“I didn’t see it therefore it never existed” is the most insane fucking logic to me

So Heather thinks that no one talked about it because it simply hadn't occurred to anyone rather than being afraid?

Or is Heather saying she preferred it when they suffered in silence?

My dad's best friend from high school transitioned...I can't remember when I first met him (used to be "her"), but it had to be sometime in the late 90s/early 2000s, and I was just a teenager. He had fully transitioned by that point. I remember thinking that made sense. It was before the culture war types discovered trans people and decided they were the literal devils. To me it sounded simple--as a kid Tracy always felt like she was a boy. So when she could afford it, she got surgery to fix her body to match what her brain was, since that's easier and less risky than changing your brain to match your body. It sounded to me like getting a prosthetic if you're born without a limb or something. Or getting an amputation if you're born with an extra limb. Like, you were born with something wrong with your body and you fixed it, not a big deal.

It wasn't until much much later that I realized how rare Tracy was for that time period...not just because the kind of biological mistake he fixed is statistically rare (which I understood as a kid), but because the vast, vast majority of people born that way hide it (which I did not understand). I also didn't really have a concept of "gender" as a different thing than "sex" at that point...I don't think the vocabulary for that really existed except maybe in a few academic circles. So to me, she was a she until she transitioned, then she became he. She had a problem, now he doesn't.

It also confused the fuck out of me when people started saying hateful shit about trans people. Like, no, I know a trans person, he's cool as hell, we went kayaking together.

I was born in the early 90s and there was an AFAB person who very early on insisted they were actually a boy. I do remember thinking it was weird when I was a kid but the more they presented masculine the more it became "That's just the way they are" and I accepted it.

They were masculine presenting as early as 4th grade if I remember correctly. They were a beacon of light in high school for other queer people who hadn't figured themselves out yet. And they were super nice and friendly so everyone liked them.

They waited until our first year of college before asking us to refer them with he/him pronouns. It just made sense. I had a better understanding of gender and its spectrum by this point so it I remember thinking "finally."

Unfortunately he was in a car accident not too long after, and passed away. The world is sincerely lesser from his passing.

Not being aware of something existing doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You are not the center of the world. Jesus christ.

There was a trans girl in my high school in the 90s. She was lucky in a way because she was also drop-dead gorgeous, so even a lot of the asshole bigot kids who knew she was trans didn't say anything in case other kids would make fun of them for having a crush on her.

I graduated in '89. Queer as a $3 bill always was, but you didn't say that shit in high school back then. Just being gay was dangerous enough, can't imagine how being trans would have gone over.

If you did try to be who you were, you ended up ostracized at best, dead in a ditch at worst. I chose the lunch tray route, but outside of school...

To everyone who went to school before the heliocentric model was introduced, do you remember anyone talking about how they thought the Earth may not be the center of the galaxy? No.. Me neither.

Heather is, unfortunately, very typical. It didn't happen in her world so therefore it wasn't really a "thing"

I'm always surprised at how people can't seem to imagine a world that isn't a mirror image of their reality.

I finished school in the 90s. We had a guy in our class who was very not straight. Although we were sometimes nice to him we also bullied him and I still feel guilty about it to this day. Last I heard he identified as a female but that was second hand info 15 years ago. I have no idea what happened to him/her. I wish I could apologise but have no way to even contact them or know where to start.

I used to have a group of kids follow me home throwing rocks at me every day for like a week. No adult did anything about it. So eventually, I picked up a rock and threw it back and hitting one of them in the face.

I was punished by the school, even though this didn't even happen at school. I was punished by my parents. The bullies were not punished ever, and they never stopped.

Graduated near 2000 and yes I remember several and several more who waited until after they graduated to come out about it.

I think most people who "dont remember" are people from groups that it wouldn't be kosher to come out around. I also image racist people didn't have a lot of nonwhite friend's go figure.

