As I took a bite of my breakfast, I heard the guy at the next table at the diner say, “Just give the check to him.” It felt like lightning coursing through my veins. As a trans woman, it'd been months since I’d been misgendered in person, and frankly, I had forgotten the imposter syndrome and feeling of failure that comes along with being misgendered. However, it's actually what happened next that best exemplifies the impossibly gendered tightrope that trans women are expected to traverse.

The owner of the diner, a cis gay man, actually pulled up a seat at my table and asked if I had overheard the exchange. I nodded yes. He replied, “You know, you don’t try very hard. If I were you, I would be dressing to the nines every day. Nails done, hair done, makeup flawless. Right now, you’re not fooling anyone.”

Mortified, I awkwardly took stock of my appearance that morning: black leggings, tank top, a black-and-white button up, no makeup, hair in a ponytail. The feminist inside me wanted to fire him into the sun, but my imposter syndrome drowned everything out. Of course, these two men must be right, I couldn’t ever be a real woman, who was I kidding? I came for the breakfast potatoes and left in an existential crisis.

If trans women present in a very feminine manner, we’re accused of being parodies; if we come off as masculine, we’re chided for not trying hard enough.

The diner incident starkly contrasts with my experience as a well-known trans woman on Twitter, where a steady stream of wannabe trolls and radical so-called "feminists" chide me as a parody of womanhood while critiquing every inch of my online appearance. If trans women present ourselves in a very feminine manner, we’re accused of being parodies; if we come off as more masculine, we’re chided for not trying hard enough.

Female beauty standards are a double-edged sword for trans women. It is a never-ending balancing act, getting the "right" combination of feminine and masculine in our appearance to align with society's impossibly narrow criteria in a way that offers us safety in passing as our true genders — and that line is very thin. Sometimes I know I’m a real woman because everyone has an unsolicited opinion about my appearance.

What Happens When Compound Pressures Mount

“Passing” is the term the trans community uses to describe those instances when others assume we are the gender we’re presenting as rather than our assigned sex at birth, and it can be especially critical for the safety of trans women. In our society, beauty, especially for women, is based entirely on cisnormative beauty standards, and the concepts of “passing” and “beauty” are often conflated and can even be internalized by trans women.