With regard to the representation, yeah, I agree. It was a rather bleak time. That was my first encounter with transgenders as well, and admittedly, it was very unflattering. It's great time to be living now that there are a lot of transgenders being represented in a more positive light. As you mentioned, Laverne Cox, and the Wachowski's are great coming-out stories that would hopefully encourage people to come out.
In my country, there's this gay celebrity who has seen huge success in recent years and kind of introduced a wave of people embracing their true selves. While the reception has been mixed, I consider it all well and good in the long run.
It's great that you have such a supportive family, I guess that's one of the opportunities not afforded to a lot of LGBTs. It's great that you're sharing this to the world. I really hope that you would be a flagbearer of the LGBT at least in the Steemit community. People preach about acceptance and inclusion, and I really hope that it really comes to fruition here.
It definitely takes time but it will get there for the international community as a whole. However I saw 10 years of the gay awareness campaign do wonders, I believe the statistic now is that 9 of 10 people have someone they know or love that is gay. Trans-awareness will get there too :)
I've actually been thinking of splitting my posts between my usual stuff and trying to do more trans related stuff. Honestly just with some of the walls of text in this post easily can make their own posts.
Just curious, what country do you live in?