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I lived in a huge metropolitan area and there were no transgender kids growing up in any of my schools in the 80's and 90's....nor do I know of anyone who knew someone that was. People argue that it's because people repressed it and some eventually committed suicide. Has anyone who grow up in the 90's or before known people who took their life because they couldn't live as the sex they identify with? I haven't nor do I know anyone who has. But now most people I know have atleast 1 transgender student in their childs school. Like I said above, we didn't have this 20 plus years ago and from my experience, nobody killed themselves....some girls were tomboys and some boys liked dolls but we didn't have parents fighting for kids to use the bathroom of their choice. It just seems like some forced agenda.
This isn't meant to start any kind of arguement. It is just to share opinions.
In earlier days, you had people who just resigned themselves to living a life that didn't fit who they were, because there were no other socially/culturally acceptable options. Not committing suicide does not mean they enjoyed a high quality of life.
I graduated high school in the early 1990s, and while there were no known transgenders in the school, one male who was very effeminate (and who identified as "gay" at the time) eventually went on to transition to a woman in the years after graduating high school. But I don't know of anyone who committed suicide.
The difference between now and then is that back then society wasn't as welcoming as it is today. Back then, although there existed famous transgender people, society was not at a place where it was willing to recognize transgender rights. I think transgenderism was mostly seen as a fringe element.
And by the way, anyone who thinks that transgenderism is an "agenda" has simply been brainwashed to think so. It's not an "agenda", it simply IS. It's something that has existed since time immemorial.
I graduated high school in the early 1990s, and while there were no known transgenders in the school, one male who was very effeminate (and who identified as "gay" at the time) eventually went on to transition to a woman in the years after graduating high school. But I don't know of anyone who committed suicide.
Same, though I graduated in the mid-1990s. The person who transitioned m-to-f actually still lives and works in our small, rural, fairly conservative hometown, which is fairly unusual.
One of my little sister's best high school friends transitioned from female to male in the post college years; they graduated from high school in the early 2000s.
Yes, I knew one. He (she?) was closeted and very suppressed. Late 80s
To OP: there was no internet, no known support groups, huge stigma to be even gay or lesbian. Many people who grew in 80s and 90s, came out late - during late '00 or '10s - younger generation having much more resources and knowledge, is braver (and has much more support) to come out earlier in life.
I lived in a huge metropolitan area and there were no transgender kids growing up in any of my schools in the 80's and 90's....nor do I know of anyone who knew someone that was. People argue that it's because people repressed it and some eventually committed suicide. Has anyone who grow up in the 90's or before known people who took their life because they couldn't live as the sex they identify with? I haven't nor do I know anyone who has. But now most people I know have atleast 1 transgender student in their childs school. Like I said above, we didn't have this 20 plus years ago and from my experience, nobody killed themselves....some girls were tomboys and some boys liked dolls but we didn't have parents fighting for kids to use the bathroom of their choice. It just seems like some forced agenda.
This isn't meant to start any kind of arguement. It is just to share opinions.
no. I don't know any transgender and never saw one at my school or neighboring schools. It didn't exist in the 80's and 90's in the countryside.
I grew up like a boy,have a few too many male hormones IMO, wanted to dress like a boy and I am glad nobody tried to convince me I should pursue that thought much more. I firmly believe that SOME transgender kids don't really know what they are and get influenced too much to make a decision.
In the 20th century for the most part there wasn't even an explanatory framework for the feelings or the experience that a transgender person would have, no label, no diagnosis, no identity. So the question the OP is asking is really kind of silly. Transgender people were miscategorized, even by themselves, as gay, depressed, anxious, and/or whatever. All we have done in recent years is give them a label and an identity and an explanation that they lacked before, and opened up possible ways to cope with the issue.
Much as I think Kaitlin Jenner has more money than sense, and I question the point of going through a transition in your 60s when you have children already and such, she's a clear case of having the existential pain of a transgender person when she was young, but no idea what it was or what do do about it or where to go with it. And having no real options until recently. She is also illustrative that she didn't have to commit suicide to prove she was transgender or something. She lived al lie, her relationships suffered for it, and eventually she quit doing that. I'm of the opinion that, sadly, if a person doesn't transition before young adulthood, that particular train has left the station and it's really kind of late to get much benefit from a transition without hurting people you've already likely committed to and creating more problems than you're solving. But that's easy for me to say as a straight person. It's for each individual to thread that needle for themselves. There's no way I can personally understand at a gut level what its like to be transgender, so I don't attempt to tell transgender people what to do about it. I have considered opinions, but I defer to them on questions of tactic.
I lived in a huge metropolitan area and there were no transgender kids growing up in any of my schools in the 80's and 90's....nor do I know of anyone who knew someone that was. People argue that it's because people repressed it and some eventually committed suicide. Has anyone who grow up in the 90's or before known people who took their life because they couldn't live as the sex they identify with? ....
I grew up in a small town of 5,000 and there were three suicides of teenagers while I lived there or that I heard of later from relatives. There was never any reason given in town gossip, and they remained a mystery.
I lived in NYC from 1960-2000. In the early 1970's there were two transgendered M to F living in my neighborhood. One was almost the same age as I was, and therefore was born in the late Thirties or early Forties. And the other was slightly younger, probably born in the late Forties. I cannot remember if I ever knew where they were raised, but they both lived as females at this time.
At a job I began in spring 1973 there was a woman, A., who worked in various capacities, and often in departments allied to mine, and ultimately in the same office as myself. It was not until after I had been working with her for a decade that I was told she was a transgendered person. She was born and raised in Texas, and would have been born in the mid-Fifties.
So, in my experience there were transgendered adults in the working world in the early 70's, but when in their upbringing their gender became a question for them and where they were living at the time I do not know.
Certainly in the years that any of these three were growing up the social atmosphere would have been such that they would have been labeled freaks, and very likely so even by their parents. I cannot imagine that it was discussed with anyone.
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