Confidence is the key to passing – or at least to silencing the hecklers

guardian.co.uk – Juliet Jacques

Immersed in genderqueer circles before I began the ‘real life experience’, I contemplated the idea of ‘passing’ with the utmost suspicion. The books I read suggested that to pass was to conform to an antiquated binary that suffocated more diverse (and fun) forms of gender expression. Exploring territory between ‘male’ and ‘female’ in safe spaces, thinking less about how I’d developed strategies to ‘pass’ in my assigned gender in everyday life, I was convinced that transsexual women striving to pass were letting down those fighting for greater trans visibility.