Passing is for Gas

Becoming Susan wrote :
I noticed that I seemed to start passing when I quit worrying about passing. I think what happened is that I started to relax and just be myself, not worrying about the opinions of strangers. But the hormones and the surgeries also had an effect. The dysphoria diminished so much that I sometimes wondered why it was that I wanted to transition in the first place--I wasn't used to being comfortable in my gender.

I don't use the word "pass" very often. I don't like it when people ask me if they pass (especially from a picture only). Part of the problem, as I see it, is that passing is too often thought to be purely a visual thing, and particularly facial. I sometimes use the word "integrated" to describe how well a person matches cultural expectations by gender, because that, to me, includes other factors like voice and mannerisms as well as attitudes and behaviors--all the things that have to come together to make a complete woman or man.

There is that negative connotation of deception--trying to portray ourselves as something we're not. Julia Serano in her book "Whipping Girl" contrasts the deceptive trans woman with the pathetic trans woman. The former does it too well while the latter does it too poorly, essentially leaving us in a "damned if we do and damned if we don't" situation.

In my own life, I think of myself as being post-transition. I still have a few things I want to accomplish, but I live my life with few gender-related complications. I live as a woman and everyone I encounter seems to see me as a woman. People occasionally use the wrong pronouns for me, but that doesn't bother me. I sometimes just politely correct them and forget about it. Usually, they figure it out when they take a closer look.