Passing as a transgender woman: What does it mean? Why is it controversial? Can *I* ever pass?

0:00 intro
0:25 story time: what do you think?
1:41 my perspective
3:30 today's topic: passing
3:48 'passing' definition & why it's important to trans folk
5:02 what's the controversy?
5:55 toxicity
7:28 a horde mentality
8:11 the past week's comments
11:21 what's my perspective?
13:13 message to the toxic commentors
13:56 the face of transitioning
15:18 what I do care about
15:47 conclusion and outro

Hi everyone,

For those of you who are new to this channel, my name's Andy and I'm making these videos to help people understand my experience - and transgender people - a little bit better.

I originally started this channel as a way for me to just put some things into the world as I saw them: not necessarily for anyone else but for maybe friends and family and anyone else to understand me better.

I've been astonished by the way my channel has grown since it started, and with that I've got a few comments about my appearance.

So I feel compelled to discuss this a little bit, alonside the wider notion of 'passing' within the transgender community. Many feel that passing is essential - this is not only for safety purposes, but because it helps to ensure that we are perceived and interacted with as our authentic gender: that is as a woman for trans women, or as a man for trans men. There are a few controversies and disagreements over this idea, and I wanted to explain a couple of them.

As for me? I've had to make peace with who I am and maybe I'll never 'pass' consistently. Does it matter? It would be great, but I need to get used the idea I might not.

In the video, I refer to this article which I thought was a very interesting take on the matter: https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/pass...

This one also discusses the idea, but is rather old and I'm not sure about the phrasing of 'blending' - it never seemed to have taken off: https://slate.com/human-interest/2018...

If you have some time, this video by Philosophy Tube is one of my favourite pieces of media and always, always makes me cry. It represents the point when I realised that I needed to transition and gave me a goal in how I want to do so. If you've not seen it, go and do so now:    • Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story | ...  

Thank you everyone for your comments, I really enjoy and appreciate you taking the time to watch my content, it means so much.