This post discusses transphobia, passing and gender identity.

When people think about gender affirmation, they often think of the big things. Starting hormones, finding and changing your name, getting surgery. Milestones that mark a significant step in your transition.

But today, I learned that gender affirmation can come in the most unexpected of places.

During trauma therapy, my therapist and I were talking about the rise of transphobia. I mentioned that people are often particularly afraid of trans women because they don’t understand them – “they think they are just men in dresses, but they aren’t,” I said – and they have likely never knowingly met a trans person before.

My therapist agreed but admitted that she understood why some people might be nervous if a trans woman had prominent masculine features and was on a female-only ward. Whilst I understood what she was trying to say, I explained that passing is a privilege that not everyone has.

My therapist looked slightly confused and asked what I meant by “passing”, and I explained. Passing is the term often used when trans people are perceived by others as their affirmed gender. For example, when a trans man is read as a biological man, or a trans woman is read as a biological female.

That is when I realised something…

My therapist had absolutely no idea I was a trans man.

In fact, she thought I was transitioning in the opposite direction when I mentioned I was transitioning.

Apparently, she had assumed I was a biological male transitioning to female because, in her words, I “look really manly.”

As a trans man, hearing that was unexpectedly affirming. Not because I believe every trans person needs to pass, and definitely not because passing determines anyone’s worth. But because it meant she genuinely saw me as male.

She wasn’t trying to be affirming. She wasn’t trying to be polite when she referred to me with he/him pronouns, or told me I was “one of the good guys”. She wasn’t saying what she thought I wanted to hear.

She had simply assumed I was a biological man.

For a community that is so scrutinised, debated and analysed, there was something so strangely comforting about that. There was no hesitation. No confusion. No second guessing.

Just an assumption that I was exactly who I am.

It really reiterated to me that gender affirmation doesn’t always have to be grand gestures or life-changing milestones. Sometimes it is simply found in small, accidental moments that leave you grinning for the rest of the day.

And sometimes, it comes from your trauma therapist accidentally thinking you are transitioning in the wrong direction.