𝓝𝓪𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓲𝓮 𝓦𝔂𝓷𝓷  💎

A lot of people try to reassure me that I don't need it to pass. But I definitely still get clocked, and that's honestly often an experience of despair.

Passing is actually a complicated and ambiguous concept. Here are three interpretations:

Passing A: strangers usually default to your preferred pronouns without being corrected. Passing B: people usually don't notice you're trans until it's pointed out to them. Passing C: people usually can't distinguish you from a cis person, even if they have an eye out for it.

Passing A is available to most trans people with enough time, resources and effort. I consistently A-pass (sorry for made-up jargon). Passing B is something I want and don't have. Passing C is not available even as a lifetime goal to most of us, I think including me.

My desire to B-Pass raises some uncomfortable questions. If strangers usually don't misgender me (and usually they don't)—why should I care whether or not they can tell I'm trans? Is it bad to be trans?

This is particularly a worry since I'm a fairly public and visible trans person. Shouldn't I be proud to be trans? Shouldn't I be modeling trans-positive thinking and behavior?

Beneath the cosmetic fussing is a philosophical question about what being trans means to me. When I'm being absolutely honest with myself, I have to ask: deep down, don't I in fact wish I were a cis woman? (an impossible wish)

Trans people usually like to think that by transitioning we are expressing some inherent inner truth—not imitating cis people. But what is it I'm trying to accomplish by changing my voice, clothes, endocrinology? Am I expressing what's already there or am I changing what's there?

If I could wave a magic wand and be transformed into a cis woman would I do it? Intellectually: hm interesting question I'd have to think about that Emotionally: yes, of course, god yes

The worry is this: if what I'm doing is trying to approximate cis womanhood then isn't the trajectory of the whole project doomed, since the best case scenario is an ongoing asymptotic approach to an unreachable goal? For that reason I hope that's not what I'm doing.

I have a deep fear that dysphoria is a spiral of doom that I can never outrun. I look back at myself six months ago and think "God, how did I even make it through one day looking like that, sounding like that." In fact, my dysphoria was no worse then than it is now.

Has my dysphoria been alleviated? In some significant ways, yes. But it also has an insidious way of returning in more sophisticated form. It's like a devil speaking: "Fine, so your skin is softer and your voice is higher. Well done. Too bad about that facial structure though..."