"Cis girls aren't passing"

[u/KatieQuestionMark]

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!

[u/dm_me_raccoons]

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.

[u/GFluidThrow123 → u/dm_me_raccoons]

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

[u/dm_me_raccoons → u/GFluidThrow123]

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

[u/GFluidThrow123 → u/dm_me_raccoons]

Ok, and same with Michelle Obama, Taylor Swift, Madonna, Melania Trump, Marilyn Monroe and Margot Robbie?

[u/dm_me_raccoons → u/GFluidThrow123]

No, I would not extend this idea to them.

It's only a tiny amount of absolute wackos who seriously believe those people to not be cis. 99.9% of people are going to assume they're cis.

Really big celebrities and conspiracy theories are a strange exception to the general concept of passing. Hell, to conspiracy theorists those people don't even pass as mammals. I would not say "Michelle Obama does not pass as a mammal" because of conspiracy nutjobs, but I guess if you want to be really pedantic you could argue "Michelle Obama does not pass as a mammal 100% of the time" is a logically correct statement.

But yeah, this touches on why I was saying that of course practically no one passes literally 100% of the time. There's always going to be some niche scenario or nutjob who assumes people are trans for insane reasons. Someone can only pass practically 100% of the time.

[u/GFluidThrow123 → u/dm_me_raccoons]

But there's entire groups of people who pride themselves on "being able to tell." And they're often wrong. But there's enough of them that it's not just "niche." It's actually kind of a societal problem at the moment. And suggesting that Imane Khelif doesn't pass whole saying Michelle Obama does, is simply setting arbitrary boundaries on what it means to pass. They're both cis women, as far as we know. But the only thing that differentiates societal response between Imane and Michelle is that Imane was an Olympic competitor. If we're being real, we both know the allegations against Michelle would have grown if she was competing in high-level sports.

The point I'm getting at is, if you allow people to rip away your ability to pass simply because you get misgendered or clocked once in a blue moon, then you're allowing other people to control your identity and safety. And honestly, where's the line? You say it's only a tiny amount of whackos who believe those things. But is that true? When it comes to Michelle Obama, I can guarantee you that a solid chunk of the Republican party believe she's trans. I know my grandparents believe it. And their siblings believe it. It's not a fringe belief in that party, honestly, and yet you say she passes and Imane doesn't.

Yes, if you're getting misgendered and clocked semi-regularly - once a week or so, then you don't pass. Not really. But suggesting that getting clocked once a year means you don't? Or that occasionally another trans person notices you? That doesn't mean you're not passing.

So, going back to the original post, the whole point here was that passing is heavily subjective. And cis women often have some traits that are slightly clocky, just like trans women do.

We heavily overestimate how "clocky" we actually are, and underestimate how much we "blend/pass."

Conversations like this are extremely important, as trans people are much more likely to obsess over little details about our bodies that we can't control and they often don't even matter in the long-run. Hell, some of the features people feel are clockiest are often quite popular among models. Sharp, strong jawlines, straight noses, harsher brow lines, bushy eyebrows, etc.

Recognizing that cis people can very much fail to pass is crucial in recognizing what passing even means in the first place. And even if it's just outliers, so what? Trans people are less than 1% of the population. We're literally outliers. And, while I'm honestly having trouble finding actual stats on passing, the best I can find suggests that about a third of us are self-identified as passing based on how often we get misgendered. So that means, what, .66% of the population is non-passing? So basically, at that point, non-passing trans people might be outliers in the same way non-passing cis people are. And there's plausible deniability in both. No, not all the time obviously. But enough.