Why I Will Never Pass (By Choice)

I feel like I still surprise people regularly when they ask ‘So when are you transitioning?’, probably because it seems like an odd question to me. I mean, here are am, sitting in a tank top that clearly shows what boobs I have, wearing size six jeans, talking about how I’m a girl in essence and yet I’m still asked when I’m transitioning. As if I’m already not?

There’s a lot of concern around this kind of thing. How many people do you know who say they could totally spot a transwoman easily? Chances are, they can in some cases. Usually transwomen that are just starting their physical transition and even up to a year into it can still in some cases look predominately male-ish (mostly the face because that’s how we generally judge gender). But this is because we as a society actually place more stress on masculine features, this is why you never hear about transmen having as much of an issue with ‘passing’ because it doesn’t really take that much.

For a transman, once you’ve been on hormones for a bit, you could go walking around with your boobs hanging out, but because you’ve got a beard and a deep voice, people will just think you are a dude. Now that is for transmen who have been on hormones, and even then sometimes they still get shit about it, because of those who kind of have the nasally or squeaky voice instead of a deep one (which is a VERY common occurrence), but when you’ve been hormones long enough, eventually you do pass for women and men. (with concerns to age and facial hair still).

But what about the people who aren’t women and men? There isn’t a concept of ‘passing’ for them because there is no ‘normal’ for people who are somewhere in between. We will always be gendered one way or the other, no matter what. I could be the butchest gal in town and still consistently be gendered male, or worse when you’re really feminine for a guy, but not gay, and you still get ‘fag’ yelled at you out the window of passing cars. I know, because I’ve experienced both of these.

So when people ask me, when I’m transitioning, I really can’t help but laugh. I have been transitioning, for years at this point. The problem is, my goal isn’t to be FEMALE or MALE. My goal is androgyny, so I can be female or male when I want. But this is an issue for everyone else. Being one and the other or neither isn’t an option. Plus, most people don’t really understand the concept of transition.

Transition is change. We do it every day, and usually, we do it without conscious thought to it. That’s the big difference between transition and change. A transition is something we want to do, a conscious thought is put toward the kind of change we want. The thing is, we change not just physically everyday.

I’ve already been transitioning, because I’ve been mentally and emotionally transitioning for years. Preparing myself for the mentality of the things I have to understand and embrace. Which is a whole bunch of jargon for saying that I had to be sure of myself that I wanted to consciously go through the process of being androgynous, in mind, body and more. It’s funny I say that, consider I have been androgynous for years in personality, but not much else. Which is why when I say my essence is female it’s something I have to say, because everyone assumes my essence is male, and because I have so much of the male aspect showing I over compensate by trying to affirm only the female aspect for the things that can’t be seen.

And this is why so many trans people actually feel like they have a ‘after transition or post transition’ period. They feel like they have finished. And really they have. They finished the transition, but that doesn’t mean they won’t still change and learn and grow, but there won’t be any conscious thought to it. And that’s disappointing. Which is probably why I’ll never finish transition. Or more specifically, I won’t ever ‘pass’.

Oh sure, there will be times that people will undyingly believe I’m fully female. And then other times people will think I couldn’t be anything but male. But there will also be times that I’ll have facial hair while otherwise completely ‘passing’ as female, or keep a deep voice despite looking female. Or maybe I’ll put my hair in pig tails while looking male.

Why would I do this? That’s actually the easy part. And I think the best way to explain it is through a story.

I once knew someone I was in the crazy house with. They asked me if I was female, why didn’t I wear female clothes, or make-up, or grow out my hair.

I asked them. How am I not already wearing female clothes? Don’t females wear jeans? T-shirts? Does make-up define what a woman is supposed to be? Long hair? Are these all things that women are supposed to be? Because if so, then maybe you should look in the mirror.

She wore pants, a t-shirt, even a hoodie, no make-up, and her hair was recently cut to nearly the scalp. And she laughed. Because for years she had been told exactly what a female was supposed to be, and continually defied it. And here I was, a person desperately trying to have people acknowledge my female side and yet I refused to not be myself. Wearing those things don’t define me, but not wearing those things don’t keep me from being who I am.

I’ll continue to be who I am no matter what, and maybe I’m stubborn, or I don’t know what I am talking about. But I feel like one of the major reasons women (like the womyn festival) have such major issues with transwomen is because the transwomen they are aware of simply embrace the beauty culture that most of these women have gone to great lengths to reject because it was something built by men, and here were these people who masqueraded as men for years suddenly embracing that beauty culture and changing to women.

And that sucks. For everyone involved.

That’s why, despite the looks, despite the fact that often times I might look like a man in a skirt, or a woman with a beard and unshaved legs, I won’t pass. But I won’t pass, because I choose to not pass. Because I don’t need to. Because I am exactly who I am, and embracing beauty, or the gender mentality of what I am supposed to look like is something I’ve been fighting my whole life. And just for the sake of being able to pass as female sometimes I’m not just gonna give into wearing make-up and being a girly girl. Because that’s bullshit. It’s not me, and just because it’s not me, it doesn’t make me any less of a girl. It doesn’t make me more of one either.

It just makes me a person. A person standing here, rejecting the social stigmas that are trying to be forced down my throat. And believe it or not, trans people have developed one of those social stigmas… and it’s called ‘passing’. And I reject that too.