You shall not pass!

[bcholmes]

I have a question for T-folk and/or T-connected people. Do you ever use the term, "pass," in a way that includes in its meaning that the person around whom you're passing knows that you're trans? I guess I'm asking if "passing" implicitly means, "they didn't clock me as trans."

Comments

[sparkymonster]

If someone is using pass or passing in related to trans stuff I assume an implicit "wasn't clocked"

[maellenkleth]

Hi,

I really hope that you don't mind my leaping back into the discussion again, from over on this side (where, for whatever reason, I feel marginally less-uncomfortable with speaking openly).

Anyway, the thing that's the thing for me, about the word 'pass', is that it's always sruck me as jarring and grating. When I was in my late teens, I hung out on the fringes of a crowd of drag artists, and words such as 'pass' and 'passable' had some immediate relevance. As time went on, though, I came to understand what my shrink has often repeated to me, that all of the transitional process, whatever it entailed, would lead to a state of simply 'being'. There's no 'pass' in there; no 'fail' either for that matter.

At least that's how it played out for me in the Late Triassic era; I do appreciate that the very language, terms of the debates, and all of the modern transfeminist scholarship, have really gone in some profoundly-unexpected directions (at least as seen from a viewpoint in the mid- to late-Seventies).

Thank you, very much, for the inspiration to sit back and ponder some of these issues again. ^_^