Studies in Education, 3(1).

“I don’t have a problem with transsexuals; I just don’t know why they want to have sex with everyone.” So said a 20-something female undergraduate student studying psychology (comment overheard during a class). Is this what today’s youth and prospective next generation of mental health professionals think about transsexual and transgender1 persons? If so, what are the implications for future understanding and empathic consideration of the transgender community? The goal of this paper is to describe how the experience of meeting a male-to-female transsexual person resulted in a qualitative change in students ’ perceptions of transgender people. We assert that negative attitudes toward transsexuals may be transformed into positive and empathic ones. We propose that a basic formula to produce more positive attitudes is a simple one: education plus exposure – that is to say, “real life ” exposure. Few university students are personally acquainted with transgender people. In fact, when we surveyed students in introductory human sexuality classes (1999-2005, N = 2008), we found that only 5 % (n =106) reported having knowingly met a transgender person. In contrast, 61 % (n = 1232) reported knowing a gay or lesbian person. Students thus report having had relatively fewer experience