Visibility and olive trees

Today is the second International Transgender Day of Visibility.

From Cheryl Morgan’s blog today:

Much of the hatred and distrust of trans people arises from ignorance and fear. People still cling to the idea that all creatures come in two basic forms: male and female; and that anything that takes us outside that simple binary is somehow unnatural. Yes science journals are full of articles about the rich variety of gender in the natural world. There were two yesterday: one about flies, the other about olive trees. It would be rather odd if human biology was so simple when nothing else is, and of course it isn’t. We are, after all, rather complex animals.

The trouble is that if trans people are afraid to go public about their identity, how are people going to learn not to be ignorant and frightened? Indeed, how are they to understand at all?