Lesbian Flower 🌺

crazy how people assume trans guys dont know if we had short naturally coloured hair and a basic style we'd "pass better." "you want tips on how to pass? no more fun piercings, jewelry, anything feminine, dyed hair, nail polish or nice things for you!" thanks but I choose joy and whimsy x

Tags by @kvetchcore.

I also hate how they assume that some of us haven’t already tried all that and STILL GOT MISGENDERED. Like shaving my head and wearing straight bootcut jeans and flannels and speaking in a low voice and not swinging my arms while walking or smiling at strangers etc DID NOT WORK.

And trying to conform so much made me miserable. Stop placing the burden of “passing” on trans people and instead challenge society’s expectations of masculinity and femininity by letting trans people dress and style themselves the way they want!!!!

My hottest take (and I genuinely do believe this) is that most trans women pass perfectly well. They just don't pass as supermodels. Every "nonpassing" trans woman I've ever met looks like your average midwestern cis woman.

Honestly!

I'm part of a trans support group that meets via Zoom, and let me tell you something -- the first time I joined, it was only the consistent use of pronouns in people's introductions that let me know I was in the right place. The women in this group are adults, people who were well past first puberty by the time they realized they needed to make a change -- some have kids, most have careers. One is a retired wrestler! And they pass so well that even I, another trans person, had a dizzying moment of "Wait, these aren't cis women?" when I first met them.

It's valuable to talk about what HRT and surgery can and can't do for you, but please don't let the doomsaying voices take hold. Passing, if that's your goal, is far from unattainable no matter where you're starting from. And the standard of passing that transphobes inflict on trans women is an ever-shifting goalpost that most cis women themselves can't attain.

crazy how people assume trans guys dont know if we had short naturally coloured hair and a basic style we'd "pass better." "you want tips on how to pass? no more fun piercings, jewelry, anything feminine, dyed hair, nail polish or nice things for you!" thanks but I choose joy and whimsy x

Tags by @kvetchcore.

I also hate how they assume that some of us haven’t already tried all that and STILL GOT MISGENDERED. Like shaving my head and wearing straight bootcut jeans and flannels and speaking in a low voice and not swinging my arms while walking or smiling at strangers etc DID NOT WORK.

And trying to conform so much made me miserable. Stop placing the burden of “passing” on trans people and instead challenge society’s expectations of masculinity and femininity by letting trans people dress and style themselves the way they want!!!!

Honestly if there's ONE thing I wish I could get all queer people to understand is that if you're in a situation where you know everyone would treat you differently, especially to the point of it putting your life in danger, if they found out you're queer, you aren't experiencing privilege, you're in a hostage situation.

Like sorry experiencing "passing privilege" is actually just being trapped in a room with a bloodthirsty t-rex and having people tell you that you should be thankful because thier vision is based on movement and you can just stand still. It's not a privilege to be erased, to have to lie to everyone around you to stay safe-ish, to have to closet yourself because you know even a single step out of line could be the end of your entire world.

None of us should have to be thankful to stand in front of a loaded gun while the person holding it goes "haha, don't worry, I only use this on faggots, and you're not a fag....right?" Like this is not a net good and it has almost nothing in common with actually being part of a privileged group.

Anyway, Happy Pride, let's leave this shit behind.

80% of "passing" is having enough money to purchase the clothes and services that will allow you to pass. Please stop holding being able to stealth up as the pinnacle of trans achievement. That place belongs to surviving. It belongs to finding joy. It belongs to love and community, not people who are rich enough to have professional makeup artists and tailors.

It really fucking sucks that every trans woman who can pass as cis ultimately has to decide whether she wants to be seen as a woman or as trans because the overwhelming majority of cis people still seem incapable or unwilling of seeing them as both at once

trans people do not need to pass as cis before their identity/gender is taken seriously. sure, it’s great for some to be told that they pass, as it can feel amazing to be told you are seen the way you identify but that isn’t the case for all. some may prefer to be seen more feminine/masculine (just like cis people do) and that’s okay!! they should still be respected!! it’s the same for nonbinary folk and anyone that doesn’t fit as ‘man’ or ‘woman’, they don’t have to look androgynous or the way you expect them to.

obviously i understand the emphasis placed on passing from a physical safety standpoint but it really sucks to see so many trans people tie their fundemental sense of self worth to the arbitrary standards of a society that barely acknowledges that we even exist

stop judging transfems worth and validity by how "passing" their voices are.

ok but seriously this is such a big problem. my voice does not pass and i honestly love that! my voice is great! i dont want to change it. people shouldnt have to change parts of themselves just because others dont find it to their liking.

stop treating voice training like its some necessary crucible all transfems must endure to be a "real woman". voice has no bearing on gender. voice training is hard! not everyone has the time, energy, motivation, or will to do it. thats not a bad thing!

i could elaborate more on this but i dont feel a particular need to grovel on the ground and explain exactly why its okay for a woman to have a deep voice. its really goddamn simple honestly. if you cant understand that, youre transphobic, plain and simple.

