I lived for a while in a reactionary backwater as an out trans woman and people could not figure it out. Trans people exist in big cities full of Liberals and don’t look or dress like everyone else in fuckass nowhere. It’s not on people’s radar
I’ve worked places where no one has clocked that I’m trans even after I have told them, to their faces, that I am transgender. Or they think I’m transmasc (?) - or just a really good ally, or something. Anything but that I’m transfem.
People are oblivious. People are terrible at gendering other people based on anything but vibes a lot of the time. And if they don’t know that you’re trans for sure then they revert to assuming you’re cis.
Trans people are the spiders Georg of thinking about gender. People just wing it, they don’t know. Tall women exist!
Easily that if not more. Most cis people either don’t know a trans person personally, or they don’t realize they do. We went through this with queer people, with lefties - prejudices wax and wane. What was taboo ceases to be so taboo when you realize it’s not the big deal you thought it was, that we are real people.