Passing - Is it a Privilege?

[firie]

Originally Posted by Heart

Calling passing a privilege makes it sound like an empowered thing, something that the passer has complete control over -- but that is not the case. The very nature of passing includes an aspect of stealth, subterfuge, (or stealing as I said before), and that puts the passer at risk.

Okay, I think I've now said what I'm trying to say nine ways to Sunday, so if I haven't made it clear by now I should just shut up.

Heart

No! Don't shut up! I have really been interested in your thoughts here. I hate that you feel you are banging your head on the proverbial wall, as I am with you, and have to say thanks for expressing so well a dilemma that I have had a hard time of really honing in on within myself and my experience as a queer and someone who is read as straight--grappling with the fact that I know I certainly feel safer in my skin than so many others might. So what do we call that? Because I totally get you when you say that someone who passes can't own that privilege and that it can be taken from that person at any point. I hear you there.

[Heart]

Originally Posted by firie

No! Don't shut up! I have really been interested in your thoughts here. I hate that you feel you are banging your head on the proverbial wall, as I am with you, and have to say thanks for expressing so well a dilemma that I have had a hard time of really honing in on within myself and my experience as a queer and someone who is read as straight--grappling with the fact that I know I certainly feel safer in my skin than so many others might. So what do we call that? Because I totally get you when you say that someone who passes can't own that privilege and that it can be taken from that person at any point. I hear you there.

Firie -- I might call passing a strategy or, at times, an advantage rather than a privilege. Or I might just call it... passing. Passing isn't something you are necessarily doing in an active sense. It's something that is done towards you based upon dominant assumptions and biases. You are passed. This brings things back around to Dylan's assertion of responsibility. Do you proclaim every time you are passed, that you are in fact queer, NOT straight?
This is the tension and dilemma of passing/being passed. This is what can cause feelings of collusion, guilt, and exhaustion.

I am most likely mistaken for straight frequently. I don't proclaim my queerness all day every day. Passing in this manner is not something I feel responsible for. If homophobia/heterosexism is enacted in front of me, I confront it - often by revealing that I am queer, (but not always). Do I have an advantage over someone who cannot disappear into being straight-looking? Yes, I do. I have the advantage of passing. But I am aware that this advantage can turn on a dime and be the very thing that harms me. Passing itself has been the cause of queer-bashing.

Heart