Eagles: “Life in the pass lane… need to pass all the time;

so I’m

Snoop Dogg: “…Rollin down the street…to see my Endo,…hopin’ to hear good news”

Welcome back everyone

***Disclaimer…I did not write this post to be mean or to offend non-passing or non-binary trans people. I am also dedicating this “track” to MtoF trans women as this is my area of knowledge since I am one. I wrote it because no one else likes to talk about passing, but it needs to be discussed.  I would also like to state for the record that the most helpful resource for me to obtain my passing privilege was my self determination to do so. Though I am on doctor monitored HRT,  The 4 major ways most MTF folks get “read” are: facial hair, voice, mannerisms, and adams apple. All of which are completely unaffected by hormones.  I have fixed and dealt with every one of these with no surgeries (well OK Laser Hair removal yes).  HRT and surgery is not everything in this passing game everyone, that’s my point here. So here goes….

I pass, all day and everyday. I haven’t been gendered wrong, laughed at, or called a derogatory term in almost a year. New people that meet me never stammer or get my gender wrong. New people I include into my “little secret” are totally shocked when I tell them I am trans. Sometimes I even show them pictures of my old guy self for kicks so they can compare.  And if I am really looking for a good laugh, I attempt to find my old guy voice buried in there which is much more baritone and coarse. Most react to me doing so as “that’s so wrong!!” while laughing with me. And sometimes I even announce to rooms of hundreds of strange people I am trans. And not once has any these “self-outings” ever caused me grief or despair. Right after shock, these newbees usually say one of the following: “I had no idea”; “you didn’t have to tell me”; or “that’s so cool; tell me more!”  That’s when I know a win-win is about to happen. They are going to get some “real-life Oprah entertainment” and I am going to educate another group of people. 

But when the party is over and the audience leaves, I walk out the door to my truck, hit the gas station or the grocery store on the way home, and non-trans-woman life begins again.  Stealth is easy for me, even though there are so many tells I see in me and I often wondered why no one else sees them. Like for starters I am 5’11 and around these parts and I am taller than most men. Second is my hands, they have gotten smaller but not completely from HRT. But the truth of all this is there is a shift at some point in transition that now makes those tells even female. If anyone ever notices these things its “wow she is tall for a woman”; or “wow SHE has big hands.”  In all, this means that my “tells” are not convincing anyone I am not female.

So before some of you send me in front of the firing squad for being so “show offish” I want to say that I also spent a lot of time on the NOT passing side of things.  I started transition in my 30s, Living full time, months before starting HRT and worked EXTREMELY hard to get where I am. Some things came with luck of the gene pool, others I labored over for months till I got them right. The ability to pass for me was completely self consuming, I admit that 100%,  and to list the things I did to get here today would fill a manuscript.  The short story is I do 95% of things my life differently now.  For a small example of this, I walk, talk, stand, sit, drive, run, jump, work, pee and interact with people differently than I did as a man. Some say changing this much means I am “acting” but these changes all came from inside me not from watching a movie. I honestly chiseled my old self away to reveal the woman inside; held captive; all these years.  I won’t say I didn’t read a lot or watch the odd Youtube video (for my voice), but in the end it was all me who made those changes work and made them believable to the world around me. And it seemed once I figured out one change, others just came natural to me after that. As you all know, you can’t change a persons voice, they have to change it for themselves. Passing was a University degree program essentially, I picked the courses (changes), studied hard (internet, books, the world around me) and the professors graded me (the general public that I saw everyday). But HRT, although helpful in alot of ways, did not grant me my Passing Degree, it was just an extra study course. 

Before we go on, lets do a quick biology lesson everyone so that we all know some common understandings about HRT and what it can and can’t do. My doctor put it best when saying this: “From birth to death our bodies keep changing due to hormones. Hormones do the biggest changes during puberty.  When we give transsexuals HRT, they need to stop their journey of that birth hormone course, and then begin to go the other way. So the longer you have been going in one direction, the harder it will be for your new hormones to change your body to the opposite gender.”

So lets put some context in here:

Being a young male and in your late teens or early 20s is comparatively; VERY EASY to change your body to being female. Reason being is you have not 100% finished puberty yet. Once hitting 30, your growth plates have been fused for a few years and things like extreme male pattern baldness, tougher skin, hair in different visible bodily places, and a whole slew of other changes start happening; and these continue to happen for the rest of your male life. For this reason, it makes older trans people have a much harder time to acquire female features enough to cover up their old male ones. And the cost for these older folks can be STAGGERING!!

And what I see so often is these teen or 20 something T-girls online asking the trans-world “Do I pass or will I someday?” I am sure some other 30 and over gals like me face palm when they see this too. It makes me ask myself where in GODS NAME are these youngsters getting their info? Did they listen to their Endocrinologists explanation of the drugs when they started HRT? Have they even realized the 4 big tells I spoke of above that cannot be fixed by HRT? All I can say is it seems trans education is failing more than just the Cis world.

So let me break it down for you young folks since you must be watching too much Maury or something.  HRT will : change your skins appearance; remove some body hair; may or may not grow you Breasts; will redistribute small amounts of fat too more of a female form; will stop male pattern baldness from continuing but won’t grow back totally bald spots; will shrink your shoulders; will soften your features; and will rob you of boy strength. These are the majority of the Physical changes you can expect and some takes YEARS to complete. Hormones take time to work, even the natural ones you had at birth remember.

So what do you need to change to pass? That’s has a lot to do with you, your comfort level, your wants in transition, and what feels and works right for you. If you are acting, it shows, if its you, it won’t. Meaning its purely personal and up to you. I am always hesitant to look at these pics of 20 somethings asking questions and I never respond to them because to me that feels like I am part of the “mean girls” club.  Because most times these kids confuse “passing” with “being pretty” and those are NOT the same at all. And worst of all these people asking, must be so rattled in themselves as they feel the need to ask strangers to validate their own personal self-worth! Its quite sad for me to see that. And trust me ladies, if you are one of these pictured people, passing comes from MUCH more than what anyone can see in a picture. So take what people say with a grain of salt.

So the end result here is this. I hate to give advice but here goes anyway. A) If passing is your obsession, you need to be your own worst critic and work VERY hard and objectively; and learn to accept what you can’t change. B) I know its hard and I understand the facial hair issue, but easy on the Puff Puff powder thick makeup. Less is more, it really is. C) Don’t get yourself down if things are not going exactly as you planned (yet). The passing privilege does take its time. That’s because passing is not up to you, its up to the world around you. D) If passing is not happening right now, just being ignored as you go about your day can be a great substitute. Meaning being ignored is not bad either AKA: easy on the glitter and feather boas  E) Do not get fixated with some notion that to be slim, femme and pretty is all that works to pass because it doesn’t. Your weight, height and size have nothing to do with pass-ability.   And to get your well deserved F) You know you are doing this game right, when you are the last to know you are passing.

Ok..now send in the firing squad…

Hugs all;

Josie

Ok WTF…there are men with guns in the studio, I was joking about the firing squad!!! Since we just had a 4 song block I think its time to cue commercial. TranssiterR8TO will be back after these short messages :) and hopefully bullet free :)