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I’ve definitely met and confirmed multiple trans women in person, and they do look different. Of course I can’t say that I’ve definitely clocked all the trans women I’ve seen, but it does seem like there’s a bit of discontinuity between how trans women, at least, look and how natal women look; it doesn’t seem like there’s a spectrum from not obvious at all to very obvious, especially if you look at someone in daily life rather than someone in curated photographs.
(Of course there could actually be a spectrum and my brain just pattern matches to one or the other so readily that it only seems discontinuous, but that is my experience. I don’t see people who “barely” pass.)
Trans men I’ve definitely seen one or two “real” examples (eg excluding ones with “they/their”, neopronouns or ones that feel like a man one day and a woman the next, only counting the ones going from one binary to the other and making an effort to actually pass), but I’m less sure I’m clocking all of them due to the sheer effect of testosterone. That said in my milieu I don’t really see many of either trans men or gender lunatics to begin with.
If you knew they were trans in person you were looking for features with confirmation bias. Lots of people without that before knowledge don't and can't always tell a person is trans. Easy and quick evidence, just go look up internet posts from people finding out someone they're dating is trans like this one.
Or hell just go look at some of the older Jerry Springer episodes about guys who didn't realize they fucked a trans woman and got upset after it was disclosed.
No, I clocked them as extremely obviously not natal women and then got confirmation in one way or another afterwards. What did you think I meant by “confirmed”?
That seems absolutely nuts. How the hell does that happen? The texture of neovaginas is, like, not going to be anything close to a real one. Even just the lack of proper lubrication for one.
I’m sorry but your insistence that trans women are actually generally passing reads as massive cope to me. That some lizardman’s constant worth of interactions suggest otherwise is not relevant in this case -- I've been clocked offhand as a woman previously during a period of my life when I had long hair by people who weren't paying too much attention, and I was not trying to present as a woman and definitely wouldn't appear female to anyone actually looking.
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