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Notes -
The most queer-friendly people I know will call anyone our age a "beautiful person." It is so jarring to me that it distracts me. But, it lets me know -- without looking -- that the subject is a cute emo girl. (The phrasing is so awkward to me because I've been exposed to so much CW preaching about how to talk: "beautiful" is preferred over "cute" "hot" "sexy" etc. to avoid objectifying women and of course "person" is preferred to avoid assuming gender).
Imagine my shock (not really) when they call the average middle aged lady at Walmart a she without any issue.
It seems parsimoniously explainable if pronouns & gender is a game of people-pleasing. This fits your first definition of passing involving signaling.
With that in mind, when I see an obviously-transgender person, the signaling theory of pronouns & passing dictates that this person obviously wants to be called she. In this sense, the obviously-male transgender woman passes as a woman, evident by her dress and makeup.
I wrote a post about this awhile back, but I didnt feel that many people grokked it. It seems everyone uses the phrase "pass [as a woman]", but based on how its used in context, it's more accurate to call it "pass [as cisgender]"
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