Passing for me has always been a complex issue. There are so many things that can give you away and not all of them have to do with your physical appearance. My objective here is not to over generalize or lump all people on this journey into one category. We are all different and our journeys are never the same. I have my experiences and I hope that someone can take at least some of it and use it to inspire them to live there life as happily as they can.
Ok so what is passing to me?
Well for me passing is being able to present myself as a female without people knowing I am biologically male. This is as much physical as it is mental. There are hundreds of visual ques to ones sex and gender, the hard part is being able to not force any of them. Once you draw attention to them… people start to take notice.
For me the feeling when I started going out as was one of impending embarrassment and inevitable conflict. I knew someone would say something out loud and laugh or some guy would read me and want to kick my ass! Either of these could at any time become reality, and it is important to realize that this fear alone is enough to keep many people from living productive lives, and unfortunately any life at all.
So why was I (am I) afraid?
One of the biggest cause of this fear for me was the realization that many of the things I saw wrong with my body (like other people) are greatly magnified, but also I know they really are very apparent. I for one have no hips and skinny legs. While I have heard many times that lots of women have no hips and skinny legs, what isn’t readily apparent to most people is the fact that this coupled with my broad shoulders, strong chin, noticeable body hair, receding hairline, and a larger ribcage, head, neck and feet all equal one thing… a male physique. Standing naked in front of anyone, you would not mistake me for female. These women they talk about have body issues but they still look overall like a female. Yes there is overlap, yes no one is perfect; however, speaking directly for myself, I am very aware that my body is the biggest enemy in my battle to pass.
Besides not physically looking like a female, one of the hardest parts of passing is not knowing how to act or how to act socially. I personally never had the privilege of living the life of a young woman. I didn’t get to make the same mistakes and didn’t get to learn how to bond with others as a woman. Also, and possible most importantly, I didn’t get to experiment with my personal style and personality.
So what does this mean, well making the assumption that most transsexuals at least share some of these things in varying degrees, some of us (myself including) just don’t know how to act or dress in our desired gender role cause we didn’t learn the way everybody else did. We get to use the only reference we know, our perception of the other sides lifestyle and behavior. I know for myself (and I have seen with others) that this only gets amplified in our attempts to cover up any sense of our biological sex.
This is why I think many male to female transsexuals present themselves in a sexy and overly feminine way. We present ourselves in a way that matches our version of femininity, something that is rooted in a male perspective. Think about it, why do so many transsexual woman love stockings, high heels, makeup, and dresses? Sure there are many genetic women out there who love these things as well but I believe transsexuals are drawn to the inherent implied femininity associated with these things as a way to validate themselves. I know I was.
Fortunately having a wife to reign me in also helps, but looking inward and taking notice of myself and my actions has made these things apparent as well. I don’t need to be 100% full on glamorpuss all the time to pass. Think about it, are those girls not the ones who want and get lots of attention… Yeah, not so much what I am looking for!
Basically I think the sum of all this is one thing… if you try to hard to pass you risk sabotaging your efforts. Act natural and wear what is appropriate for the situation.
I think the last point to bring up is the label of Trans-anything. Yes I am a transsexual, I use that term to describe myself all the time. The word’s definition fits my situation. This does not mean that it defines me or my gender, I am a female. I’ve come to that realization, thus the reason for the path I have chosen. To accept the label or say you are transsexual to me is accepting that you are NOT either of the two genders that are accepted in our culture.
That is one of the biggest things you can do to shoot yourself in the foot. How is anyone supposed to act natural and be accepted as the gender they wish if they have excepted they they are not truly that gender themselves? If you don’t believe it, no one else will either!
I believe Transsexual describes the situation… we are trans-versing from one sex to the other, it is not the destination. I do not strive to be a transsexual, a tgirl, a transwoman, or any of it. I strive to live my life the way I am, as a woman. Neither my genetics, genitals, voice nor my body define me as a man, and they certainly do not now or will they ever define me as a woman.
Accepting this has been the number one thing for me. I can honestly say that you could look straight into my eyes and see that I have many psychical male traits and I won’t, I can’t let that discourage me. I don’t want to be read, don’t get me wrong. I try very hard to pass as best I can and it really bothers me when people stare or snicker. I would love it if i just blended in and no one ever knew, but I don’t 100% of the time. I know someone will notice something eventually. People are going to stare, and some people are not going to approve. I would not let that prevent me from being myself in private and I need the determination to not let it prevent me from being myself in public as well.
If anyone has any of there own experiences they would like to share (and they don’t have to relate to transsexualism) feel free to leave a comment. I would really like to get the female to male perspective as well.
Tags: disscusion, f2m, gender, Gender Identity, GLBT, happiness, LGBT, life, m2f, male to female, mtf transition, passing, transgender, transgenderism, transition, transsexual
July 8, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Good post. I was thinking a lot about this sort of stuff at the beginning of the year. We’re all far too tied to other people’s perceptions. At least in my life, I found that almost nothing I do is done without regard to how others will perceive it (even if it is just a subconscious sort of regard.) We’re all driven far too much by what other people think about us.
The conclusion (which is fairly obvious I suppose) that I came to (though I still have a lot of work to do as far as it is concerned) is that in every action, I need to be true to myself and who I am first and only after that should I factor in other people’s perceptions, etc.
