Passing (sociology)

Passing (sociology)

Passing is the ability of a person to be regarded as a member of social groups other than his or her own, such as a different race, ethnicity, social class, gender, intelligence, age and/or disability status, generally with the purpose of gaining social acceptance. This may take the form of changing only one group from the person's own, such as a person's dressing such as to pretend to be of a higher social class.

Etymologically, the term is simply a clipped form of the phrasal verb pass for or pass as, as in a counterfeit passing for the genuine article or an impostor passing as another person. It has been in popular use since at least the late 1920s.