Kia Ora,

From quite a young age I knew I was different, however I was around 19 years old when I first encounter [in the flesh] other trans-people, this was at a night club in Sydney  called Les Girls, it's still running    ... I should point out back then many of the girls at Les Girls were 'transsexual or transgender'...

This was in the very early 1970s...Shortly after this encounter I spent a week in Singapore on my way back to the UK ...Most of this time was spent with the local trans-community in Bugis Street [or as it was know Boogie Street ] I learnt quite a bit from the local girls about HRT and surgery  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugis_Street  ...

However I spent another twenty odd years living in the closet of denial before I finally surrendered-left the closet for good...

Well how about you, when was your first 'in the flesh'  close encounter ?   

BTW I should also point out that it's quite possible I had met other 'stealth' trans-people, before these encounters...

Metta Zenda                                                                                  

A substitute teacher. I know it's wrong to assume and all but, ugh, she didn't pass at all. She did have voice training but her pitch was a bit too high.

I lived in New Orleans briefly in the late nineties, and I encountered transwomen there. Didn't meet an ftm until maybe a year ago, at a meeting of ftms at the local lgbt center. It heartened me greatly.

the first time I saw another trans in person (where I knew about it) was actually 2 months after I went fulltime. It was at a support group. It was the first and last time I ever went to one of those. Dear lord, if they had battle axes and sword, half of those girls would have killed themselves in a battle. They were always arguing. Of course, this isn't the same everywhere, but it was enough for me.

Then I went to Southern Comfort Conference. Same thing. I just kept on running into trans people who felt they were God's gift to glory or something. I really wished I ran into some cooler guys and girls there. But luck was not in my cards.

It wasn't until last December that I ran into a trans guy at Seminary....which is odd since out school has about 150 students. He told me he was trans.

He was the first "non combative" trans person I met personally.

Well, I met a trans man at a singing camp in summer last year. That was my first face-to-face encounter that I was aware of, though he was having a hard time so we didn't say more than a couple of words to each other. But then I dated a trans man a few months later, and he was the first trans person I'd had the opportunity to sit and talk it all through with - and those two encounters are what woke me up.

But in a sense, the first trans person I met was a lovely boy I was at school with, who was a good friend but whom I sadly lost touch with after school - and who I then heard had transitioned after leaving school. I'm still trying to get in touch with her, but I don't know her current name, and her brother (whom I tracked down online) hasn't replied to my careful enquiry.

First time was going to a TG club. I think.

Now I have friends who I go out to dinner with including Sarah, Kelly and Karen. I have to admit I do not regard these people as TG, they are female friends. Very, very comfortable with them, just girl friends that I can talk to. I do not seek out TG people. I like to be in the mainstream of life and I'm very comfortable with that as well.

Cindy

The first time for me was meeting my ex girlfriends friend. She told me about him,  We took the train and walked to his apartment. He was very cute and he was a gentlemen and very nice.  In a few days she caleld my ex girlfriend and told her that he thought I was cute. I think I was 22 years old at the time when I met him.

Quote from: Annah on October 17, 2011, 01:11:23 AM
the first time I saw another trans in person (where I knew about it) was actually 2 months after I went fulltime. It was at a support group. It was the first and last time I ever went to one of those. Dear lord, if they had battle axes and sword, half of those girls would have killed themselves in a battle. They were always arguing. Of course, this isn't the same everywhere, but it was enough for me.

I think meeting them in the cosmetics industries over the year. I mean I didn't give much thought to it. I knew they were trans, but they looked feminine. It might have been the voices by how I knew.

Then I had my therapy group to get my GID paper for my job. I say that was the first time I met trans people who weren't my age. Yeah, I was like "Get me out of here" too... They were awesome to me. But I couldn't relate to the computer programmers who was only part time since I was full time since July 2009...weird, considering we are in San Jose and no one cares.

Then we went out to a restaurant and I saw the stares. The rudeness, etc... I used the boys bathroom  and this guy freaked out when I walked in and they were like, "what the hell is wrong with you?" and I said, "I have a peen" and they were like, "You don't look like a boy, USE THE WOMENS ROOM" and I was like, "Thats legal? No wonder men freaked out at work"

Of course, it was during the awkward phase and I hadn't "passed" yet. We stopped hanging out after I had some drama with another girl in the group. The only one that was my age.