It’s a basic idea, but almost no one does it. 99.999% (or so) of people have it backwards and that causes a lot of issues.
It’s next to impossible to do all the time, and I’m always forgetting, but the times I do remember it helps me a lot.
August 11, 2009 at 8:33 pm
It seems almost everyone in the process of becoming who they really are faces the issue of “passing in public.” For most of us, by the time we begin going out in public even if it’s just to dash madly from the back door of our residences to a clump of bush, and back, we are so conditioned to actually conceal ourselves that we think more of hiding than showing ourselves in all of our glory. I went through that. Every short journey out into the world as the person I really am inside was fraught with anxiety, fear, and sweat.
After years of this, however, I was driving one night through northern Ontario, Canada, late at night. As usual, on a warm summer night, I wore some very feminine clothing – blue denim short shorts (the Daisy Duke variety), red pumps, and a red checkered shirt which barely concealed what three years of hormones had grown. Although still officially in stealth mode, at such times of the night I liked going for drives along the lonely highways travelled mostly by equally lonely truckers.
This night was no exception. The moon was out, so occasionally I stopped along the side of the road to walk – I loved walking on the pavement, hearing the click click of the heels, and watching my legs (I do have beautiful legs!).
On one stretch of the highway, I passed a truck, but unlike the others I passed that night, the driver in this truck began flashing his lights almost as soon as I completed the passing manouver. Suddenly fearful that I may have something mechanically wrong with the vehicle, I pulled over quickly to see if I could spot anything visibly wrong. I couldn’t. As I pulled out onto the road again, I noticed the truck had begun to pull over as well. He honked his horn as I passed him again, and he waved at me. Minutes later, I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed a truck coming up behind me rather quickly, and as it began pulling out to pass, I noticed that it was the same truck and the same driver who had been flashing me and honking at me before. I noticed he was smiling at me and holding his hands in front of him like he were praying. He motioned for me to pull over.
I didn’t know what was wrong. Then it suddenly dawned on me – he was looking at me, at my body, and he was wanting me to pull over for personal reasons!
I let him pass me, but then he just stopped and pulled over onto the side of the highway. We both sat for what seemed like hours, then I began inching forward and quickly sped up to pass the truck once again. My heart raced as I drove down the road, gazing into the mirror to see if he were still behind me perhaps overtaking me again. He did not.
When I calmed down, I looked at myself. I had completely forgotten that the driver in a truck could look down at me and see everything. He might even have seen me in one of my little walks on the sideroads, or on the sidewalks in one of those little towns, like in Spanish. That was my favorite town for taking little strolls.
This man really wanted to meet me. I was full of fear that I had been “outed” and at the same time I was full of excitement at the thought that this strange lonely man looked at me as a woman and wanted me.
That night, then and there, I decided to go all out, to see if I could withstand a one-to-one meeting with a man. I turned and drove back the few kilometers to where the truck had been parked.
Luckily it was still there. I drove by slowly, and stopped when the man noticed me and began waving again. However, my heart began beating more forcefully than before as I thought of all those transsexuals I had read about who were found with their throats slashed along just such a highway, in the middle of nowhere. But I wanted to go through with it, too, so I planned to just keep my window open only a little.
Finally, his shape filled the car window. I could hear his breathing.
“Hi, there, you pretty lil’ thing,” he said. “I didn’t think you would ever stop.”
“I wasn’t going to stop….I don’t usually stop for anything,” I said in my softest voice. I was so worried he would detect my male voice. But, he didn’t seem to mind the voice. He bent over further to listen more intently, or to get a better look at my legs and boobs. Suddenly, I didn’t really mind the attention.
We talked for about a half hour there alongside the road. Mostly he flirted and after a while I started to flirt right back. We agreed to meet the following evening at a truck stop in Espanola, near Sudbury. That was the beginning of a relationship we’ve enjoyed now for three years.
Eventually, about six months later, I told him there was something wrong with me down there, medically, and I had to get an operation first. He didn’t mind at all. He cares about me as a person, and that is the most important thing to him.
I’m out more than I hide now. We both live out in the country – me in northern Ontario and he in northern Quebec, so I can just be myself.
I still worry about getting outed in public. But then I look around at all the women that I meet in a typical day – they don’t all look like Haley Berry or Kim Petrova. In fact that kind of beauty is rare indeed. Most women are just average. Most transsexuals or crossdressers worry about looking or fitting in perfectly, or more than perfectly.
I used to think that I should dress in short tight skirts, and wear high heels all the time, to look like a woman. Not many wear such clothing, believe me. You don’t even have to have long perfectly manicured fingernails, and lush red lipstick. I used to be mistaken for a woman, or girl, more often when I was trying to conceal my femininity or my real breasts (which I used to have to bind to hide), especially the older men. Older men have very keen eyes, too, I have discovered, keener than most people.
I am still afraid, but I don’t worry about being publicly found out now. The more I accept myself the more the world seems to like me, or at least not really pay that much attention. Veronica
August 11, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Wow I would definitely say you were very lucky! Congrats that all worked out but this just seems a bit risky a situation to put myself in, or to suggest anyone put themselves in. I do very much agree with the last part though. You don’t needs the tight skirts and high heels to pass… These things draw attention and attention is how you get read.