: Defining success :
In the world of public relations, measurement is one of our constant challenges. How do you define success for a PR campaign? The short answer is that if the client is happy, you're successful. But increasingly sophisticated and demanding clients often have to go one step further and define exactly how happy they should be with your work.
For some clients, success means having a story on the front page of the New York Times or USA Today. For others, it could be achieving a 5% increase in monthly inbound sales calls. Still others might consider simply getting out of a sticky situation with their corporate reputation intact to be a success.
Defining success in a gender transition can be equally complicated. Again, the short answer for some people is that you successfully transition if you jump through all the hoops laid out by the medical community and undergo sex reassignment surgery (SRS). But for some people, SRS is not even a goal, so they might define success as being able to simply live independently in their chosen gender expression. At this point, my definition of long-term success for myself is to be living and working as a post-operative trans-female in the next five years, but of course I might re-evaluate that goal after a while.
But even measuring progress in the near-term is a bit tricky. I'm talking about passing, the ability to appear as a member of the opposite sex to the casual observer. This is a surprisingly difficult thing to measure since - like PR - it's highly subjective, and a somewhat intimate topic of conversation for most people. And the problem is that it's difficult to get a truly honest, unbiased answer from anyone in real life.
In the broadest possible terms, I have two kinds of friends and acquaintances - those who knew me as male and now have seen me as female, and those who have only ever knew me as a female. Those in the first group, which includes a small group of former co-workers and clients, family members and close friends, generally say positive things about my appearance, but sometimes slip with pronouns and my name, simply because it's hard to mentally process a change in identity. To the second group, which includes Kyla, Zoe and most of my Internet friends (some of whom I've met in real life), I am unequivocably female. I remember a few months ago I met Kyla for lunch in boy mode, she commented that I looked like a girl who was crossdressing as male. Another friend who saw me in boy-mode through my Web cam commented that I was the most feminine "boy" she'd ever seen in her life.
So the problem is this - people in the first group have a bias against me toward being male, because they are used to seeing me as male, and tend to focus on male features that they are familiar with. People in the second group are biased toward me in the opposite direction - they know I'm female, and tend to see my female qualities. They are also more open-minded to the whole mind/body dichotomy experience of being trans, since most of them are going through it themselves, and tend to be more understanding of it than the average person.
So that leaves the reaction of strangers as my main source of measurement for success. If I walk into a gender-neutral store (i.e. a Hallmark gift shop, not an Ann Taylor boutique) and the clerk greets me with "may I help you ma'am?" that is a successful pass. But even on those occasions (which is about 95% of the time now) I still can't be positive what the person is really thinking. He or she might know that I'm presenting as female, but realize that I'm biologically male and just being polite. After all, sales clerks are paid to be polite to customers, and are motivated to address us how we clearly want to be addressed.
Unbiased measurement of my voice is much easier - when I go through a drive-through to order fast food, the attendant can't see me and makes a judgement of my gender based solely on my voice. If I hear, "your total is $5.50, please drive up ma'am" that's a pass. Same goes for the phone, if I'm calling someone who doesn't know me (I disabled my Caller ID name for that reason).
Although I normally don't just walk up to someone in public and strike up a conversation, sometimes it happens on its own, and those are probably the most gratifying moments in terms of knowing that I successfully pass. I remember once about a month ago shopping in Target for a scarf and a woman struck up a conversation with me about how women were wearing scarves these days. Clearly, she would not be having that conversation with someone she thought was a male.
Another successful test came two days ago when I ordered lunch for pick-up at my favorite Chinese restaurant. I've been coming to this particular restaurant for more than 15 years, and it has remained under the same ownership for all that time, quite a feat for a restaurant in the competitive Houston landscape. In fact, at a previous job, I used to take orders for the entire office every Thursday and go pick up food for people in the office, sometimes as many as 18 orders each week. The take-out captain, a young Chinese man about my age named Tony, knew me by name and by voice, and always treated me very well, considering how much business I was responsible for bringing in.
Over the last several years, I stopped doing the mass office lunch orders, but I would occasionally drop in and order or myself. Up until Tuesday, I hadn't been to the restaurant in several months, although the last time was on my way back to the office from a client meeting - I was in boy-mode and my hair was in a short pony-tail. That time, Tony had a hard time recognizing me. He initially said I looked familiar - did I have a brother? It was only after I gave him my credit card and he remembered my name that he recognized me. But Tuesday, I called in my order in my girl-voice, and Tony addressed me as ma'am, and then when I showed up and paid cash, he showed no sign of recognition. To me, that is a particularly rigorous test - to pass as female in front of someone who actually knew me as male and not even be recognized. And frankly, if you look at my physical transformation over the last two years, anyone who hasn't seen me in more than two years would have a hard time recognizing me. Ordinary adults simply don't change this much in such a short period of time.
I don't say all this because I'm obsessed with passing. Passing is just icing on the cake, a handy talent that makes life a lot easier for a transitioning individual. To be able to go out in public, shop for clothes, use the women's dressing rooms and bathrooms and not cause a fuss is a luxury, but it's not what makes us female. It's how you think and feel that really matters, not how you look. Ultimately, it's the changes inside I've wrought that are infinitely more important than the ones everyone sees on the outside. But you know, a little vanity now and then is a good thing.
