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Notes -
A curious question I was just thinking about that might be unanswerable due to the culture war effect:
Is there any hard data on what percentage of trans people "pass" as their new gender?
I feel inclined to think that the percentage is pretty low. But that may be mostly due to poorly passing trans people being more obvious, while the passing ones don't draw much notice. Most of the pictures of MtFs going around look pretty obviously like a dude in a dress. The FtMs tend to look kind of androgynous. But then you can't deny that Blair White and Buck Angel exist. And those are people who've chosen to be openly trans public figures. How many others are out there who you couldn't tell they weren't what they appeared to be, but don't care to advertise it for whatever reason? I honestly have no clue, and I'm wondering if anybody does.
There's no good definition of passing. If numbers pop up, you have to look at the methods skeptically. It all depends on context.
If a middle aged woman, dressed and styled like a middle aged woman, at mass today looked kind of masculine I would probably not notice it, maybe notice it think "oh, she has an unfortunate face/build," and think nothing more of it.
If a young person walks into the gym I managed on PRIDE Meetup* day, I was very aware of the possibility that any person might be any gender, I can't go off general dress or styling cues. I'm constantly examining people to know how to address them without putting my foot down my throat.
So Pass might mean anything from "Successfully signal in most contexts that they would like to be treated as [Chosen Gender] such that most people will politely do so even if they know there's something going on" to "Zero Percent of people will ever experience a hint of doubt or uncanny discomfort when talking to this person; potential sexual partners would be surprised by what they found in the bedroom." And every person is going to have different perceptions there anyway.
As an example, Amy Schneider** was on Jeopardy every night, and I watched it with my parents and grandmother and wife almost every night. It took my wife and I about a week to clock her, primarily because of subtle LGBT cultural cues, and I just prayed that they never talked about it on the show because my parents and grandmother had no idea whatsoever. It took them actively announcing it on the show, and my parents were fucking STUNNED by this revelation, floored, never would have thought of it. I don't think she does a perfect job of passing by any means, but going back to my examples above: if I saw a woman looking like her in church I would assume she was just unfortunately designed; if I saw her at the gym in leggings on Pride night I'd clock her in a heartbeat.
And that's where the question becomes unanswerable due to the culture war effect. Trans advocates confused the former condition for the latter, though there is an obvious difference between politely playing along or being deeply uncomfortable but not sure why and actually passing. While anti-trans types will claim that no one ever passes because when they look at a picture of a trans person they have been told is trans they can point to cues in the photo that give it away, even though their trans radar is typically set to off and they couldn't pick up on any of that in a normal interaction.
*That they always chose to come on "Ladies Half Price Night" will never not piss me off. Why pick the one time when gender matters to our minimum wage high school student staffers? I had to constantly lecture new hires: Don't be a hero, the extra $9 on a day pass will not matter to the owner, having a controversy on social media will.
**I will brook no slander on Amy, purely because I hated the other big champion that year so fucking much
The most queer-friendly people I know will call anyone our age a "beautiful person." It is so jarring to me that it distracts me. But, it lets me know -- without looking -- that the subject is a cute emo girl. (The phrasing is so awkward to me because I've been exposed to so much CW preaching about how to talk: "beautiful" is preferred over "cute" "hot" "sexy" etc. to avoid objectifying women and of course "person" is preferred to avoid assuming gender).
Imagine my shock (not really) when they call the average middle aged lady at Walmart a she without any issue.
It seems parsimoniously explainable if pronouns & gender is a game of people-pleasing. This fits your first definition of passing involving signaling.
With that in mind, when I see an obviously-transgender person, the signaling theory of pronouns & passing dictates that this person obviously wants to be called she. In this sense, the obviously-male transgender woman passes as a woman, evident by her dress and makeup.
I wrote a post about this awhile back, but I didnt feel that many people grokked it. It seems everyone uses the phrase "pass [as a woman]", but based on how its used in context, it's more accurate to call it "pass [as cisgender]"
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