Interesting point: was she "trans" before she transitioned, or only afterwards?

Lots of queer folks are pretending to be straight. Or do they only become queer when they emerge from the closet?

Yes, the understanding is that trans people were always trans. It may have taken time for them to understand that and perhaps more to decide to adopt that identity publicly, but they're not "not trans" before that. Other queer identities are generally thought of the same way in queer communities: many people have early experiences (e.g. fixating on same-sex characters in fiction the way peers might opposite-sex characters) that they later realise were early expressions of their orientation.

That makes sense, thanks :)

The author (me) is one of literally dozens of people who doesn't live in the USA. We don't all obsess over a foreign politician.

As for Sophie Wilson, I suggest you speak to your trans friends about whether they were trans before they publicly transitioned.

If you don't have any trans friends, perhaps reflect on why that is.

Man you realize your real name is attached to your incredibly obnoxious snarky replies right?

The transgenderist stance is that once a man announces he is a woman, then he was always a woman and always will be. Unless he detransitions of course. Then he was always a man and always will be. Same for when a woman declares that she is a man.

So a man who builds his entire career as a man, with all the privilege that brings, as Wilson did, can identify as a woman and these prior achievements now all become that of a woman. Even if this stretches plausibility, what with the sexism of the industry at the time. He can even receive accolades reserved for women, as if he had to work ten times as hard to be taken seriously in a male-dominated field.

This rewriting of history is also why, for example, film credits listing Ellen Page have been retrospectively updated to Elliot Page even though there was no Elliot Page at the time of filming.