I socially transitioned before I started hormones, and when I went out in public wearing women’s clothes, people would look at me frequently, and some people would stare at me. It was obvious I didn’t pass from these kinds of responses, but I also got somewhat used to that treatment.
Over time, with hormone therapy, I get fewer and fewer instances of this. I haven’t been stared at in a long time, and I think people look at me less.
At one point I would describe my experience as being a “woman shaped object” - in people’s peripheral vision I looked like a normal woman, but if someone interacted with me they could tell I was trans.
I went out yesterday and got my nails done, went shopping, went out for dinner, etc. and interactions with people made me think they couldn’t tell I was trans, but I just don’t know whether they can actually tell or not.
While waiting in line to buy some clothes, a woman wanted to chat about how long the line was taking, and she interacted with me as though I were a normal woman - there wasn’t a hint of stigma, curiosity, etc.
Anyway - this just makes me wonder: what are others’ experiences with passing and not-passing, what are little clues that you aren’t passing or when you are?
I assume you just can’t actually tell when people are being polite vs not knowing, but maybe there are little hints.
Thanks!
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If you’re perceived as a woman people tend to be friendlier and more polite towards you. My expierence with transitioning into a man is that people are generally more indifferent and cautious towards me now. I have to be a lot more mindful of coming across as “creepy” or “dangerous” than I used to be specifically with women who are strangers. I’m neither of those things, but the expectation of men being inherently threatening still prevails.
ooo, this a useful observation, thank you.
Thinking about it, I have found even when people know I’m trans, like when laser techs are lasering my genitals so there is no room for ambiguity, they treat me as a different gender than “man”, i.e. the way they talk to me and themselves is in a way that I know as distinct from when I was perceived as a man (higher pitched or feminine, more warm, more talkative in general, nicer, etc. even between themselves). Being a trans woman, contrary to anti-trans rhetoric, seems at least in my case to be perceived as at least partially disarming.
Other good examples include when I went out in public pre-hormones and wore dresses and such, and people (usually liberal white women) would regularly tell me they love my dress or skirt or whatever, and I would get over-friendly looks from some people. It seemed like the opposite of the glaring conservative men, I got overly kind supportive liberals. This over-friendliness has been replaced with indifference and maybe normal polite-friendliness instead over time.
Thinking about your experiences, I do feel for trans men who cross the threshold into that lonely life, but having lived as a lonely man, there are definitely some men who can offer close fraternity - it is just hard sometimes to find those men and form relationships, but it is possible!
At this point in my life I am content with the good friends that I’ve made in college. I find that I have the closest friendships with queer men because there’s less of an atmosphere of us both constantly trying to signal and prove our masculinity and more of a “whatever make you happy, I don’t care” attitude. Less repression and insecurity, essentially.
Yeah, I didn’t want to say it, but my experiences were always best with queer men as well. Glad you have people! 💞
Oh! Is that what it is?
I’ve been using my “girl voice” all the time now, and while I might be said to present somewhat androgynous, I’m perhaps not obviously trying to appear feminine. BUT, when I talk to people, they (particularly men) have started responding in much softer tones after they hear my voice. I thought they might just be imitating me, but could it be their “talking to women” voice? I hope so :3
I think that is likely. I notice myself doing the same thing subconsciously where my pitch is higher around women and lower around other men. I wonder if it’s a way to seem less threatening. I’m definitely not the only guy who does that.
I had a person do this when I first transitioned, he started emulating my higher voice in unusual ways. I tended to feel like I was being perceived as a gay man in those moments, rather than as a woman. I think often androgynous expressions lean into “feminine man” territories that lots of people perceive as “gay”. It has been a real struggle for me to break out of “gay man” into “feminine woman” territory.
That said, it could be that the softer tone is for lots of reasons, I don’t think it’s a bad sign - much better than being viewed as a fellow man and treated as such!
When Instagram starts censoring your nipples.
haha, but seriously the algorithm does a poor job of correctly identifying women or the “female” nipple
almost like there weren’t much difference
You know you’re passing when Republicans treat you like a sex object and stop listening to anything you say /hj
honestly, when I was getting my nails done, a dude walked up and got way too close, took his sandals off bumping into my shoes, etc. - I am not used to people violating my personal space that way and being so impolite about my belongings, so I think that might have been gendered, i.e. maybe he felt he could take my space because he was a man? surreal experience tbh
Congratulations, that means you pass. Bad news, that means you pass. Yeah some men think they can treat women however they please especially considering recent events (see “your body my choice” incels).
He seemed really sweet and polite when he was talking to his nail tech, so that added to the surrealism for me.
This, for real though. You can often tell you’ve made it when people stop treating you specially.
