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Some people have argued that to affirm a trans person is lying. I sympathize with someone who says, "if I call a trans person by his preferred pronoun, it feels like I am lying." If this is all that is meant, then I suppose the rest of this post isn't relevant. To me, the stronger claim is, "if society calls a trans person by his preferred pronoun, society is lying." I never bought that claim, because I never encountered a contradictory set of definitions for sex and gender.
But recently I realized the term passing is actually transphobic according to the definitions laid out.
This is pretty clearly a woman. I can tell because of the hair and clothes. I infer she goes by "she." If I had to publicly address her, I'd do so with she.
People typically speak of passing as a woman. Since I can infer she is a woman, it follows that she passes as a woman. But as far as I can tell, nobody would describe her as passing, because she looks transgender (i.e. male). Based on how "pass" is used, it seems to really mean pass as cisgender. To see passing in this sense, as a good thing, is deceptive. It also seems transphobic. Surely a less transphobic worldview would suggest she passes as a woman because I can correctly infer her pronouns, and that her womanness is just as beautiful as a ciswomans.
Inb4 replies castigating me for just now realizing this: nobody had ever crystalized to me that passing meant to misrepresent a trans person as cisgender because most discourse talks about "passing as a woman"
Am I missing something? Can anyone else steelperson all this?
Embrace the sex/gender distinction. By which I mean—set aside the terms “man” and “woman” for a minute. Let’s use “male/female” for sex, “masc/femme” for gender, and ignore the edge cases.
Your proposed usage of “passing” would be “male signaling femme enough to get femme pronouns.” Conventionally, it’s more like “male signaling femme enough to be assumed female.” “Representing a trans person as cisgender” was a pretty good way to put it.
Yes, this is some level of Problematic, in that it asserts sex/gender mismatches ought to be invisible. I don’t think this is a settled issue. For those who believe social interactions are grounded in gender, not sex, changing perception of the latter is unneeded. For others, decoupling sex from gender is hard enough that they won’t feel satisfied unless they can pass. Naturally, the whole issue is complicated when fighting over the terms “man” and “woman,” which don’t historically handle the sex/gender mismatches.
Personally, I have a hard time blaming those who wish to pass. Avoiding cognitive dissonance seems like something worth endorsing, especially when the burden is mostly on one’s own shoulders.
I already do embrace it, though I'm sad to see many replies to my post seem unable to.
Most of the time I've heard people define passing or talk about passing, they talk as if one "passes for femme."
But most of the time I hear people use passing, it's better described to mean "passes as female"
Certainly I don't blame someone trying to pass - it certainly comes with advantages. But I also wouldn't blame a woman who alters her behavior at parties to avoid being raped. Victim blaming is when society asks women to change their behavior to avoid rape (problematic) right?
Trans people trying to pass reminds me of women trying to avoid being raped. Isn't the ideal activist world one where neither minority has to alter their behavior? What's the difference? Why is one more realistic than the other? Is it just about optics, and what activists can get away with asking society to do?
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