>>39790498here's two ways
1. trans people are seen as actually dangerous significantly more now vs then. back then, people murdered us in trans panic, kept us out of normal employment and housing, but we were not really seen as predatory in quite the same ways.
We were...sometimes disgusting, sometimes pathetic, sometimes comical. People were certainly okay with our early deaths, saw it as inevitable, the result of an immoral and dangerous lifestyle. however! except in the sense that all gay people were seen as perverts, there wasn't such an exaggerated and specific stereotype about trans people being out to rape women and children. Mrs. Doubtfire was wholesome family comedy. Republicans now would lose their shit if it came out today.
2. No efforts to stamp out trans healthcare (legally or extralegally) in whatever tiny pockets it existed in. I went to one of the oldest trans clinics in the country back in 2009. They did not need armed security guards at that time. They do now. They were not exhausted by trans refugees from other states increasing caseloads, or death threats, or meetings about how to avoid federal crackdowns on treatment for their adult patients.
If a healthcare plan, or an employer, did decide to include some degree of trans coverage, there were not people all over the country determined to force them to stop. maybe the most insane Focus on the Family type people would have hated it if they'd known about it, but they didn't, and they didn't bother to try to know about it.
