Human Rights at Home and Abroad: Past, Present, and Future

the community. One participant of Roen‘s study described her opinion on the importance of passing in the
community context.
When you‘re sitting in a room full of people in dresses who are trying to look stunning-trying to
look nice- and there‘s this bony person sitting there with a balding head… you kind of think ‗My
God, what are you doing?‘ [laughter] ‗Wanna take you out and shoot you!‘ [laughter] because
you know amongst yourselves that you are trying to maintain a standard and she‘s not pulling it
(Roen 2002).
In this instance, a refusal or inability to pass is seen as a detriment to the community. However, I assert
that imposing the passing standard is in itself far more detrimental to the formation of community.
According to some transgenderists, passing as the ‗other sex‘ is the ultimate sell-out. Here,
passing is portrayed as complicit with normative gendering and therefore as contrary to the
gender-transgressive ethic of transgender politics (Roen 2002).
Those who adhere to this viewpoint see passing as an extension of cissexual privilege which we must
renounce in order to mobilize as a community. ―In this case, passing becomes the outward manifestation
of shame and capitulation. Passing becomes silence. Passing becomes invisibility. Passing becomes lies.
Passing becomes self-denial‖ (Bornstein 1994). By accepting gender as a fluid concept rather than a rigid
categorization which dictates our lives, the trans community may be able to overcome its strong
orientation towards passing and become more inclusive to those who do not wish to obtain this cissexual
privilege.
Conclusion
By rejecting cissexual privilege and eliminating their strong proclivity towards passing, the trans
community is able to free themselves to affiliate with larger social movements.
The concept of transgenderism recognizes that discrimination against women, gay persons,
and transsexual individuals, as well as other groups that are typically perceived as independent
from one another, springs from the same source, the privileging of the masculine and
subordination of the feminine (Flynn 2001).
140