Base rates seem to imply that there should be dozens of trans people in my town, but I’ve never seen one, and I don’t know of anyone who has.
I had the interesting experience of while living in the same smallish city, going from [thinking I had] never met a trans person to having a large percentage of my friend group be trans, and coming across many trans folk incidentally. This coincided with internal growth (don’t want to get into details here), not a change in the town’s population or anything. Meanwhile, I have a religious friend who recently told me he’s never met a trans person [who has undergone hormone therapy] he couldn’t identify as [their gender assigned at birth], not realizing that I had introduced a trans friend to him as her chosen gender and he hadn’t realized at all.
Do you mean that after your personal growth, your social circle expanded and you started to regularly meet trans people? I’ve no problem believing that, but I would be really really surprised to hear that no, lots of your longterm friends were actually trans all along and you failed to notice for years.
As I said in other comments, I am not locked in some strange conservative bubble keeping queer people out. For instance, I know at least three lesbians: one of them is a very obvious butch lesbian always dressed in male clothes, the other two are not so obvious but I still guessed they were lesbians quite early (say, around the third or fourth encounter in both cases). And I am surprised because this never happened with trans people, in the sense that I never caught the slightest hint that one of my longterm acquaintances could possibly be born with a different gender.
Do you mean that after your personal growth, your social circle expanded and you started to regularly meet trans people? I’ve no problem believing that, but I would be really really surprised to hear that no, lots of your longterm friends were actually trans all along and you failed to notice for years.
Both! I met a number of new irl trans friends, but I also found out that quite a few people I had known for a few years (mostly online, though I had seen their face/talked before) were trans all along. Nobody I’m aware of in the local Orthodox Jewish community I grew up in though. (edit: I take that back, there is at least one person in that community who would probably identify as genderqueer though I’ve never asked outright) The thing is, many people don’t center their personal sense of self around gender identity (though it is a part of one’s identity), so its not like it comes up immediately in casual conversation, and there is very good reason to be “stealth” if you are trans, considering there’s a whole lot that can go horribly wrong if you come out to the wrong person.
I had the interesting experience of while living in the same smallish city, going from [thinking I had] never met a trans person to having a large percentage of my friend group be trans, and coming across many trans folk incidentally. This coincided with internal growth (don’t want to get into details here), not a change in the town’s population or anything. Meanwhile, I have a religious friend who recently told me he’s never met a trans person [who has undergone hormone therapy] he couldn’t identify as [their gender assigned at birth], not realizing that I had introduced a trans friend to him as her chosen gender and he hadn’t realized at all.
Uh, this is somewhat surprising.
Do you mean that after your personal growth, your social circle expanded and you started to regularly meet trans people? I’ve no problem believing that, but I would be really really surprised to hear that no, lots of your longterm friends were actually trans all along and you failed to notice for years.
As I said in other comments, I am not locked in some strange conservative bubble keeping queer people out. For instance, I know at least three lesbians: one of them is a very obvious butch lesbian always dressed in male clothes, the other two are not so obvious but I still guessed they were lesbians quite early (say, around the third or fourth encounter in both cases). And I am surprised because this never happened with trans people, in the sense that I never caught the slightest hint that one of my longterm acquaintances could possibly be born with a different gender.
Both! I met a number of new irl trans friends, but I also found out that quite a few people I had known for a few years (mostly online, though I had seen their face/talked before) were trans all along.
Nobody I’m aware of in the local Orthodox Jewish community I grew up in though.(edit: I take that back, there is at least one person in that community who would probably identify as genderqueer though I’ve never asked outright) The thing is, many people don’t center their personal sense of self around gender identity (though it is a part of one’s identity), so its not like it comes up immediately in casual conversation, and there is very good reason to be “stealth” if you are trans, considering there’s a whole lot that can go horribly wrong if you come out to the wrong person.