Sunday, November 24, 2013

Trans Awareness Month, Day 14 - Passing tips?

(This is part 14 of my observance of Transgender Awareness Month, my answers to the 30 Day Trans-Challenge.)

14) What are some of your passing tips or things you do to pass?

Um, well, first of all, "passing" is a loaded term. Passing as what, exactly? There are an almost infinite number of variations in womens' hair, skin, body type, voice, and on and on and on, so meeting some arbitrary set of criteria that everyone will read as "female" is somewhat laughable. I'm not saying there aren't ranges on every one of those categories that roughly equate to "female" and "male", because there probably are. What I'm saying is that ultimately, as a non-binary identifying person, it doesn't matter to me.

... much.

Actually, it does matter to me, I guess. But it's complicated.

I don't really alter my presentation all that much for different social situations, other than the obvious one of getting more dressed up for church and work than, say, a quick trip to the corner store. That being the case, I have a couple of important criteria in mind when I get dressed:

  1. I want to embrace my femininity in minor ways that nevertheless remind me of my identity. My hair is a big one. A little jewelry sometimes is another. The cut & color of the clothes I wear. Basically the stuff I talked about in my "coping" post a few days ago.
  2. I want to look like "Dad" to my kids, in a way that doesn't make them (or their friends) uncomfortable. Having a daughter in her early teens, this one matters quite a bit to me.
  3. I want to be attractive to my sweetheart. I don't care much if anyone else thinks I'm good looking, but I want her to.

If I pass those three tests, nothing else really matters to me. :)

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