I've posted this on reddit before, but I think it bears repeating in this thread.

With you mentioning the complete lack of information about trans people, I had a mixed but erring on positive experience with a young person about trans people a couple years ago.

I had recently become very good friends with a trans lady, and things might have become more than friends if it weren't for the fact that I had just moved half way across the country.

Anyway I was having a goodbye meal with some friends before I moved halfway across the country, and one of said friends asked me how my love life was, and I explained the awkward situation of kinda falling for someone whilst knowing you are moving 4 hours drive away. When they asked me who it was that I was leaving behind I told them and someone asked "Didn't she use to be a man?"

Yep I said, and everything was fine, I have friends who are not arseholes.

Then one of my friends' 6 year old kid pipes up with "She used to be a man? What do you mean?"

Turns out she's never heard of transsexual people before - this is in a tiny town in rural England, there's not a huge amount of diversity of any kind, so the subject had simply never arisen before.

Parents looked awkward and no-one spoke so I just said "sometimes people are born a girl, but they feel inside like they should be a boy, or are born a boy and feel that they should be a girl. If that happens then you can go to the doctor and the doctor can give you an operation to change you from one to another."

Her response: Oh, that makes sense - everyone should be who they want to be. Can you pass me the poppadoms ?"

She was completely unfazed by the idea and carried on eating her curry. It was lovely to see a taboo subject be treated as the non-issue that it should be.

So we might not be teaching kids enough about trans people yet, but it seems that at least we're not teaching them to hate...