By way of analogy: I live in a non-English-speaking part of the world, and was very self-conscious about my language ability. To begin with, everyone told me “you speak very well” (with an implied “for a foreigner”), but after a lot of practice that finally gave way to a curt “that’s wrong” whenever I slipped up. Now people generally assume I was born here to immigrant parents.
Gender-wise (although I’m nowhere near female-passing yet), I guess things like double-takes in bathrooms, or people being “gentlemanly” are good things to look out for?
While waiting in line to buy some clothes, a woman wanted to chat about how long the line was taking, and she interacted with me as though I were a normal woman - there wasn’t a hint of stigma, curiosity, etc.
That’s great! <3 I’m not out so not much to add, other than I hope to reach the same stage one day
I wish I would pass to myself 😭 I felt so dysphoric yesterday, I just can’t believe anyone would not see me as trans - but I also don’t know how to explain their behavior.
Yeah it definitely sounds like you’re passing, at least mostly!
I also suffer from dysphoria so often, and feel I’m not passing when I do. Our brains are trained on the previous data of our faces on bodies as they were prior to transition and can still nitpick bits and pieces of what we used to look like that was masculine. Our brains mean well but… It can be hard to forget.
On the plus side it sounds like people see you and know you’re a woman, at least most of the time if not all :) 💜
I usually assume people are being polite. I know my voice is still pretty “unique” as one acquaintance put it, so I figure that’ll always out me no matter how far along my body gets with HRT.
But still. Passing isn’t as important to me as being treated the way I want to. More and more often now, strangers have been using my preferred pronouns without me having to tell them first. And whatever the reason for that is, it makes me sooo happy~
yeah, I assume most people are just being polite as well. My voice isn’t cis-passing IMO (but my self-perception can be off), but it no longer sounds like a man’s voice either, and in public I pay much more attention to my voice and try to pass with it more (major work in progress, honestly one of the hardest parts of transitioning).
Passing is important to me for safety reasons because of where I live, but admittedly it hasn’t been my explicit goal as much as something that I desire. No one has sir’d me or used he/him pronouns in a long time, but sometimes I get a “they” that could indicate they don’t know my gender and want to be careful, though that is sometimes just my sensitivity (sometimes they use “she” later for example and the “they” then seems less like I thought).
But yay to strangers using your preferred pronouns without prompting, that’s awesome!
Ah yes, the they/them when I go as she/her… Although it sort of irks me right when I hear it, l still see it as a sign of progress – I’ve made it to the gray area! That’s better than where I started!
yes, you get it 😅 “androgynous” is better than “man”, and “I don’t know your gender and I want to be polite” is better than “sir” or he/him. Still, makes me feel like my gender is broken or something.
I wouldn’t blame gender per se. More that it blows their minds, and that’s what’s broken.
You know, positive self-talk. You’re mind-blowing.
To be fair, I tend to they/them even cis people unless I know them and know what they prefer. Better to assume neutral rather than one way or the other.
I went out yesterday and got my nails done, went shopping, went out for dinner, etc. and interactions with people made me think they couldn’t tell I was trans, but I just don’t know whether they can actually tell or not.
While waiting in line to buy some clothes, a woman wanted to chat about how long the line was taking, and she interacted with me as though I were a normal woman - there wasn’t a hint of stigma, curiosity, etc.
Not much to add but I just found this interesting. When personal goals meet social goals I guess.
I wish it felt like actually meeting those goals, I don’t experience it that way.
So here’s the thing. As long as your goal is to pass, you’ll always feel like you’re not meeting your goals (even if you are meeting them) , because that goal is based in fear of consequences and in self image.
Ask yourself why you want to pass. Is it to have more experiences like the one with the woman in the line? Where you can just exist and have regular day to day interactions with folk? Cause you’re achieving that, whether or not you believe you pass.
Shift your goals is my advice :)
Your comments are wise as usual. :-)
Unfortunately I think the reasons I want to pass are probably deeper than just the pragmatic ones, which is maybe why I feel conflicted about those desires (i.e. I think the desires could be self-defeating / harmful).
Certainly the pragmatic consequences of passing are nice: it’s safer, the social interactions are smoother, it’s more affirming, and so on. But I want to pass for more than the pragmatic reasons, e.g. I get hung-up on my own trans-ness being wrong, about feeling inauthentic as a woman, about constantly feeling afraid of being outed or clocked, etc.
I think you are right that I should shift my goals from “passing” to the more pragmatic goal of living in an assimilated / integrated way (whether I pass or not), but I am not sure how much control I have over that, considering I never entered into transition thinking I would ever pass, and it was never an explicit goal I allowed myself to have.
Honestly, I need to spend more time undoing my own anti-trans bias - I am not sure how to best do that, but I’m sure I could work on it.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that your goal should be pragmatic blending in. What I’m saying is that when you say your goal is to pass, there’s probably more to it than that. You want to pass for some specific reason.