Absolutely true. No one (well, very few, even the obvious ones) was even openly gay before the 2000s

People who weren't around as at least a teen before 2000s have no clue how silent anyone was on being gay. It just about never was discussed

It was not a safe thing to admit. Being trans would be significantly worse for them I'm sure

The original question is just groomer-accusing trash, probably by someone who indoctrinates children religiously and are scared another group "with an agenda" might get to them first

Yes actually. Knew a guy that talked about it to close friends a lot in the late 90s. He's (she's) openly trans now.

People didn't talk about wanting a sex change, but loads of us hated our bodies and wanted to wake up in different ones. Given the option and institutional support and reassurance that transitioning would help us, many of us probably would have been convinced to do so

This is actually one of my primary concerns regarding transgenderism in the modern day. I think it's a tool in the toolbelt for when it's necessary. I also think it's a tool we reach for much more often than is necessary.

The comparable example I like to give is adhd. It isn't binary. You don't just have it or don't have it. Some people have symptoms that need no intervention. Some people have symptoms but are misdiagnosed as adhd. Other people get by with therapy alone. Yet others find medication necessary to be functional.

Giving gender affirming care to all people with gender or body dysphoria is like giving high dose Adderall to all people who have trouble paying attention in history class. It's the nuclear option, and you're using it on someone who may not even have adhd, or may not require such a strong intervention.

I know everyone hates this word, but starting with more conservative treatments first is the norm throughout healthcare for exactly this reason. We've made an exception for transgender people for political reasons, not scientific ones.

I cleared year 12 in 1995 and I could have called myself trans, except there was no such word. I was just a boy who wanted long hair and girls clothes and toys. One of my happiest early memories was when the guy at the holiday spot lolly kiosk addressed me and my sister as girls

If the word existed, I wouldn't have used it since I was bullied for my accent, my height, my name. I knew from an early age that you couldn't be different

I wasn't expelled when I punched a bully in the mouth in 3rd grade primary school. I was told it was wrong, but it worked, I wasn't bullied any more in the last 3 years at that school

I wasn't expelled (or punished at all) from high school when I threw the desk at a bully in year 10, and that also stopped the bullying for the two remaining years there

By the time I heard the word trans I was very much shaped and socialised to my assigned gender.

I've always wanted to tell this kind of story in fiction:

Someone goes 90% of the path down a 'Joker' story - they're mistreated and abandoned by society, unable to live, much less achieve their dreams, basically because of their lot in life. They've caused extreme, grievous harm that could genuinely be categorized as self-defense. Then, just as they're planning some final, very climactic action with some strong weaponry to remove someone that makes them feel unsafe, someone DOES hear them out - and saves them from the path of becoming a full anti-hero, establishing in a large venue of society that every "heinous" action of his was a necessary act for human sanity, and could have been avoided by countless people in their path. Those who wronged him receive due punishment, and the cruelty he's been exposed to is revealed to society at large.

Granted, that kind of thing does sound like a hero power fantasy; but when 90% of the anime I see these days is trash isekai "I'm overpowered in this alternate world" type of stuff, it feels like a fantasy we want to have these days.

Hmm... what year did the song Lola come out?

Anecdotally, yea. Army kid life so I didnt meet her until high school of 2007-8. I was friends with a girl who sort of did become trans later. In high school we were friends and went on like 1 or 2 dates, but it didn't really work. Left high school and years of emailing later she came out as not caring what pronouns and dressing androgynous. I don't talk to her any more just due to time passing and living 500 miles different. Loosely fits this bill because we would have started school right before the turn of the M.

Yeah, this is pretty much it. Survival strategies for most schools are to lay low, don't draw attention to yourself, and definitely don't give the bullies easy ammunition.

In my small town, a three-letter f word slur was employed regularly by pre-teens who had no understanding of what that word meant. You knew they learned it from their parents, because what fucking kid learns that kind of language in the 80s and 90s without the internet?

Of course people didn't hear about trans kids. Because if you did, they would have been bullied so much that they'd either leave, or just be a legendary target forever.

I swear, people forget what it's like to be in school with aloof administrative staff and shitty peers.