Passing (sociology)
[6] Successful passing may contribute to economic security, safety, and stigma avoidance, but it may take an emotional toll as a result of denial of one's previous identity and may lead to depression or self-loathing.
[8][9][10][11] Passing, as a sociological concept, was first coined by Erving Goffman as a term for one response to possessing some kind of stigma that is often less visible.
[7] According to Goffman, "This discrepancy, when known about or apparent, spoils his social identity; it has the effect of cutting him off from society and from himself so that he stands a discredited person facing an unaccepting world".
One scholar explains, "Individuals may pass in some situations but not others, effectively creating different arenas of life (depending on whether the stigma is known or not).
[13][18] According to Goffman, "It can be assumed that the possession of a discreditable secret failing takes on a deeper meaning when the persons to whom the individual has not yet revealed himself are not strangers to him but friends.
"[7] Relating to this experience of passing, actors may have an ambivalent attachment to their stigma that can cause them to fluctuate between acceptance and rejection of their stigmatized identity.
Passing may also include the adoption of certain prestige symbols and personal history or biography of social information that aids to conceal and draw attention away from their actual stigmatized status.
"[7] Reverse passing, related to terms like "blackfishing", has emerged as a topic of discourse as critics raise concerns over cultural appropriation and accuse nonstigmatized individuals, such as prominent celebrities Kim Kardashian and Ariana Grande, of concealing creditable information about themselves for some social benefit.
[21] With that interpretation, avoiding stigma by passing necessitates intimate understanding and awareness of social constructions of meaning and expected behaviors that signal membership.
Shippee explains that "far from merely appraising situations to determine when concealment is required, passing encompasses active interpretations of several aspects of social life.
[12] Alexander recognizes that and then asserts that "passing is a product (an assessed state), a process (an active engagement), performative (ritualized repetition of communicative acts), and a reflection of one's positionality (politicized location), knowing that its existential accomplishment always resides in liminality.
"[21] Historically and genealogically, the term passing has referred to mixed-race, or biracial Americans identifying as or being perceived as belonging to a different racial group.
[2] In the entry "Passing" for the GLBTQ Encyclopedia Project, Tina Gianoulis states that "for light-skinned African Americans during the times of slavery and the intense periods of racial resegregation that followed, passing for white was a survival tool that allowed them to gain education and employment that would have been denied them had they been recognized as "colored" people."
Since the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, racial pride has decreased the weight that is given to passing as an important issue for black Americans.
[6] Romani people have a history of passing as well, particularly in the United States and often tell outsiders that they belong to other ethnicities such as Latino, Greek, Middle Eastern, or Native American.
Films featuring class-passing characters include Catch Me If You Can, My Fair Lady, Pinky, ATL, and Andy Hardy Meets Debutante.
"[3] Individuals may choose to remain "in the closet" or to pass as heterosexual for a variety of reasons, including a desire to maintain positive relationships with family and policies or requirements associated with employment such as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", a policy that required passing as heterosexual within the military or armed forces.
[6] In Adjusting the Borders: Bisexual Passing and Queer Theory, Jessica Lingel notes, "The ramifications of being denied a public sphere in which to practice a sexual identity that isn't labeled licentious or opportunistic leads some women to resort to manufacturing profiles of gayness or straightness to pledge membership within a community.
[2] Ginsberg cites for another example of gender passing Billy Tipton, a jazz musician who was also assigned female at birth but lived and performed as a man until his death in 1989.
[4] Circumcised Jewish males in Germany during World War II attempted to restore their foreskins as part of passing as Gentile.
"There are too many agencies out there with the ostensible purpose of helping us that still believe that as long as we technically can do something, like crab-walking our way into a subway station, we should have to do it," writes Gabe Moses, a wheelchair user who has a limited ability to walk.
Based on a rule from the United States Quad Rugby Association (USQRA) that states that players need only a combination of upper- and lower-extremity impairment that precludes them from playing able-bodied sports, the incomplete quads may play alongside other quadriplegics who have no sensation or function in their lower limbs.
That is justified by classifications the USQRA has developed in which certified physical therapists compare arm and muscle flexibility, trunk and torso movement, and ease of chair operation between players and rank them by injury level.
However, inconsistencies between medical diagnoses of injury and those classifications allows players to perform higher levels of impairment for the classifiers and pass for being more disabled than they are.
That policy has raised questions from some about the ethics and fairness of comparing disabilities, as well as about how competition, inclusion, and ability should be defined in the world of sports.
[36] That can involve behavior like suppressing or redirecting repetitive movements (stimming), maintaining eye contact despite discomfort, mirroring the body language and tone of others, or scripting conversations.
Both conditions, they argue, would have to be fulfilled for the analogy to hold and conclude that only a subgroup of autistic people experiences masking as passing.
Gay Asian men possess two key subordinated identities; in combination, they create unique challenges for them when passing.
[42] By recognizing the hidden intersection of the gendered aspects of gay and Asian male stereotypes, these two distinct experiences make even more sense.
