PASSING

I mentioned to a cis friend how important trans people must feel it is to pass right now, more than ever.

Passing.

My friend had no idea what I meant. They asked what passing was, what I meant by that. In that moment, I remembered how different things were for them. 

I forget that we do live in a different world when you’re in the LGBT+ family. 

Passing has ALWAYS been on my mind. 

It’s a term I’ve heard and used often in the community. It means no one knows you’re not cis, not hetero. It means you can hide in plain sight. 

You can hide when you need to– for safety. You learn this as a young gay person and you learn it quickly. No cis person I know had to learn how to hide being straight, hide their gender identity. No, you just can’t get it. 

YOU LEARN IT WHEN 

You learn it when you’re 22 at the gay bar you love and your roommate gets a slur thrown at them outside with threats of violence… so you get in a fight outside the club and the cops are called on you, not them. Wishing you could of just passed. 

You learn it when you’re 19, and you see 3 boys following a feminine boy your age harassing him, calling him a “fairy” and physically pushing him down the street. So you grab your cis male friend and run out to chase those boys off– before the two of you walk that scared boy home to his dorm. Wishing you could of just passed.

You learn it at 18, the first time you’re called a dyke or gay or “fucking gay” but not in the fun way you’re fellow gay friends say it, but in the bad way. It’s the way it’s said when a punch might come after. It’s the way it’s said that ignites that fight or flight, the kind that makes you want to deny it even when you’ve been out for actual years. Wishing you just passed. 

YOU LEARN IT

You don’t even want to but you do. You learn that passing is safe. Safer than seeming gay. You don’t want to be seen as gay in the wrong place.

Passing

You see what people hate about trans people is that they don’t always pass, because the ones that do…. Well. If you don’t know, you can’t be mad. You can’t be mean or evil. Trans people that pass literally never hit the radar of cis people. 

Trans people have always existed but in the past they hid from you.

And that’s what they all want, isn’t it? They don’t want anyone outside of their box, and so if you got it, and you pass, you get to exist in relative peace. 

People want trans people to perform gender the way they want, the way it’s always been. As long as they pass, they can be. 

BISEXUAL EXPERIENCE 

As a bisexual woman, a femme one, I’ve always passed as straight well enough in a room of cis people. 

In my sorority days, I found what happened when you didn’t dress femme enough. When I came from rugby games right to frat parties, the men made it clear I wasn’t welcome. I appeared gay. And gay wasn’t okay at their party. I quite literally had doors closed in my face, doors that were open the week before when I performed straight better. When I had the dress on, I was welcome. When I chopped my hair off, I was not. 

Going further into my life, I passed when I wasn’t with my partners. However it was different when I was with some of my partners, the masculine, strong women I dated in my past. With a gay woman, hand in hand, I couldn’t pass anymore. 

The world is scarier when you don’t pass, especially in the United States. 

The comments, and often the looks we got traveling made me feel more and more blessed I was born in New York. Blessed I was born where I could just be myself, and have my partners just be. Not having to worry about passing like when we traveled. Not having to worry that we might get beat up for being queer. 

STILL HERE, STILL QUEER

Queer is the umbrella term I found when I was in college that felt right. Queer was a word thrown at our community that we’ve taken back in a way, reclaimed as our own like the term “gay” as well. I’m queer to the core, even if I do pass. 

I pass as straight right now. I absolutely do. I know that.

I have a tall cis man I love and am going to be with forever. I’m femme and he’s masculine. We perform gender the way people want us to for the most part. Relatively we’re safe in most spaces, including ones that don’t feel that same way for my trans sisters, and non passing community members.

Sometimes I honestly feel this guilt that it’s easier for me than my friends. It feels unfair that I can pass, and be who I am still. 

I am absolutely still queer and I will always be queer, and OUT as queer because not everyone does pass in my community. And I’m not going to hide because I can. 

In the rugby community, we say “With you,” a phrase that sends chills to my core because they’ve been there for me in the worst of times. When the rugby community says “with you” they’re with you for real, and forever. 

To my LBGT+ family, the ones of us who pass, and especially the ones who don’t, this rugby player is with you. 

I don’t get political too often, rarely ever online, but I need you to know I’m with you.

You belong and being who you are isn’t wrong.

I’m with you, and there are SO many people who are.