Because drag is a performance art. It's not really intended to empower the everyday existence of women, and we shouldn't ask it to be more than it is.

Drag queens satirize the idea that male-assigned people cannot be pretty, elegant, or sexy-powerful in ways that are traditionally reserved for women. In my opinion, this is kinda cool and very gender-queer and not really to my personal aesthetic taste.

An essential part of this satire and humor is that it recognizes the maleness of drag-queens' bodies. The joke is "I can't believe that's not a woman," and for that reason cis women performers are put into a different category. "Faux-queens," they're called.

Trans women who do drag might fall between those aesthetics, and there are many male-assigned genderqueer people who enjoy it. But I think it says a lot about drag art that it so easily welcomes cis men - all that's required is they not take their gender performance too seriously.

Anyway, not too many trans women want "drag up" their daily trip to the office or the kids' soccer game or weekend summer afternoon spent reading in a sunny public part. I believe that normalcy is a more common desire.

That's certainly the case for me. And I find the idea that I have to look like a drag queen to be absolutely terrifying - again, something I suspect is a common experience.

The problem is the word "passing" and its connotations comes from the drag-queen or "effeminate homosexual" ethos. The concept is not designed to take the perspective of trans women. It's all about other people, particularly men, and how they evaluate one's body.

Screw that.

Passing then leads really quickly to the idea that surgery is required to overcome the maleness of the body. Beat it down, cut it out, paint it over, fight a war with your body.

I hate that kind of thing. I'd rather take a minimalistic approach towards surgical interventions.