And it’s worth identifying what that reason is. If it’s pragmatic, then that’s what you need to be measuring. And if it’s not pragmatic, if it’s about the way you see yourself, or your own sense of validity, then wanting to pass is the symptom, not the real issue.
Hm. Well, it’s hard to judge how far you made it of course, but if you pass on a first glance out and about, then you seem to be on the right track? Usually people get second glances whenever something feels off. Like you look over someone, your eyes move past them, but then your brain is like “hold on a second?” and your eyes dart back. If that happens less and less then that means you’re passing certainly more than before and end up blending in. I think that sounds like decent progress at least.
Get into a fight with a stranger and see if they call you slurs. (Please don’t do this.)
For real tho, I transitioned 20 years ago and I still doubt if I pass despite all of my friends assuring me that I do, and never getting misgendered in public. It stressed me out nonstop til my therapist asked “Why do you care if you pass?” - “Well, because I don’t want anyone to know I’m trans, obviously.” And he said “So what if they do?” And I couldn’t come up with a good rebuttal. I’ve found a new confidence in life now that I don’t give a shit if I pass and just live my truth. I wish the same strength to all my trans homies.
lol, I am not even sure how to start a fight with a stranger if I wanted to. I think I would find it difficult to do.
But seriously, 20 years is a long time to feel like you are not passing 😭 I don’t get misgendered in public either, but I think that’s because people are polite, not because they think I’m a cis woman.
Where I live being trans is a risk, so in my mind the rebuttal to “so what if they do” is that it’s unsafe, but tbh I have all sorts of negative feelings about being trans, like feeling embarrassed for not having the “right” body. For the most part I just try to ignore the gender and interact authentically, but I obviously have to pay attention to my voice and I suspect I am implicitly changing a lot based on the social situation I am in. Probably I need to leave this place, it is not healthy for me to be somewhere that is so hostile to what I am.
it’s so weird, I feel like I’ll never pass, but other people seem convinced that I almost do or something, maybe it’s just friends being nice, but then people I didn’t know will act like i pass and gosh it’s confusing.
People tend to treat me very friendly and refer to me as ma’am, which feels nice. Right up until I speak then they correct themselves and say sir and it make me feel bad, on days when I’ve had enough I’ll yell at them for being piece of shit bigoted asses and they usually get scared and go back to ma’am but it’s not genuine.
Don’t rely on people in your support circles to tell you you pass, they’ll say you do even when you clearly don’t. People I know insist that my voice passes because they want to affirm or make me feel better, but I know it doesn’t because of how people treat me when I speak, also I’ve gone to voice training subs in the past on a burner account and asked if my voice was masc or fem without telling them if I was transmasc or transfem, they almost always said it sounded masc, and a small handful said androgynous. I don’t meant to be rude or mean but I don’t need people to make me feel better when I ask if I pass, I need people to be honest, even if being honest seems like it’ll hurt me, cuz you know what’ll hurt me more? Being assaulted in a woman’s space because someone doesn’t think I’m a woman. It’s happened before.
Whoa, a lot to unpack there.
First, it sounds like you have been transitioning for a while - do you have vocal dysphoria, and have you worked on voice training? When I socially transitioned my vocal dysphoria became rather intense, and the fear I had speaking, for example to a new colleague at my work who may not otherwise know I’m trans, became panic-inducing. I found voice training really helpful, and now my voice passes enough in public and on the phone that I never get “sir’d”. If you were inclined I bet you could do the same!
Either way, I’m sorry to hear about the antagonistic situations you find yourself in. I think I would feel unsafe in a situation like that. 😞
With regards to your support circles telling you that you pass: of course they might be just polite or being nice, but there is another possibility, that they have mapped you to a woman in their minds so they interpret your voice as feminine. I found this happened for example when I watched enough Finnster (don’t judge me 😝), eventually their voice sounded like a girl’s voice to me even though if I heard it on the phone for the first time I’m sure it would be read as masculine.
Ultimately whether a voice sounds masc or fem has at least something to do with how we are interpreting the situation, and I have found myself and others capable of interpreting masculine voices as feminine when you get used to thinking of that person as a woman. The same thing happened for me with Bilal Baig’s character in Sort Of, her voice definitely has masculine features (often too heavy and large), but instead of hearing a “gay man” voice like I would over the phone, I started to just hear it as a woman’s voice and it was hard to go back and hear it as a “man’s” voice.
Anyway - this might be what’s happening with your friends, maybe they can’t hear or see you as a man anymore, even though strangers still might. Still, sounds like you are doing a good job getting feedback from strangers online about your voice. I know the /r/transvoice discord has a place where you can upload clips of your voice to be critiqued as you are working on your voice training, and there are resources like Selene’s clips and TransVoiceLessons that can be helpful even without seeing a speech language pathologist.
Thanks for sharing and being vulnerable about your experiences. 🫂
