Why I Am Not Passing Now

I am not boasting when I say that it's been a while since I've had to think about "passing".  Any time I meet someone, whether a tourist asking for directions, a store clerk or guests at someone's dinner party, I am addressed by female salutations and pronouns.

In a way, it's ironic.  The reason I say that, is not that I was born in a male body and lived the first 45 years of my life as a boy/man.  Rather, I say that because I have less anxiety about some "secret" of mine being discovered than I did when I was living as male.

Perhaps even more important, I felt more like I was trying to "pass" as male--or, at least, the idea of male that most people seemed to have--than I have felt that I was trying to "convince" someone that I'm a woman.

What's even more ironic is that I felt less like I was trying to "pass" even at the very beginning of my transition.  Even during the time I was working as male and doing almost everything else in my life as female,  I didn't feel as much anxiety about being "read" as I felt when I was living as male and worrying that someone would realize that I wasn't male after all and that there would be a terrible price to pay for it.

Don't get me wrong:  I've lost friends, relatives and other things in my life because of my transition.  When I started my transition, I knew those were possible consequences.  The only surprises, really, were that some of the people I lost weren't the ones I expected.  On the other hand, people from whom I didn't expect support gave it to me, and gave me types of support I never expected.

Somehow it was easier to imagine those things than it was for me to envision the consequences of someone finding out that I wasn't that masculine (almost hyper-masculine) guy I was presenting to the world.  I guess I was still thinking of how I was "exposed" as a "sissy" when I was a kid, and the seemingly-endless grief I got as a result.  I could imagine only an adult version of those things.  Otherwise, I couldn't foresee what would or could happen to me as a result of being "exposed". 

I did, however, have a more specific fear:  that my gender-queerness (as much as I hate the term, I don't have a better one) would be construed as an extreme form of homosexuality.  As a matter of fact, some people took me for a gay man, even if they had never seen me with another man.  Although I had been living as a heterosexual man, I knew very well how virulent and misdirected homophobia could be:  Part of my "defense" consisted of homophobia and some gay-baiting.

In other words, I feared that I would be harassed, beaten or even killed for something I wasn't.  It's bad enough to incur someone's bile or wrath for something you actually are, but I could imagine few things worse than dying over a case of mistaken identity.  I imagine that once you're dead, it doesn't much matter how you died, but I still think I'd rather not die an unjust death.

But now I am living as the woman that I am; if someone commits any sort of violence (physical, mental, spirtual or otherwise) against me because he or she finds out about my past, at least it's based on something that's at least factually true.  It doesn't make any violence committed against me more just, but at least I know that I have been true to myself and I have not denied my past.  In fact, I have not had to deny anything at all.  

That last sentence might sum up the reasons why I have not felt like I am "passing" or even have to try to do such a thing.  The effort to "pass" as someone else's idea of a man or a woman invariably involves denial; simply living as the man or woman (or member of some other gender) that you are is, as one person admiringly told me, the essence of integrity.

Well, living as the woman I am--as opposed to someone else's idea of a woman-- is as much integrity as I am capable of living.  It's the truth as I understand it, and I really don't have anything else (aside from, perhaps, a belief in a greater power) that I can use as a principle for living my life.  As a result, I may not pass perfectly, but I seem to pass well enough--and better than I ever did as the man I was trying to be.

Stealth Or Denial?

Every time I come here--a part of  Florida between St. Augustine and Daytona Beach-- to visit my parents, I think for a moment or two about moving down here.  I won't do it for a variety of reasons, the most important being that my parents know that I would move here to be near them and they don't want that.  They value their independence; plus, as they remind me, there are very few jobs that pay a living wage and even fewer social opportunities and cultural amenities in this part of the so-called Sunshine State.

But today I finally understood why thoughts of moving here flash through my mind, however briefly.  One reason is the beautiful dunes and ocean beaches:  Whenever I ride down Route A1A, I imagine how wonderful it would be to open my front door and see, across the road, wind skipping through wildflowers on dunes that reflect the sun before the great Atlantic expanse.  Of course, there are other places that offer similar vistas, as well as the other thing that tempts me to live here.

Apart from my parents and a few of my mother's friends, nobody knows me here.  The owner of one store remembered me from a previous visit and greeted me warmly, but he really doesn't know anything about me aside from the fact that I've been in his store.  I imagine that everyone else here knows even less than he knows about me.

To anyone who comes into contact with me, I am a middle-aged woman.  It is in fact what I am.  What that means is that, among other things, I am treated with the kinds of courtesy or chauvinism (depending on your point of view) men accord women in this part of the world.  A few have chatted me up; one even wanted to see me again.  

I experience the same kinds of treatment in New York, where I live.  However, as polite and helpful as many people are, at least a few know about my past. I am sure that even more have heard rumors or other kinds of stories about the life I led before they knew me--and about the life I live now. 

On the other hand, I am without a history--at least any that anybody knows--when I leave my parents' house.  I do not say that as a complaint:  Although I keep this blog and have discussed my history with a few people, most of the  time I prefer not to talk about who I was or, more precisely, wasn't.  That is an option I would have here, at least for some time. I have to wonder, though, how long "some time" would be.  It might be years, or even decades.  But, if I were to get involved romantically or sexually with somebody, I would have to divulge at least some of my history.  Or, perhaps, it might become known--or, worse, rumored--by other means.

In brief, what I realized today is that if I were to live in this place, I could have something like the sort of life that was considered "ideal"--or, at least, the goal--of someone who "changed" his or her gender. Transsexuals of the 1980's and earlier were counseled to completely erase their pasts and even to invent new ones.  As an example, a male-to-female might say that she was a Girl Scout rather than a Boy Scout.  I don't know whether I'd have to go so far if I were living here, but I also don't know just how much (if any) of my past I'd want to deny or annihilate.  Such would be the price of living in a place like this.