For some clients, success means having a story on the front page of the New York Times or USA Today. For others, it could be achieving a 5% increase in monthly inbound sales calls. Still others might consider simply getting out of a sticky situation with their corporate reputation intact to be a success.
Defining success in a gender transition can be equally complicated. Again, the short answer for some people is that you successfully transition if you jump through all the hoops laid out by the medical community and undergo sex reassignment surgery (SRS). But for some people, SRS is not even a goal, so they might define success as being able to simply live independently in their chosen gender expression. At this point, my definition of long-term success for myself is to be living and working as a post-operative trans-female in the next five years, but of course I might re-evaluate that goal after a while.
But even measuring progress in the near-term is a bit tricky. I'm talking about passing, the ability to appear as a member of the opposite sex to the casual observer. This is a surprisingly difficult thing to measure since - like PR - it's highly subjective, and a somewhat intimate topic of conversation for most people. And the problem is that it's difficult to get a truly honest, unbiased answer from anyone in real life.
In the broadest possible terms, I have two kinds of friends and acquaintances - those who knew me as male and now have seen me as female, and those who have only ever knew me as a female. Those in the first group, which includes a small group of former co-workers and clients, family members and close friends, generally say positive things about my appearance, but sometimes slip with pronouns and my name, simply because it's hard to mentally process a change in identity. To the second group, which includes Kyla, Zoe and most of my Internet friends (some of whom I've met in real life), I am unequivocably female. I remember a few months ago I met Kyla for lunch in boy mode, she commented that I looked like a girl who was crossdressing as male. Another friend who saw me in boy-mode through my Web cam commented that I was the most feminine "boy" she'd ever seen in her life.
So the problem is this - people in the first group have a bias against me toward being male, because they are used to seeing me as male, and tend to focus on male features that they are familiar with. People in the second group are biased toward me in the opposite direction - they know I'm female, and tend to see my female qualities. They are also more open-minded to the whole mind/body dichotomy experience of being trans, since most of them are going through it themselves, and tend to be more understanding of it than the average person.
So that leaves the reaction of strangers as my main source of measurement for success. If I walk into a gender-neutral store (i.e. a Hallmark gift shop, not an Ann Taylor boutique) and the clerk greets me with "may I help you ma'am?" that is a successful pass. But even on those occasions (which is about 95% of the time now) I still can't be positive what the person is really thinking. He or she might know that I'm presenting as female, but realize that I'm biologically male and just being polite. After all, sales clerks are paid to be polite to customers, and are motivated to address us how we clearly want to be addressed.
Unbiased measurement of my voice is much easier - when I go through a drive-through to order fast food, the attendant can't see me and makes a judgement of my gender based solely on my voice. If I hear, "your total is $5.50, please drive up ma'am" that's a pass. Same goes for the phone, if I'm calling someone who doesn't know me (I disabled my Caller ID name for that reason).
Although I normally don't just walk up to someone in public and strike up a conversation, sometimes it happens on its own, and those are probably the most gratifying moments in terms of knowing that I successfully pass. I remember once about a month ago shopping in Target for a scarf and a woman struck up a conversation with me about how women were wearing scarves these days. Clearly, she would not be having that conversation with someone she thought was a male.
Another successful test came two days ago when I ordered lunch for pick-up at my favorite Chinese restaurant. I've been coming to this particular restaurant for more than 15 years, and it has remained under the same ownership for all that time, quite a feat for a restaurant in the competitive Houston landscape. In fact, at a previous job, I used to take orders for the entire office every Thursday and go pick up food for people in the office, sometimes as many as 18 orders each week. The take-out captain, a young Chinese man about my age named Tony, knew me by name and by voice, and always treated me very well, considering how much business I was responsible for bringing in.
Over the last several years, I stopped doing the mass office lunch orders, but I would occasionally drop in and order or myself. Up until Tuesday, I hadn't been to the restaurant in several months, although the last time was on my way back to the office from a client meeting - I was in boy-mode and my hair was in a short pony-tail. That time, Tony had a hard time recognizing me. He initially said I looked familiar - did I have a brother? It was only after I gave him my credit card and he remembered my name that he recognized me. But Tuesday, I called in my order in my girl-voice, and Tony addressed me as ma'am, and then when I showed up and paid cash, he showed no sign of recognition. To me, that is a particularly rigorous test - to pass as female in front of someone who actually knew me as male and not even be recognized. And frankly, if you look at my physical transformation over the last two years, anyone who hasn't seen me in more than two years would have a hard time recognizing me. Ordinary adults simply don't change this much in such a short period of time.
I don't say all this because I'm obsessed with passing. Passing is just icing on the cake, a handy talent that makes life a lot easier for a transitioning individual. To be able to go out in public, shop for clothes, use the women's dressing rooms and bathrooms and not cause a fuss is a luxury, but it's not what makes us female. It's how you think and feel that really matters, not how you look. Ultimately, it's the changes inside I've wrought that are infinitely more important than the ones everyone sees on the outside. But you know, a little vanity now and then is a good thing.
