"A Most Respectable Looking Gentleman": Passing, Possession, and Transgression in Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom

“Passing” and its effects on Brazilian transgender people's sense of belonging to society: A theoretical study

“…We can add to the list formulated by Duque (2013), other critical passing aspects such as enacting (Weinauer, 1996) and social name (Hatje, Ribeiro & Magalhães, 2019).…”

“…In a way, physical appearance was the easiest part of the process. Many slaves, for instance, had fair skin because they were the illegitimate children of black women raped by their white masters (Ginsberg, 1996; Weinauer, 1996). The most challenging part was to fully enact the white condition, to forget years of slavery with all its ingrained mindset and body colonization.…”

“…The most challenging part was to fully enact the white condition, to forget years of slavery with all its ingrained mindset and body colonization. Thus, passing involves several different levels of enactment: “imposture on the level of his own language” (Weinauer, 1996, p. 45), being always present to oneself and remembering to “behave” like a “white” or a “male” person, being responsive to others' reactions and be aware of how others see oneself. The enactment of passing is located “where the boundary between appearance and reality collapses” (Weinauer, 1996, p. 46).…”