There is much talk in the transgender community about “passing”; in this context it means to be identified by others as the gender you are presenting. Historically, though, “passing” has an older, almost opposite meaning; it means to conceal one’s membership in a minority group in order to be identified with a higher status group—for example, a black woman who passes herself off as white, or a gay man who passes himself off as heterosexual, in order to avoid discrimination.
I’m not passing judgment on those who attempt to pass in either sense. In fact, I think many of us trans people try, and succeed in passing as non-trans. It dawned on me recently that I’ve been successfully passing as a “normal” cisgender man for several decades now. I conceal and suppress those characteristics and interests that might mark me as effeminate, sissy, or whatever. I hide the fact that I identify with women at least as much as I identify with men. In other words, I hide my transgender identity.
I’m not proud of this. But it’s not easy to step up and loudly proclaim who and what you are if it’s not particularly socially acceptable. It can get downright hazardous. I learned early on to suppress my feminine interests and mannerisms in order to avoid getting beaten up and ridiculed by my peers, and to gain approval from my parents and other family. Even now I have little protection under the law if someone decides to discriminate against me because of my gender expression.
In a perfect world, of course, I could just be myself and not suffer any repercussions. Alas, the world I live in is not perfect. Where I live, being white, male, cisgender, heterosexual, native English-speaking, Christian, conservative, Republican, extraverted, and affluent means being at the top of the social ladder. The more of those characteristics I have or can fake, the less social friction I will experience. It’s relatively easy to hide or at least mask the fact that I’m an introverted, socially/religiously liberal, Unitarian Universalist transgender person, so my status remains relatively high. The ugly truth is it’s much easier to gloss over those little details of my life than to stand up and proudly proclaim exactly who and what I am.
I’ve found that over time, as I’ve more fully explored my feminine aspect, that I’ve been able to let more of it leak into my male presentation, but it’s not easy for me. I think it’s this pressure to keep my head down and conform that drives me to maintain two separate identities, one trying to pass as a man, the other trying to pass as a woman. In the absence of a “third gender” role in our society, I don’t see that changing. But in my own, slow way, I am inching toward being as true to myself, inside and out, as I can be.
