I Choose to Fail

As a child, life for me was a never-ending test.

I repeated and memorized at school to pass the year and be a good student.

I kept track of my parents’ whims at home to survive and be a good kid.

Those tests were significant. They dictated who I was (dumb, intelligent? good, bad?) and what happened to me (go to second grade? get punished or not?). They were my present and my future.

Growing up, I got used to the feeling of being evaluated all the time. At work, with friends, sharing intimacy. Everything was under scrutiny, and I either passed or failed. I always had to be in my prime, lest I be a (gosh!) failure. And being in my prime meant, of course, adhering to the norms, expectations and demands of the people around me.

Over the years, however, I learned that life is much more than that. I managed to break free of (most of) those evaluations. But now, as a visibly transgender woman, I stumble upon a new one. And it’s been essentialised to the max: Do I pass? Yes or no.

-”What do you bring to the table?”
-”Me.”
-”So you bring nothing.”

There is a lot of talk about the concept of passing, both in and outside the trans community. Trans people, allies and transphobes alike. So many of the trans people I’ve met worry so much about being unnoticeable. Some (like me) used to live in hiding, but now that they have conquered the challenge of coming out, they look for other ways to stay concealed, clinging to that sense of safety and yearning normalcy.

It makes sense. Being out in the open is scary. You subject yourself to that scrutiny again, to possible hostility and violence. It brings back memories of judgement and oppression. You risk losing friends, family, jobs, opportunities. Better to keep a low profile. But for many, keeping a low profile proves to be nigh impossible, physically and emotionally.

We now share the misogyny that cisgender women have endured for centuries. The arbitrary and unreasonable standards of aesthetics and beauty, on top of all the homophobia and transphobia proper of our demographic.

So, does that mean that, as a trans person, I fail if I don’t pass? And, fail in what way? Fail as a person? Fail to be trans? Fail (as some transphobes tend to think) to fool others, fail to become a woman? Fail to be the kind of woman others expect me to be?

To be clear, this doesn’t mean we don’t have the right to change. We all do. To adapt our bodies. To realize outside what we feel inside. That is authorship of our own selves, and I treasure it. However, it is a treasure as long as it is for us, not for the evaluation imposed by others.

So, do I pass the test or not? Do I get the approval of the evaluators? What happens if I don’t? Who is, furthermore, evaluating me?

“You will never pass. You have such a manly skull.”

This test, of course, is not self-administered. And that is not to say self-testing doesn’t exist. It does, and it can be as harsh, but this test is performed by third parties, who scrutinize, evaluate, and, in the end, approve or disapprove. In other people’s eyes, ears, and noses, we pass or don’t.

I find this test to be hostile. Nobody should accept to be under constant scrutiny.

“You ask too much for someone so ugly”.

I will never pass. I don’t want to. I refuse even to acknowledge the test and submit myself to be evaluated by the eyes, ears, and noses of others. I am tall, broad, and bulky, and that doesn’t make me any more or less trans, less of a woman, less of a human being.

I also have a deep voice, which I love.

As Rejserin says on Trans People are not Born in the Wrong Bodies, my body is not wrong, despite what some like to think. My body is my own, and it is good. If I ever choose to change it, it’s because of me, not because it’s at fault and needs to be fixed. My body is an enormous part of who I am:

Wrong bodies suggest a cosmic mistake, that somehow biology took a left turn when it meant a right. It roots the trans experience as a biological one, rather than a holistic understanding of self.

There is nothing woo in admitting to oneself that your gender identity is different from the sex assigned at birth, but that does not mean the body you were born into was a mistake.

No surgery or medicine can ever make you whole, it is the work you put in yourself and how society treats you…

Sonya Renee Taylor adds to the idea, she emphazises that dislike for our bodies is something we learn in her book The Body is not an Apology:

We did not start life in a negative partnership with our bodies. I have never seen a toddler lament the size of their thighs, the squishiness of their belly. Children do not arrive here ashamed of their race, gender, age, or differing abilities. Babies love their bodies!

You were an infant once, which means there was a time when you thought your body was freaking awesome too.

… just knowing that there was a point in your history when you once loved your body can be a reminder that body shame is a fantastically crappy inheritance.

So, life should not be a test. Life is too messy, complicated, random and uncertain. And I am not a doll. I am not a toy. I am not a stereotype or tool to fulfill someone’s fetish. I am not a token. I am a combination of my past and present, complicated as they have been. And I love all of it.

My goal is not to go unnoticed. My goal is to live in peace. I want to be visible. I want to be noticed. I don’t want to go through life every day stressing about whether I pass or not. Of course, some will like me, and some won’t, and that’s ok. I don’t mind as long as they let me be in peace, just like I let them. As long as they don’t answer with violence to what they don’t understand, to what makes them scared in a world they don’t fully control.

Even if I was indistinguishable from a cisgender woman, if passing means subjecting myself to arbitrary standards of physical beauty, relinquishing ownership of my body, and satisfying the senses of a group of oppressors, then I choose to fail.

“No, trans women should be feminine and smooth.”

One last note. I do say this from a position of privilege. Destiny has allowed me to be in an environment where my life doesn’t depend on passing the test. Destiny as well could have kept me stuck at the place where survival depended on passing. Where being visible and noticeable put me, and those around me, at true risk of being harmed. Where my potential aggressors would face no real consequences. I fear even to think what I would do under those circumstances. I don’t know If I would even be able to take the test.