I used to think I could never be trans, because I could never pass. 'Passing’ is the idea of seeming like something, like a particularly creamy margarine could pass for butter, or someone moderately light-skinned from a mixed-race family might pass for white. I used to think - and many used to think, that passing was the be-all and end-all of transition: that if a trans woman could be taken for a cis woman she had hundred-percented her mission, but that if she was clocked - that is, recognised as being trans, by her voice or face or bearing - it was somehow ignominious.

I used to think, I’m too tall, I started too late, I lack delicacy and my voice-pattern is unavoidably what it is, and thus I must rule out the dream of transition and live in dissatisfaction and dysphoria. An unkind former housemate once told me I didn’t even pass as non-binary, whatever that means.

I thought the idea of pouring myself into new ways of walking talking and dressing, only to reach my pinnacle and still not pass, would be heartbreaking. Some will pass, and go stealth, and delight in it. But for me I couldn’t picture it.

Eventually I resolved - and later came to find it’s a common thought among my trans ilk, that my transition is for myself and for my comfort first. I don’t owe it to the world to pass as traditionally female, or stereotypically, or even passably feminine. The some societal pressures are there on cis women as well as trans ones - to dress and walk and do makeup in particular ways, or earn snarky comments, gender policing, and all sorts of human churlishness, ultimately heading to bad mental health time. People keep the gates of every gender. I feel for those who can only be satisfied when they pass. Historically, those have been the majority of trans men and women, James Barry, Wendy Carlos, Billy Tipton and so-forth who could be invisibly trans and lived in their best gender and just gon on with things.

Today we can be a bit more relaxed if we so wish, with transness not a hidden trait on our character sheet, but a notable and proud part of our identity. It doesn’t bother me that I can’t pass, nice though it would have been. I live as myself. For some people, passing is the only comfortable and honest way. For me, not really passing is the honest way. It’s like the difference between the Fonz and Sportacus. The Fonz puts effort into his masculinity and into his cool. He pauses to check his reflection and comb his hair - but most likely his hair is already perfect. He has an aim and he achieves it. He’s amazing. Sportacus, from Lazytown, puts no effort whatever into being cool or masculine, but achieves both of those purely passively, by looking outwards and doing the things he loves. I can make no claim to coolness, but I’d rather do gender like Sportacus does sport - with an encouraging enthusiasm that comes naturally.