The passing problem

How obsessing over passing will make you miserable in the long run

Important preface: I’m not contesting the fact that passing is something trans women descriptively want. They obviously do. This desire logically follows from gender dysphoria and a desire for normalcy: you want nothing more to be like (and treated like) that one pretty girl from your class or whatever. My critique is of a “passing mentality” that is often held by certain twitter subsections and 4chan /lgbt/ frequenters.

I’m defining “passing” here as being able to meet a stranger without them suspecting you are trans. This is distinct from “getting read as female”. That part is actually relatively easy: if you put on heavy makeup and a dress and heels and all the other feminine signifiers in the world, you will be read as a woman. But you wont be read as a cis woman, you will be read as a trans woman. which would be classified as “not passing” in this context.

What is the passing mentality?

Some backstory on me: I realized I was trans at 16, started hormones at 18. As I write this, I am almost 21, and have not been outside in a skirt, dress, makeup, or anything more feminine than skinny jeans once.

Why, you may ask? It boils down to what I have come to call “the passing mentality”, which I will define as follows: “The idea that any explicit feminine signifiers (such as makeup, clothing, a feminine voice or mannerisms) are reserved for those who look cis while doing it, and if you cant look cis while doing it, you are better off not trying at all (This is often referred to as “boymoding”).”

This mindset is rarely explicitly laid out like this, but I feel like a lot of trans people believe this implicitly. Note that this is distinct from internalized transphobia (although there is definitely overlap). The mentality is usually only applied to yourself and not to others, and it is not adopted due to not accepting trans people but due to the fear that others might not accept you if you are visibly trans.

The problem with the passing mentality

Passing game theory

Let’s break the chart down. Now, if we think we don’t pass, but we pass to a stranger, that makes us feel very nice (+40). If we don’t think we pass and we don’t actually pass, this sucks but it’s what we knew already (-20). If we think we pass and we do actually pass, this feels very nice, because our internal sense of self is validated by someone else (+30). This is how cis people feel all the time.

But now, the trouble starts: if we openly declare and internalize that we think we pass but we get misgendered by a stranger, its an intensely cringy and shameful experience that must be avoided at all costs. I can not stress hard enough how hard we want to avoid this scenario. Your self image feels absolutely destroyed.

This game theory chart explains why the optimal decision is to decide for yourself that you truly don't pass and internalize that decision. If you are always proclaiming and internalizing that you don't pass, even if, somewhere deep down, you think you might, you can avoid that worst-case scenario.

This chart (body dysmorphic disorder aside) perfectly explains the absurd scenarios these passing mentality trans women find themselves in all the time: ex. “The cashier gendered me correctly and treated me like a normal woman, she’s obviously just being nice” or the dozens of trans women that frequent 4chan and Twitter where the running joke is that they have BDD because they obviously look more feminine than the average cis woman yet strongly hold that they “do not, have never, and will never pass”.

If saying that you yourself pass is a bad idea yet you make passing the sole goal of your transition, you will feel like a failure.

This chart is the core of my argument. Tons of other issues with passing stem from the fact that even if you think you pass (or look feminine at all), The best response is always to say that you don’t think you pass. Over time you will inevitably start to believe this and internalize it.

The passing catch-22

No one goes from hoodies, jeans, baritone voice & male mannerisms to flawless makeup, rocking a sundresses, a Lilypichu voice and feminine mannerisms overnight. Everything I’ve just listed will only get better if you practice.

If you only allow yourself to be feminine if it means you “pass” while doing so and force yourself into boymode otherwise (a fundamental part of the passing mentality). You will never get the practice you need with makeup, voice training and fashion sense that you need to truly ease dysphoria and be happy with yourself (and to pass). If passing is at all possible, it is almost always preceded by an awkward phase where you “look trans”, something so harrowing that it’s often preferred by trans woman to not try to be feminine at all (boymoding).

Trying to pass is a Sisyphean task

There is no objective metric for “passing”. You “pass” when the vast majority of people think you do: it's a consensus thing. It’s more common for trans people to pass at some points in time to some amount of people. Passing perfectly 100% of the time to 100% of people is extremely rare for those who transition after puberty.

Because of this, you will always be able to find someone who thinks you don't pass, and therefore have no right to present as female and should instantly return to boymoding. The worst part is that these won't be people that are lying and want to hurt you, but instead fellow passing-mentality trans women, who, due to passing game theory (and sometimes mental health issues), have convinced themselves that to pass you must be unreasonably feminine and can't have any masculine attributes whatsoever to avoid being read as an icky trans person.

The sad part is that these passing mentality trans people often bond together over their misery (see 4chan’s /lgbt/ board) which obviously reinforces these bad thought patterns and beliefs.

It is impossible to pass perfectly: there will always be someone saying that it’s not enough and there will always be a body part to obsess over, leaving you in a neverending struggle to “finally pass” that you will never achieve.

Because of passing game theory and the natural instinct to cling onto one negative opinion over a hundred positive ones, it still seems logical not to see yourself as passing. This, along with the game theory argument, is the main reason why you will see pretty girls on Twitter that look like regular women talk about how they should “give up” because their brow ridge is too pronounced.

Passing being the goal of transition is unsustainable

Being early in transition and setting “passing 100% of the time” as your goal is hilariously optimistic and unreasonable. It is comparable to a teen doing well in college basketball and making it his life mission to join the NBA: it’s probably gonna end in dissapointment. If the goal of transitioning is something unachievable to a lot of trans women, that's just a bad norm.

The solution

There is happiness in not passing and just wearing a skirt anyway.

Yeah, there really is. Life isn’t over because people will sometimes think you are trans.

The obsession with passing stems from the idea that being trans is something you do purely to be perceived as a woman to other people. In this journey, the opinion of yourself often becomes irrelevant because the passing mentality will base your entire transition off what other people say and gesture about you.

I propose an alternative mindset, focused on self love, where you go outside in a skirt and makeup because that’s what you wanted to wear that day. Because that’s what makes you the happiest, even if a stranger will think you’re a f*ggot for it. If you pass, great! Fun! If you don’t, I promise you it’s not the end of the world.

Before you comment

I write this from a trans woman's perspective, and specifically addressed to trans women, not because I don't care about trans men or nonbinary people, but because I don't feel comfortable speaking on their behalf, and because the passing mentality is specifically prevalent among trans women (though my arguments probably broadly apply to trans men and nonbinary people too).

I know that not everyone can risk not being able to pass. I am a white trans woman in a very progressive environment. I know lots of people don't have this privilege and their personal situation will be different. I do believe that the risks of being a non-passing trans woman are often overstated. Of course, we are at a disproportionate risk of violence, but if we keep hammering on this, we will give people the negative mindset of "I will literally get killed if I go outside with makeup on". As long as you don't live in a crazy conservative area and have only moderate dysphoria, I promise you that the benefits outweigh the risks.

The utility-values for the passing game theory chart are obviously estimates and will differ from person to person. My point still stands.

Finally, I know that many passing-mindset trans women suffer from body dysmorphic disorder. On that note, I find it sad how often BDD is dismissed as just a character quirk rather than as the self-destructive mental illness that it is. A lot of it isn't BDD, though, just trans women deathly afraid of being the "GameStop Hon".

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