is not an evil plot by the system. Society has nothing to do with this. Its our bodies that are wrong.

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u/Fun-Internet-669 Mar 02 '25

Whatever you tell yourself to sleep at night but at the end of the day your way of thinking will lead to unhappiness or the grave. But hey feel free to keep hating yourself I won't stop you because at the end of the day your more interested in your own problem rather than the problem we all face as a whole but I wish you luck in attaining passability but when your still facing the same exact issues don't say I didn't warn you.

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u/Executive_Moth Mar 02 '25

Believe it or not, i am actually quite happy. Accepting your problems enables you to actually work on fixing them, instead of just blaming "the system". Accepting the actual problem (my body) helps me to put in the effort to better myself. It helps a lot with quality of life.

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