This document provides an agenda and terms for a discussion on identity and passing. It will discuss why people racially or gender pass, the social implications, and whether identity is real or constructed. It also poses questions about passing and how it relates to disrupting or stabilizing identity categories and the status quo. Key terms are defined, such as transsexual, transphobia, persona, plot, and passing in both gender and racial contexts.

1. EWRT 1B

2. Agenda
 Presentation: Terms
 Discussion: Why do
people reverse
pass? What are the
social implications of
reverse passing?
What is identity? Is it
real or constructed?
 Essay #4: Questions

3. Terms
 Transsexuals: People who indicate that they are of one gender
trapped in the body of the other gender. A person who has
altered or intends to alter her/hir/his anatomy, either through
surgery, hormones, or other means, to better match her/hir/his
chosen gender identity. This group of people is often divided into
pre-op (operative), post-op, or non-op transsexuals. Due to cost,
not all transsexuals can have genital surgery. Others do not feel
that surgery is necessary, but still remain a transsexual identity.
 a. Non-operative: People who do not intend to change their primary sex
characteristics, either because of a lack of a desire or the inability to do
so. They may or may not alter their secondary sex characteristics
through the use of hormones.
 b. Pre-operative: People who have started the procedure to reassign
their primary sex characteristics, but have not yet had the surgery. This
covers both those people who have just begun the procedure and those
who are very close to the actual surgery.
 c. Post-operative: People who have had the actual genital surgery

4. Transphobia:
 The fear or hatred of transgender and
transsexual people. Like biphobia, this term
was created to call attention to the ways
prejudice against trans people differs from
prejudice against other queer people. There is
often transphobia in lesbian, gay and bisexual
communities, as well as heterosexual or
straight communities.

5.  Persona: a character in drama or fiction or the part
any one sustains in the world or in a book. Persona
also denotes the “I” who speaks in a poem or novel.
 Plot: a plan or scheme to accomplish a purpose. In
literature, this is the arrangement of events to
achieve an intended effect consisting of a series of
carefully devised and interrelated actions that
progresses through a struggle of opposing forces,
called conflict, to a climax and a denouement (final
resolution). This is different from story or story line,
which is the order of events as they occur.

6.  Point of view: a specified position or method of consideration
and appraisal. It may also be an attitude, judgment, or opinion.
In literature, physical point of view has to do with the position
in time and space from which a writer approaches, views, and
describes his or her material. Mental point of view involves an
author’s feeling and attitude toward his or her subject.
Personal point of view concerns the relation through which a
writer narrates or discusses a subject, whether first, second, or
third person.
 Prose : the ordinary form of spoken and written language
whose unit is the sentence, rather than the line as it is in
poetry. The term applies to all expressions in language that do
not have a regular rhythmic pattern.

7.  Scenario: an outline of the plot of a dramatic
work, which provides particulars about
characters, settings, and situation. The term is
most often used for the detailed script of a film
or a treatment setting forth the action in the
sequence it is to follow with detailed
descriptions of scenes and characters, and
actual works. Sometimes the plot of a film or
television show is loosely called a scenario.
 Simile: a figure of speech in which two things,
essentially different but thought to be alike in
one or more respects, are compared using
“like,” “as,” “as if,” or “such” for the purpose of
explanation, allusion, or ornament.

8.  Style: a manner of putting thoughts into words or the
characteristic mode of construction and expression in writing
and speaking. The term is also used for the characteristics of a
literary selection that concern the form of expression rather
than the thought conveyed. Style is usually defined by the
writer’s choice of words, figures of speech, devices, and the
shaping of the sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes, styles
are classified according to time period or individual writers.
 Theme : the central and dominating idea in a literary work. A
theme may also be a short essay such as a composition. In
addition, the term means a message or moral implicit in any
work of art.

9. Thinking
about
Passing
What is it exactly?
 What is
Identity?
 When is
Identity “real”
and when is it
constructed”?

10. Are our identities on the inside
or the outside?
 Are transgender people passing?
 If so, what is the fixed identity
category?
 What is the passing category?

11. Can a bio male or female
person have the identity of
“trans” without being called
a passer?

12. How, then, can we parallel this trans
identity and trans passing scenario to
racial identity and racial passing?
Is a person who looks white but is of African
American lineage, also “trans”? When can this
person be “white” without being called a passer?
OR should he or she identify as trans (racial)?

13. Is Race “Real” or Constructed?
• If race is constructed, is Jack
passing?
• Is Clare? Irene?
• Can Sui Sin Far refuse to pass if
race is constructed?

14. Disruption or Stabilization?
 Does this ability to identify as trans
(sexual, gender, racial, ethnic) and pass
or not pass disrupt identity categories or
does it destroy them? How?
 Does “Passing” disrupt or stabilize the
status quo? Can it do both? How?