something i don’t think tme trans people always fully understand about transfeminine transition is that for a lot of us “””passing””” (a term i use reluctantly for clarity but with a great revulsion toward the concept) is basically impossible, or at the very least incredibly unlikely

i am transfeminine. if i ever go on E, i will still have a deep voice and body hair. even if i spend the time and money for hair removal and voice training, i will still have a masculine jawline and brow bone. even if i get expensive and painful facial feminization surgery, i will be tall and have broad shoulders and narrow hips and bigass hands and feet. it is an immutable fact that i will never completely pass, if i wanted to—it is just a financial, practical, and physiological impossibility for me. some transfems are luckier than me, granted, but many aren’t

there isn’t like, a call to action for this post, i just sometimes get the impression from the way tme people talk abt physical transition that they don’t know how incredibly fortunate anyone who has even a chance of “passing” is, and i think folks could stand to remember that and maybe consider a bit whether passing is a healthy or reasonable standard for anyone at all

So many of y'all love to call yourselves trans allies until you see a trans woman who doesn't pass. You know how many trans women I've seen labelled as "cringe" and like. Bullied online just for being themselves??? Allying yourself with trans women is great, but include the ones that don't pass.

And yes, this includes trans women who don't pass for any reason, including that they might not want to. There are a thousand reasons why a trans woman might be more masc, and it's literally none of your business. Trans women can be GNC just like cis people can.

Supporting trans women means supporting ALL trans women not just the ones you like.

Reminder that passing privilege is a consequence of colonial ideas of gender standards, and it's hopelessly binarist. Don't enforce it, and don't enshrine passing as a universal goal.

So many of y'all love to call yourselves trans allies until you see a trans woman who doesn't pass. You know how many trans women I've seen labelled as "cringe" and like. Bullied online just for being themselves??? Allying yourself with trans women is great, but include the ones that don't pass.

And yes, this includes trans women who don't pass for any reason, including that they might not want to. There are a thousand reasons why a trans woman might be more masc, and it's literally none of your business. Trans women can be GNC just like cis people can.

Supporting trans women means supporting ALL trans women not just the ones you like.

i hate that people expect trans women to change every aspect of themselves in order to “pass” it’s disgusting

the fact that im expected to be hairless and on hormones and changing my voice and possibly undergoing multiple surgeries before people, even some trans people, will respect me? disgusting

If you put “fuck terfs” in the tags im fucking blocking you. Why is it that u people can only care about trans women when it means perfomative shitting on terfs.

honestly think a not insignificant amount of trans discourse comes back to people who think about trans issues from an "is" perspective vs people who approach them from an "ought" perspective

without asking you to summarise entire debates that I could probably find on google, care to elaborate?

"Is" vs "Ought" is basically approaching a problem from the perspective of how the world is vs approaching the problem from the perspective of how the world ought to be (also known as descriptive vs prescriptive)

An example in trans discourse would be the discussion around passing. The ought perspective would be something along the lines of "no one should be required to pass so we should stop judging trans people for not passing and acting like passing is the end all be all of transition" while the is perspective would be like "passing is an extremely important part of transition because trans people who don't pass are often subjected to far more discrimination, up to and including violence, so information on how to pass better is a critical resource."

Notice that these statements do not actually contradict. In fact, if you put a "but" in between the first one and the second one it sounds like a perfectly reasonable assessment. However, you could see how someone approaching the problem from the first perspective could get in an argument with someone from the second perspective. From the Is perspective, the Ought perspective seems naïve and unrealistic. From the Ought perspective, the Is perspective seems restrictive and exclusionary. Because social media discourages nuance, people can very easily turn this into a fight rather than realizing that these can be two valid perspectives on a complex issue.

the aggressive obsession with passing a lot of young trans people have should be destroyed and replaced with simply existing, if say ur a girl then ur a girl, if u say ur a boy ur a boy, if u say ur both or neither etc then you are, nothing has to change, it’s sad seeing a lot of kids repeat the same internalized hatred i’ve seen my peers and my self grow up with and it shouldn’t be normalized

since none of you can read and are being the most annoying people on earth about this post, to clarify, all this says is you donot HAVE to pass in order to be the gender you say you are, that’s it, it does not say passing is bad or transitioning is bad, it only says that passing is not a requirement to being your gender, you are already enough. you are already the gender you say you are, and younger trans people need to know this so they don’t go through the same hell that most of us have grown up with

People act like clothing or hair or physiology are the only things that impact how someone is gendered (or whether someone "passes") offline and it's like I didn't get de-gendered and masculinized in my childhood by my peers for being a loud autist to see y'all act like that kind of thing doesn't happen.

The idea that being "male-passing" is always a social privilege is so removed from reality too like a highly gender non-conforming man being identified as male by strangers on the street isn't a privilege it's a marker for violence.

trans people should not have to sacrifice their comfort to appeal to cis people

i should not have to tuck for a cis person’s comfort, especially not to the point of possibly damaging my genitals. why are you staring at a teenager’s crotch anyways?

transmasc people should not have to bind for hours to the point of being unable to breath and damaging their ribs so that cis people can be comfortable. EDIT: transmasc people shouldn’t have to bind period if they don’t want to.

transfeminine people should not have to wear fake breasts that can damage their back just for the comfort of cis people.

trans people should not have to go through pain to make cis people comfortable. this should be incredibly obvious. cis people can rb but dont be a fucking clown.