This deserves its own post from the clothes one because its so much more than that. I don't know if anyone else can relate, but I hope someone does.
I'm in a weird state right now where I'm pulling out of the "early" transition stages, and I'm slowly moving into what I feel is a fuzzily defined "mid" transition stage that will probably last years.
And... there's a weird thing going on. There's a certain kind of shock associated with it, when you're realizing something along the lines of..... "holy shit, I actually fit into the "woman" box of the world". It feels so weird to describe it as shock, cause like... that's the goal, isn't it?
Except. Think back to what the experience of early transition is like.
You put on your first woman's clothes. It doesn't fit. It's not made for you. Its not flattering. You probably don't know what you're doing.
You look online. You see popular depictions of trans women. They're men in dresses, usually, caricatures based on decades of transphobia- but you don't know that yet, and you don't know how to resist it.
You ask the trans community for help. They tell you to expect nothing. They tell you that hormone results vary (true, but people lean pessimistic). They tell you that its okay, you just need to break gender norms! You agree with that. You love your friends that break gender and play with it. And you want to apply it to yourself. But for some reason, its not you, no matter how hard you try.
You go to the doctor. They say that HRT may essentially do nothing. But hey, its worth it for the emotional health, right?
At this point, you've probably already accepted that you're a trans woman. You're out of the questioning phase. But slowly, as its beat into you more and more, you think of yourself more and more as trans and less and less as a woman. The idea that you could ever be a woman in the same way as other people shrinks away. And slowly, you start to try and make "woman" less a part of you.
By default, you look for special accomodations. Safety. Trans spaces. Trans clothing. Trans resources. You assume that other people perceive you as trans first and woman second.
But fucking. I don't know. Somewhere along the way, that breaks.
You realize that other women don't see you as an outsider.
You realize that people you casually interact with are treating you differently, in ways that match how they treat cis women.
You shop for clothes, and realize that women's cuts fit better than men's cuts.
Other women become more comfortable around you, and men become more distant.
In crueler ways, you realize that sometimes, when people hate you, or condescend, or ogle you, its not transphobia- its misogyny. You were prepared for the transphobia, and you knew about the sexism, but somewhere along the way you might've gotten it into your head that it would take a lot longer to get to this point.
At some point along the way, little by little, the world started treating you as a woman.
But here's where people get things wrong.
This isn't "passing", necessarily. At least not "passing" in the sense that people can no longer tell that you're trans.
Based on my experience in myself and others, I really do think that most transgender people spend long periods of their transition in a zone where people can easily tell that they're trans, but people treat them as women anyways. On some level, you're still gendered as feminine to other people. Transphobes deliberately try to "overwrite" this internal registration. But the only reason they care in the first place is because there is a dissonance between what they're perceiving you as (a woman) and the thing that their transphobia is telling them you "should" be.
Side note, but the most fascinating and horrificly toxic example of the above is some right wing think tank show that featured both Ben Shapiro and Blaire White (Conservative sellout trans woman desperately trying to be one of the "good ones"). Ben Shapiro, by default, gendered Blaire as a woman, and had to "manually correct" himself to misgender her and use masculine pronouns and terms.
But for the people who aren't that level of transphobic? They mostly just don't give a shit.
The recent cultural wave of transphobia is affecting how many people are overtly transphobic. But for a normal person, they'll see you as a woman first, and with "trans" as one of the many features that they associate with you.
All of this, of course, is not to say that you should abandon your transgender identity to try and "blend in" with cis women. Never forget your pride.
Why do I think this is important to say? Well, I think it would've been important to me pre-transition, or early transition. This is the nirvana people reach when they "don't care about passing". Early transition people often hear that and end up thinking.... well if I'm not gonna pass, then what's the fucking point? And that exact kind of mentality is perpetuated CONSTANTLY by good natured people "warning" you that you won't pass, but saying that "it doesn't matter". Because when you're dysphoric, how can it not matter?
Which is why seperating all of these experiences from "passing" is so important. Even if there are a few features out of place, that make you a bit more unique as a woman, you're still a woman to the world. And that's a beautiful thing, if you let it be.
