Passing (gender)

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In the context of gender, passing refers to a person's ability to be regarded as a member of the sex with which they physically present. Typically, passing involves a mixture of physical gender cues (for example, hair style or clothing) as well as certain behavioral attributes that tend to be culturally associated with a particular gender. Irrespective of a person's presentation, many experienced crossdressers assert that confidence is far more important for passing than the physical aspects of appearance. Three groups of people whose members may be concerned with passing are crossdressers, trans men and trans women.

Related terminology

Gender attribution

Gender attribution is the process by which an observer decides which gender they believe another person to be. Once an observer makes an attribution of the gender of a person, it can be difficult to make them change their mind and see the person as another gender.

Passing/not passing

The failure to pass as the desired gender is referred to as being read. In this context, "read" is used as a verb. The event of being read is known as "a read". In this context, read is used as a noun. It can also be called "being clocked."

A person is far more likely to be able to read someone of their own race but less likely to read someone of a different race. It is generally accepted that this is because gender cues within one's own race are more readily recognised than gender cues of other races. Some people opt to leave their country of origin, because gender cues can vary greatly between countries. Vocal range, physical build, hairline shape, facial structure, demeanor and clothing styles are just some of the reasons cited.

Depending upon a person's presentation, anybody may read them. What is more important than whether a person is read or not is how others react if they do read that person. It is suggested by some researchers that many trans people who believe that they are passing are in fact being read by many observers, but the observers do nothing confrontational and hence the trans person is not even aware that they were read.

It is also notable that "reading" and "being read" have the alternate meaning of insulting and being insulted in the context of Ball culture. Very often the subject of the read is a flaw that would result in not passing. The term used for passing in Ball culture is "realness".

Stealth

The term stealth is used to refer to a person who passes as their desired gender at all times, and who has broken contact with everybody who knew their gender history. Thus, everybody around them is unaware that they were not always of the gender presented, and they are effectively invisible within the population of their current gender. In order to live in stealth, an individual has to be extremely passable.

Critiques

The concept of passing has been critiqued by Julia Serano in Whipping Girl:

The crux of the problem is that the words ‘pass and ‘passing’ are active verbs. So when we say that a transsexual is ‘passing,’ it gives the false impression that they are the only active participant in this scenario (i.e, the transsexual is working hard to achieve a certain gendered appearance and everyone else is passively being duped or not duped by the transsexual’s ‘performance’). However, I would argue that the reverse is true: The public is the primary participant by virtue of their incessant need to gender every person they see as either female or male.

History

Jennie Irene Hodgers, dressed as Albert Cashier, was an Irish-born soldier in the Union Army during the United States' Civil War.

Historically, there have been circumstances wherein people have impersonated the opposite gender for reasons other than gender identity. The most common other reason was for women disguising themselves as men in order to become soldiers.

Wartime

Main article: Crossdressing during wartime

Reports exist of women doing this in both the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War. Examples include Mary Anne Talbot and Hannah Snell.

Two of the most famous examples of women who disguised themselves as men to fight in battle are Joan of Arc, who fought for France against the English during the Hundred Years' War, and Hua Mulan, who, according to legend, took her elderly father's place in the Chinese army.

Modern context

In modern times the endeavor of trying to pass is most often practiced by cross-dressers and transsexuals.

Those performers (drag kings and drag queens) who are open about their natal sex are not typically referred to as "passing", even though some may be able to do so. Many cross-dressers who venture out into public areas do try to pass. Many transsexuals live and work in their gender and seek to be fully accepted as a member of that gender, rather than that which they were assigned. Therefore, passing is not just an option but is seen as a necessity by many.

Transsexuals who have undergone sexual reassignment surgery or who are past the transition stage may not refer to themselves as passing, since they now consider themselves to actually be that gender. Those who are completely accepted after transition often choose not to disclose their natal sex and instead live in stealth.

Transgender people who do not describe themselves as either cross dressers, transvestites, or transsexuals may have different attitudes towards passing. For example, they might not try to pass at all, they may engage in genderfuck (sending consciously mixed signals), or they might be able to pass, but do not hide the fact that they are transgender. Personal views on passing and the desire or need to pass are independent of whether an individual has had medical treatment or has legally changed their gender.

In the transgender and crossdressing communities, those that cannot pass may sometimes view those that pass with jealousy. Because of this, there may be a tendency for some of those who pass to avoid those who are easily read. There is the perception among many that when one person is read, anyone with that person will be assumed to be transgender or crossdressing, by association.

It should be noted that the use of the term "passing" regarding sexual orientation denotes "hiding" one's identity, where use among gender-variant people (as noted above) signals acceptance and concordance with one's internal sense of or desired gender identity. However, for this reason, and because transgender persons who come to live full-time in their desired gender/sex identity often recognize their previous attempts to conceal their identity and be accepted in socially-accepted and designated roles as the real artifice they constructed and protected, some have begun to instead call their previous gender-normative and concealing behaviours as "passing".^{[citation needed]}

See also

• List of transgender-related topics
• Passing (sociology)
• Gender-bait