Well, I’ve heard some people say, that there have been transgender people and homosexual people throughout history, but that we have suppressed such history.
Well, we are now to be “educated” at the rich “L.G.B.T.” history going back to colonial times.
I’ve forgotten the term it went by, but there was a body of literature written during the 18th and 19th century for the sexually diverse (gays and lesbians) among other exotic sexual tastes. And there were famous and very famous persons of the period who were known to be “that way.”
The “Hellfire Club” supposedly engaged in cross dressing.
Doubt if full blown transsexual practice (as understood today with drugs and surgery) was medically possible. No doubt, there were persons who lived fully as the opposite sex.
The common denominator in all this was that participation was mostly the province of the idol rich. Then, as now, the rules don’t seem to apply if you phave enough money.
Most of the people who got away with cross-dressing and passing historically were women who wished to fight in the Revolutionary or Civil wars, a few lesbian couples in which one tried to pass as male, and a very, very few men who snookered some guy into keeping the lights off to go to bed. There was no surgery, no birth control, and the truth would come out. It was also a lot easier to leave town and start over someplace else back then, with no rapid communications or driver's licenses. There weren't even electric bills for the majority of Americans until around 100 years ago or less. Even men like Oscar Wilde who was notorious for a gay affair were also married, and fathers.
What was "suppressed" was not so much certain people as certain behaviors, along with many other behaviors considered unhealthy, unwise or sinful.