Current Events > Nobody knew what transgender meant before Caitlyn Jenner

(+) Yeah! (+)

First of all I do NOT want to get into an argument about whether Jenner is a good person or not. I don't care about that. I'm only talking about the effect she had on the public familiarity with transgender people.

I think most Americans didn't know what it meant to be transgender until it made headlines in 2015 that Bruce Jenner had transitioned. There was a vague understanding, and it was part of the acronym LGBT, but I still think there was a vast misunderstanding/ignorance of what it actually means. Many people didn't know the difference between transgender, gay, transvestite, and transsexual. And I think there is still a lot of misunderstanding. But at this point everybody with internet access is at least familiar with the term and has a vague understanding of what it means.

Issues about transgender rights were not at the forefront of political discussions until people became familiar with what it means to be transgender. Now we see it come up regularly.

(Actually I think some people remain intentionally ignorant: the people screaming "there are only two genders" like a tantric mantra whenever a trans topic arises don't seem to understand that transgender people don't have anything to do with a third gender. But I think they're basically just trolling)

It's just kind of surprising how much things changed after Caitlyn Jenner came out. It could also be because marriage equality was recently passed here, but I think if Jenner had never come out, most Americans would still not know what it means to be trans, which shows how important exposure is to the acceptance of LGBT people.
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I think a lot of Americans still don't really get it. As far as they're concerned Caitlyn Jenner is still a man
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Also obviously SOME people knew about trans people before Jenner came out...it wasn't obscure, and there had already been celebrities who came out as trans before Jenner. But she was the biggest one yet, and I think you get my point.
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Yes.
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