From what I’ve observed, all too often curiosity about trans people (which comes from a place of ignorance) regularly is misread as transphobia (especially when the curiosity is worded in accidentally transphobic ways - a lot of cis people with little knowledge of trans people genuinely don’t have the right vocabulary, and that gets misinterpreted as transphobic rather than just a lack of knowledge). Questions about trans lives regularly get a hostile “it’s not my job to educate ignorant people, they should Google it” response. If @t3rmit3@beehaw.org had responded to their wife’s cousin with an angry “it’s not my job to educate you!”, the result would likely not have been as positive as the conversation they had.

I always approach questions about trans stuff with an initial assumption that it’s made in good faith and comes from a place of curiosity. Those acting in bad faith reveal themselves pretty quickly, in which case I shut the conversation down. But more often than not, people are ignorant but curious, rather than malicious and hateful. So I absolutely agree with t3rmit3 on that front. Very little beats the human touch of having a real conversation with someone.