Passing and Being Stealth
Passing and the ability to be stealth are normally things that happen later in a transition.
Passing doesn’t mean that you have to pass some sort of test, rather, it means that when you’re in public people gender you correctly. That would mean that you ‘pass’ as the gender you identify as, such as a trans man being seen as male and called he/him by strangers, without them knowing him personally.
It normally happens later in a transition because by that point a trans person is more likely to be on hormones or have had surgery, so their appearance is more likely to look like the gender they identify as, or closer to what society expects people of a certain to gender to look like.
Being stealth is when you don’t tell people that you’re trans, and they just assume you were born as the gender you identify as.
It’s not ‘cheating’ or lying to not tell someone that you’re trans, as it can be seen as personal and private information, and you don’t owe anybody access to it.
Sometimes it’s necessary to not say that you’re trans, often out of concerns for your safety or wellbeing.
You can’t choose to be trans, and you can’t choose whether or not you pass, as that’s down to how other people see you and what they think your gender identity is based on appearance.
But you can choose to be stealth, even if you’re not in any danger or harm. It can just make life a lot easier not having to deal with the invasive questions and weird looks and people talking to you and treating you in a way that they wouldn’t treat anyone else. Or treating you differently to how they would if they didn’t know you were trans.
And I don’t blame cis people for being curious, but sometimes that curiosity can go too far, making us feel uncomfortable by asking us how we ‘go the toilet’ or ‘have sex,’ when really, we just want to live our lives. And you wouldn’t ask anybody else these questions, hopefully, so why do you ask us?
Not all cis people go too far, but the ones that go even further and put our safety at risk by acting physically inappropriate? Those are the people you can avoid by being stealth.
There are both positives and negatives to being stealth, including avoiding being asked invasive questions, but also not feeling as connected to other trans people and the community by not being as open about it, as well as not being able to talk about it with people who don’t know that you’re trans at all.
Weighing up the differences is unique for everyone, and there isn’t really a right or wrong answer as to if you should or shouldn’t be stealth. It is an individual process, and not everyone is lucky enough to pass well enough to be stealth in the first place.
But that depends on your definition of ‘lucky.’ For some people, being visibly trans is a positive thing because they don’t want to conform to society’s standards of what’s ‘normal’ or not ‘normal.’ It can be very liberating to decide that you look how you look, you are who you are, and society just has to accept that.
Whatever you decide to do, you shouldn’t feel bad about it. This is your life, and it’s not overly self-centered to say that you should come first sometimes.
