12:36am April 24, 2014

Sometimes people pass in one area because we don’t pass in five or six other areas.

And when you’re dealing with five or six kinds of marginalization, on top of each other? And you can choose to pass, at least a little, even if not completely, even if it’s hard? Then sometimes, you make that choice.

And making that choice isn’t the same as someone who isn’t marginalized in all those other areas, making that choice.

And power situations that involve this are complicated. You can’t do simple arithmetic and figure out who’s more privileged.

And it’s messed up to fault someone who is choosing to pass in one area because they can't pass in five other areas. A poor, elderly black lesbian with an intellectual disability and a terminal illness, living in an institution, passing as straight, doesn’t always mean the same thing as a white nondisabled healthy young gay man passing as straight.

And just… kneelerk assumptions about situations like this don’t help anyone. (They don’t even always help in situations where the person appears to be otherwise pretty privileged. But they really don’t help when a person is passing because several other kinds of marginalization are all they can survive right then.)

I do understand what it’s like to be unable to pass, and watch what happens when people do have the choice to pass. Believe me I understand that. But not everyone making that choice is making it for the same reasons, and you can’t lump all ‘passing’ people together. (Also not everyone who passes does it because they actually appear 'normal’ in whatever area, not everyone does it voluntarily, and not everyone does it consistently.)

Notes: