Are you talking about now or the 90s? If it’s the later: the 90s was a very different experience for anyone LGBTQ, especially trans people.

People started transitioning much later in life and the medical/social resources (if one could even find them) were primitive compared to what we have today. “Passing” was much, much harder to achieve.

Add in being part of an extremely marginalized group with no anti-discrimination protections: good luck finding employment that pays enough for quality care – insurance won’t cover it. Even then all there was is word-of-mouth to find these resources.