While society as a whole is more… tolerant, it’s kind of just that; tolerance. Not acceptance, just sort of a “we’ll put up with your existence, as long as you pretend not to exist” kind of thing in many cases.

I got lucky and have a job where it wasn’t really considered that big a deal and no one cared. I didn’t make a big fuss over it, and didn’t force the issue, it just kind of was what it was, nothing more and nothing less.

Unfortunately, I know others who didn’t get that same luxury. There are people I know who were fired/laid off because of not wanting to make others around them uncomfortable, those who ended up homeless for awhile because they couldn’t get through an interview, despite being overqualified for the position, and their family refused to help them in any way, shape or form.

I’m not discounting that things are a lot better than they once were! They certainly are much better now, of that there’s no doubt. However… to say it’s perfectly fine is an irresponsible statement.

During transition, when one doesn’t look obviously and totally male or female, but somewhere stuck in between, the transgendered unemployment rate is about 60%. Yeah, only 4 out of 10 can maintain a job during transition, a time in their life when they’re paying out the ass for tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills, most of which aren’t covered by insurance, and going through a major period of emotional upheaval of anything resembling stability.

Now, before you start transition at all, or after you make the full transition, and pass well? Yeah, things get much better once the paperwork’s done and no one knows what you were stuck with once in your life. If you can apply for a job and look like any other man or woman, no problem; you just have the standard issues anyone else has at that point. It’s that period when it’s kind of obvious that you’re not quite… “normal”, that things like the uncanny valley take effect and do a wrecking crew job on your life.

Keep in mind it’s still practically legal in many areas to murder a transgendered person. Recently, a law was passed in Arizona that makes it illegal for transwomen to use a women’s washroom in public, even (though it doesn’t apply to transmen, showing how much the whole law is rooted in pure fear rather than any understanding), with harsher penalties than attempted murder via poisoning. Yeah, you can actually try to kill someone and get a less severe penalty than a woman using the woman’s washroom without your birth certificate on you.

As such, it’s kind of obvious that things aren’t perfect by a long shot, but there has been some progress made in some areas. In other areas… not so much. Most of the world is moving slowly ahead on the transgendered rights thing, though the USA is lagging pretty hard behind. It’s pretty difficult to claim the moral high ground when bloody Iran of all places has better human rights than the USA for trans people =P

Trans people are still a mystery to most people, with the majority of the knowledge of such coming from porn (dickgirls!), distasteful transphobic jokes, and poorly worded stereotypes “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body!”.

Individually, these things wouldn’t be such a big deal, but the problem is that this is where the majority of the average layman’s knowledge about trans people comes from.

If you’re in hiding, scared to tell anyone you’re trans and trying really, really hard to pretend to fit in with your assigned gender which you’re failing miserably at, then no one knows and no one learns anything.

If you pass, and simply act as a normal person, again, no one knows and no one learns anything.

The only trans people who people make contact with and actually know about it, are those who are somewhere in the middle and don’t “quite look right”, or porn.

We’ve come a long way, but there’s still a lot more to go. The LGBT rights thing kind of holds the T part at arms length, and often actively goes through extra effort to remove trans-friendly wording from legal changes so that it’s LGB only, so it’s kinda hard to say that things are great, when even your closest allies stab you in the back at every opportunity presented to them.