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andallthewildthingsroared · 8 years ago

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Pre-t transmasculine passing tips

Yes passing is a cissexist concept I know but I also know that if I get called “miss” one more time I’ll knock out someone’s teeth. And a lot of trans kids out there probably feel the same. So here are my own personal passing tips brought to you by Benjamin, not covering the basics like packing, binding, haircut, mannerism and so on because enough has been written on that already.

Just so you know, I’m white, young, thin, able-bodied and 5.5 feet tall. Moreover, I live in a reasonably liberal area in Europe, so know that what works for me might not work for you.

I’m not on T and I won’t be on T for a while, maybe forever. I pass incredibly well in the darkness and to very old, possibly blind and deaf people. Apart from that, it’s a mess. I get looks at both the guys and the ladies bathroom. The people I went to high school with regularly mistake me for my brother. When I’m at university, where people have time to stare at me for hours and I am obliged to speak, they usually know that I’m trans. I pass sometimes, but not all the times, and I know that even though the internet might paint a different picture, most irl trans folks are the same.

Step 1: know who you are

Know what is working in your favor and what isn’t. I think of passing as a game of averages: everybody (cis or trans) has features people would sort into ‘female’ and features people would sort into ‘male’. The trick is to tip the scales to your favor. You’ll probably never get fully rid of all ‘female’ characteristics (except if you’ve been on T for years and are also very lucky), and that’s okay. It’s okay to have wide hips, a chest, a high voice, a not-so-masculine hairline. The trick is to not have all of them, and if you do, to hide them well enough and compensate them with other things good enough that people still sort you into the ‘men’ category. This is hugely personal, so take some time to think about your features. Are you tall? Are you hairy? Do you have a big nose? Thick eyebrows? A low voice? Find the little things and draw all attention to them. If you have large hands, wear manly rings to accentuate them. Contour your nose, fill in your unkept eyebrows, you get the picture.

Step 2: Clothing

I have seen several strategies that work variably well for different people. The big three I call Jehova’s Witness, 12-Year-Old and the Token Gay. Choose one, and choose wisely.

Jehova’s Witness:

This one is by far my least favorite, I’ve never been able to pull this off, probably because I’m too much of a rebel and this one just looks off on me. But overall, I’ve seen it work for most of my trans friends, so it’s probably worth a try if you haven’t got a problem with looking like a good boy/son-in-law/republican. The basic idea is to dress more conservative than what’s appropriate for people your age. Get yourself a pair of boring, dark-blue jeans (you know which ones), a button-up shirt that your father wears (you know which one, in case you don’t, here’s a picture:)

Yes, they are ugly, but they’re supposed to be ugly. Wear a backpack and old sneakers. Do not wear earrings with this outfit and do not wear hats. Trim your nails and shave the manly peach fuzz off your face. That’s one topside of this outfit: People who wear this sort of thing are usually cleanly shaven, so if you’re not so lucky in the beard regard, do not worry, you blend right in. Basically, dress like the guy from your math class you never talk to, or your cousin Michael, or your old biology teacher, I’m sure you know someone you can use as inspiration.

12-Year-Old

This is the one I find most hilarious but also have seen the least, probably because you need to be able to leave your pride behind.

I had a friend explain it to me once. He’s short, no-ho, has a high voice, and he said: “I know that I look like a kid. I look either like a 12 year old boy or a grown-up woman. I chose my poison.” Go into the little boy’s section and buy a shirt with Marvel print on it, or Spongebob, or a yellow truck. Buy velcro shoes and a cap. The pro-sides of this look are that they are usually cheap, come in great sizes and no one ever hits on you (good if you’re ace like me, otherwise, sorry boys). Negative side-effects include not being able to buy alcohol and getting asked if you’ve lost your Mommy.

the Token Gay

I’m not gonna lie, this is what I do, so expect no impartiality. Basically, it works like this: Look at what the lesbian/queer/lgtb+ girls wear. Don’t wear that. I have a rule of thumb: would your lesbian best friend wear it? If yes, then you do not wear it. No matter how tempting it might be, especially if it’s plaid, and especially if you, like me, have been mistakenly thinking you were a tomboy lesbian for a good chunk of your fashion-forming years. You do not wear it. Do not trust your fashion sense when it comes to style. Trust the lesbian best friend rule.

Instead, you look at what the gay/queer/lgtb+ boys of your town wear, and you wear that. Wear an earring, go into the men’s section and get the pink shirt, or the pink socks, or the pink hat, or the jacket with the flowery print. Wear golden eyeliner if you have to. Wear a V-neck. Don’t go as far as buying clothes from the women’s section, but go far enough. If you are worried about appropriating gay culture, let me tell you once and for all: you are a lgbt+/queer (if you chose to identify this way) man, and you belong in lgbt+ spaces, and this is your community too and you can dress accordingly.

Step 3: Black and white

Wear black over what you want to hide, and white over what you want to accentuate. In my case, I usually wear black jeans because I sadly do have hips, and a white shirt because I’m lucky enough to be pretty flat when I’m wearing a binder, so this works for me. I find that I actually pass better when I draw attention to the fact that I have a flat chest compared to when I try to hide under a XL hoodie as dysphoria tells me to do. In your case this might be different, but as I said in Step 1: know who you are. Accentuate the traditionally masculine things and hide the things you want to have hidden.

Step 4: Confidence is everything: Fake it till you make it

I know everybody tells you to be confident in your masculinity and that’s easier said than done but it’s true. Don’t let people push you around. Like, if you’re in the men’s bathroom and some guy says, uhmmmm, aren’t you wrong here? You stare at him as if he looked like the idiot he is. You say, this is the men’s room, what is wrong with you? Call other guys ‘bro’ or some equivalent of that. Insist on your right to be treated like every other dude.

Step 5: A little bit of advice

Okay, after all this talk about passing I want to tell you one last thing and it’s the most important one: you don’t have to pass to be a guy/enby/agender/genderfluid/genderqueer/a woman/trans/trans*/whatever it is you personally are. Passing is a fucked up concept made by cis people perpetuated by all of us to oppress us and tell us we need to conform to their ideas of masculinity/femininity/androgyny to be treated with respect. It tells us we are not ‘real men’ if we don’t look cis. But spoilers: we are not cis. Do not give in to the thinking that you need to look like a cis man to be a man because this is not a fight that we can ever win. You are a man, no matter what you look like, you are your own and you are a man so your body, your clothing, your voice, your mannerism, whatever they criticize – and they will criticize – is all male because they are yours. Go out into the world, do what you have to do to be who you are, insist on your name and on your pronouns and if cis people misgender you, you misgender them right back and see what they will make of that. I know it’s hard, but do not hate yourself for the things you cannot change. It’s not your fault if people misgender you, you’re just a really, really good-looking man and people sometimes mistake you for a woman but that happens to all good-looking men out there and that’s all there is to it.

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