My freshman year of college. I told my roommate I was trans and she told me her uncle was too. He came to meet me at the mall. And he gave me advice. And took me to a fitting room and took off his shirt for me to see. Haha. The best advice he gave me was when I mentioned that I didn't think I couldn't date another trans person. And he said "if you can't accept it, how can u expect anyone to accept you?"

I first saw a transwoman when I lived in Northampton and was at The Pride Festival. She was handing out candy. w00t Candy!

I probably say a transguy before this, but the first time I'd seen a transguy and known was actually like 8 months ago. When I was little I used to be in plays for this small western mass theater group. My grandfather still preforms with the same group. But I guess one of the girls I was in the King and I (or Annie, I forget which) transitioned. So when I had to see my grandfather in the play, I saw the dude, and I was like, whoa.

In Italy back in the mid '70s. My friends lived in a building where one of the tenants was MTF and there was another MTF who lived opposite. We often used to cross on the stairs, outside in the street in the local bar and doing the shopping. Just normal politeness like saying Good Morning and so on.

The one that lived opposite was Romina Cecconi who was very well known in that period having been imprisoned and even sent into internal exile in the South for prostitution offences.

In the link there's a very funny video clip starring Roberto Benigni and another MTF from Florence set back in those days. You don't need to understand Italian, watch to the end   http://berlinguertivogliobene.splinder.com/post/11453943#comment

(Chi sarà? means roughly, who will this be? Also a famous song title)

MTF, about 15 years ago.
FTM, 3 months ago.

MTF, at work in the mid-90's. FTM last year at a transgender parents support group.

My first encounter with an ftm was my friend/author Max Wolf Valerio. We had both posted on a political board and he was like, "I think you're a baby trans"

So he helped me majorly...we still talk and hang out once in awhile.

Early 80s in SF, at the Black Rose and at ETVC (now TGSF) which was a very early social/support group in the Bay Area.

I have never met another trans person.  I am not into 'scenes' at all.   I am pretty certain that I saw one in Glasgow city centre about three years ago though.

I've never knowlingly met another trans person

First MtF, at a Pagan convention a few years ago. She was helping run one of the small family-friendly rituals I attended, and nobody said thing or treated her any differently than anyone else in the room. I thought it was the coolest most inclusive thing I'd ever seen. She looked so happy and at peace. 

First FtMs were two guys I met online, then met in person at a furry convention last January. I just assumed they were regular guys (or as regular as you meet at a furry convention) until they started talking about STPs and I was like "Ooooh. OK."

A makeup artist from a MAC counter.
She was very kind and taught me everything I know.
Also gave me plenty of pointers in transitioning.
I'm very grateful to have met her.

Shes my sensei

My first exposure to the idea that tg/ts was even a reality was when a college dorm-mate gave me a cassette of synthesizer music composed by someone named Walter Carlos. In passing, he told me, "Yeah, he had a sex change. He's Wendy Carlos now. Wild, huh?"  I was fascinated by that cassette and played it until it wore out. I think that is what set my clock to ticking, although I didn't know it at the time.

My first actual face-to-face exposure came several years later when I took on a "male" friend of a friend as a roommate.  "He" was pre-transitional at the time and didn't come out to me right away. When she finally did come out to me as being a transwoman, I think she was pleasantly surprised that I didn't freak out.  Honestly, I had no idea what to think, but I could tell this was a really important issue for her, so I tried to be supportive while I chewed on the idea. Later that year, I moved away for reasons of employment and we drifted apart. I met her again a few times several years later when she was post-SRS. I surprised myself with the thought that she seemed so much more "herself" as a woman.  I still hadn't come out to myself, but I did develop a strong curiosity regarding all things trans.  I think it was also about this time when I fully accepted the idea that trans didn't have to be a "weird fetish" like in certain magazines, but that it could be a perfectly natural state of being for perfectly normal people who just happened to be born with mind and body out-of-sync with each other.

When I did finally come out to myself and accept what I am, it was partly memories of my former room-mate that gave me the courage to turn to my wife (we were in bed at the time) and come out to her.

Oddly enough, since accepting myself as trans, transfolk have been popping up in my life far more frequently than statistics would suggest is the norm, even though I have not deliberately sought them out and am not out publicly yet.