Passing is also highly desirable when you are around bigots and homophobes. If you pass, you aren't a target, at least not any more than any other woman is. Other than that, passing shouldn't be as important to us as acceptance. The two are not the same. Passing means that you are not seen as transgendered. Acceptance means that even if you are seen as transgendered, you still are treated as the gender of your presentation. Of the two, acceptance is my preference. It means that I am not forced to hide from what I am, and that my worth as a human being is still seen and acknowledged.
In the past transsexual women have been advised not to attempt transition if they can't achieve passability. Many therapists refused letters of passage to the medical treatments to patients they felt weren't feminine enough by whatever arbitrary standards the therapist judged proper. Thankfully this unenlightened attitude is fairly rare nowadays, but sometimes you do still run into it. Total passability is still the holy grail of far too many transpeople and it is all to often unrealistic. Those who start hormone treatments after their thirties rarely achieve full passability. In the case of MtF the bone structure is set, the hips will never widen as much as a genetic woman's, our hands and feet will not shrink and those suffering from male pattern baldness will be forever forced to resort to wigs. Someone will always notice.
By placing such a high premium on passing, transpeople set themselves up to be shot down every once in a while. It hurts. There is nothing wrong with striving to present your proper gender to the best of your ability, but one should beware of giving up those things that make us individuals in the process. As a transgendered woman, I find that I'm in a unique position. My brain and thinking patterns are female, but the socialization I had as a child, no matter how much it didn't fit, was male. My brain was influenced by the male hormones my body produced. Like it or not, this means that transgendered women such as myself will never totally fit societies idea of female either. Although the gender role of female is a more fitting one, and there is much more room for the things that come naturally to us, it still is a closet, similar to the one we emerged from. It's less confining to a transwoman than the male role, but it's still confining. As a transsexual I had to conform to a role most of my life that was a very bad fit. The thought that I would have to conform the rest of my life to a role that fits better, but a role that has limitations nonetheless. That chaffs a bit. Maybe by gaining acceptance we will open the roles for people of all genders. Trading one closet for another is not what I hope for. I'm not talking about genderfu**ing , I'm talking about accepting the fact that occasionally you will be read and rather than getting upset or hurt, being proud enough to say, "Yea, I'm a transsexual, so what?" Of not feeling that you must give up things you are good at and enjoy simply because some people won't think them very feminine. Of spending your energy on being a good person rather than a good woman or man.
There are two different schools of thought about life after transition among transpeople. Some wish only to fade into the woodwork and totally deny their past. The drawback to this, as many have found out first hand, is that one is always liable to being found out and exposed as transsexual. The reality is often that others know, but in a spirit of acceptance don't bring the subject up and the transperson still needlessly lives with the fear of discovery, unaware that others already know. Others prefer to be open about their nature and expect and usually get acceptance. In time they no longer feel the need to tell anyone unless asked, but they still do not need to invent a new past, or deny their transsexuality. The difference boils down to being ashamed or proud of who we are. Shame is what makes the lives of transgendered people miserable and feeling like freaks of nature that should be hidden away. It's caused the suicides of far too many of us in the past. We can't help the fact that we were born transgendered. There should be nothing shameful in that fact, but if we act as if it is shameful, others will react that way. As transpeople we have a unique perspective to add to the human experience that we cannot share if we are invisible. Only through a proud and open existence can we hope to achieve true acceptance.