Sometimes We Transwomen Can Be Our Own Harshest Critics

During the podcast interview Renee, Allison and I had with Isis a few weeks ago, we talked about the fact that some days, even though people are complimenting us left, right and center because we are working it, we still feel unpretty.

Frankly, we transwomen can be our own harshest critics when it comes to our appearance and how we interact with society.

For those of us who take our transitions seriously, being our authentic selves is important to us. We not only want to look the part, we want our actions and interactions with others to flow seamlessly in the key of life.

The desire to be as flawless as possible sometimes drives us to be hypercritical about how we present ourselves as the women we are or wonder if people are reading us as trans as we go out and about in the world.

It can lead us sometimes to feel as though we are in a perpetual femme realness ballroom competition, but with much higher stakes than just getting a series of tens from a panel of judges.

Failure in the real world to get that perfect score of passability can lead to anything from minor verbal abuse to extreme violence ending in your death. It is that backdrop of knowledge that sets up in a transwoman's mind the drive and the desire to get it right and blend in 100 percent of the time.

We transwomen discover at some point during our feminine journey even ciswomen don't approach that degree of accuracy in terms of their feminine presentation.

So why should we nitpickingly criticize ourselves for not meeting the 100 percent accuracy standard either?

Yes, we are gonna have our days where we feel that we don't nail our femme presentation. Just shrug it off, fight through it, and to borrow the line from an old commercial, never let 'em see you sweat because blending in is 90 percent confidence.

Stand up taller, look people in the eye, believe that you are the finest thing walking on Planet Earth and merrily strut through your day.

And when you get home, try not to beat yourself up over not reaching an impossible standard.