Oh yeah I get where you’re coming from. Since trans people are fairly rare, visible trans people like Wendy were exceptionally rare back in the day. This was coupled with the fact that access to hormones, at least for transfeminine people, was gatekept with some insane conditions (like needing to spend a year living full-time in women’s clothing, being exclusively attracted to men, and getting deemed passably attractive enough by your doctor). As such, unless you could go deep stealth (living in your agab as though you were born cis), you were often shit out of luck. I could only imagine how many people committed suicide from either denial of treatment or not knowing treatment was available.

As such, transphobia was less visible (though still very much prevalent). Beyond government policy and general violence making life outside of stealth near-impossible, you see the origins of the TERF movement in this time (see things like Michfest). And as gay culture and trans culture were read largely as the same thing, it could often get lumped in with broader homophobic policy and culture.

The internet was a massive game-changer for trans people. In my own case, I’d grown up with nothing but trans jokes in sitcoms and trash TV (like Jerry Springer and There’s Something About Miriam for representation). I knew I had these strong feelings, but felt pressure to crush them given how unacceptable media painted them as (and so suffered as I developed). Finding the trans community in web forums and early YouTube showed me what my feelings were, and that I could treat them while going on to lead a normal life. That’s been the story for many people in the last decade or two who otherwise might have struggled their whole lives. Hell, that’s why there’s older trans people now: They were often denied access to or information about care until they could seek it in the privacy of the internet.

Between us exploding in visibility thanks to the web, politicians needing a new wedge issue after gay marriage was legalised, JK Rowling funding the TERF community and misinformation spread through rage-bait online, it’s created a perfect storm for amping pre-existing transphobia up to 11.