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.”

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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.

“I was confused by this for a long time. I sort of assumed that it was necessary to 'pass' before I could aspire to be considered ‘beautiful,’ " explains Alice, a 37-year-old trans woman from Chicago, who transitioned four years ago. “Now, of course, both of these things are subjective estimations and they're both, to varying extents, ascribed to us by others rather than experienced ourselves. But I have learned to cultivate a sense of myself as beautiful that is somewhat independent of social expectations, that simply has to do with how well I meet my own expectations for my appearance and presentation.”

Finding that sense of self within an endless litany of societal expectations can be fleeting for trans women, as it is for any woman. If we weren’t "too trans," we’d be too heavy, or too broad-shouldered, or not white enough. The central feature of patriarchy is to remove agency from women to develop a sense of worth that’s removed from how much her appearance appeals to the sexual desires of men, and that applies to trans women even if we never transition at all.

'I sort of assumed that it was necessary to 'pass' before I could aspire to be considered 'beautiful,' " explains Alice, a 37-year-old trans woman.

Trans women and cis women are basically confined to the same appearance-related criteria. But we are all judged on cis-centric beauty standards, and it’s a formula that leads to an unhealthy conflation of looks and value. “Similar to cis women, trans women are constantly told how we are supposed to look. Just the right kind of feminine, wear the right kind of clothing, [and so on]," Serena Sonoma, a freelance writer and a black trans woman from North Carolina, tells me. "It's conditioning us to live in a box that not all of us can fit into because we literally can't help it and we are not cis.”

Serena continues, “Sometimes I catch myself conflating my looks with my value, or what I bring to the table, which is not the case. But when everyone around you constantly nitpicks at what you're supposed to look like, it's hard to not center your looks instead of your voice. Why not both?”

Before I transitioned, I had a very palpable sense of the “too”: I was too tall, too fat, too bald to ever be a “real” woman, so what would be the point of even trying to transition? It’s a common sentiment among trans women and a direct result of the impossibly narrow box within which society confines women's appearances. For many trans women, male puberty puts cisnormative beauty permanently out of reach; for others, the idea that the world could see them the same way that they see themselves is the stuff of fantasy.

The Dangers of Exclusionary Ideals

“Feminine beauty standards are intimidating in a way that has limited my expression of myself in public since childhood," says Riley E., a 27-year-old nonbinary person from North Carolina who was assigned male at birth. "I've never felt at all comfortable with masculinity, but because of my height and shape and voice, I have also never felt able to express myself as femme.”

These expectations are at least partially at fault for keeping trans women from coming out or transitioning, thereby allowing gender dysphoria to run rampant in an effort simply to fit in. It’s an especially dangerous circumstance for a population that struggles with suicidality.

Riley recalls a bad experience when, as a 19-year-old, she attended a party wearing makeup and a skirt — an incident that is typical of the unique way society punishes trans femme people: “The reception from the other people, their assumption that it was specifically some kind of humiliation fetish, reinforced so heavily in me the idea so deeply that I could never be femme passing that I fled from addressing my own gender identity for eight years.”

These expectations are partially at fault for stopping trans women from coming out, allowing gender dysphoria to run rampant in an effort to fit in.

From Ace Ventura to The Silence of the Lambs, popular culture has combined with pseudoscience sexology — where "autogynephilia" is still a thing — to brand trans women as creepy perverts with sexual fetishes. But isn’t that assumption in itself a projection of misogyny? If women and men are truly equal, it wouldn’t be humiliating or creepy for trans women to embrace femininity and a female gender role. In fact, it wouldn’t be a big deal at all.

Cis assumptions are at the heart of transmisogyny, says Riley: “The frequently cited caricature of trans women as stereotypical 'men in femme clothing' plays into the normalization of hatred toward trans people in real and damaging ways.” Even radical feminists use cisnormative beauty standards to sort out which trans women deserve their support, like citing the “male appearance” of trans rape victims to justify excluding us from rape support and shelters.

In the end, trans women are out here dealing with the same ridiculous expectations as cis women, and it’s bullshit for both groups. Don’t we all deserve to live our lives and present ourselves free from scrutiny? It was Serena who perhaps best summed up the desire for all trans women and femmes when it comes to our appearance: “I wish trans and nonbinary people, and everyone [else] can live a life above reproach. Where cisnormative standards do not necessarily have to be the normative standards and we can all have the freedom and agency to exist in our own spaces. And just plain ol' be left alone.”

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