Long as they didn’t want to strip and show me all the relevant parts before and after (which I know is silly) I’d have no problem at all. Might be odd in the locker room but that’s it.
I know two FTMs from my university IRL, and a bunch of MTFs & FTMs online.
My partner is MTF. I first met her about the time she came out to herself, so I knew her as “male” for a couple of years. I fell in love with her almost from the moment I met her. We were just friends though. When she finally came out to me, I was fine with the news, and we instantly became “best girlfriends.” I’d always been perfectly straight, married for 18 years, so I thought my romantic feelings for her were over. Wrong. Within a week I realized that I still loved her as much as ever. We remained just friends for a couple more years before we finally got involved though.
It’s very hard for me to remember that I ever knew her any other way. Sometimes when she talks about events from long before I knew her, I get confused for a minute until I realize that people didn’t know who she really was back then.
I suppose it was easier to accept immediately because I already cared about her so much. It also made it easier to talk to her about it and educate myself. I’ve often asked myself if I would have been so accepting if it had been someone else. If it was someone I was close to, I think I would have wanted to learn and be supportive just as I was for my partner.
If it was someone I didn’t really talk to, I doubt if I would have searched for more information because it wouldn’t have mattered to me one way or the other. Learning the facts about something makes it easier to understand and accept. It’s easy to dismiss something as “weird” if you don’t know anything about it.
I know one in real life, who (like Dio’s experience) was a very butch manly-man who screamed at video games and threw insults like the best of the boys. (S)he’s about halfway through the transition now after many fits and starts, and so far it hasn’t changed her personality. (“I’m growing boobs, and they’re leaking milk from the hormones!” “Oh yeah? What does it taste like?” “Like ass, I don’t know how babies deal.” “Wait, you actually tried it?” “I’m changing my name, not me.” “Fair enough, Sarah.”)
It is kind of odd trying to figure out whether she’s Joe or Sarah at any given point, although it’s easier now that she’s finally jumped through enough psychologist hoops to be in process.
I’m an outlying data point, but aside from people I know purely from my work with the queer or trans community, there’s my ex, who is FtM; the guy from Winnipeg that I’m having this sort of undefined non-relationship friendship with; my ex who later came out as MtF; a few trans women I know through this one group of friends; and some people I’ve met doing activism on other subjects.
Circa mid-1970s, my old roommate was a nurse, and among that crowd was a guy, Chris, who openly admitted he felt like a woman in a male body.
Chris was about 5’8" kinda pudgy, round face, orange hair (thinning), big blue eyes. He was taking a pottery class and was gay and was always kinda droopy. He was the opposite of the sharp-dressed homosexual with fashion sense and great decor–he lived in kind of a dump and dressed slouchy.
Early 2000s–working for a hospital, I ran into Chris again. Chris had transitioned (I don’t know about the surgery) and was living as a woman. Thicker hair, still orange, still pudgy, wore the same kind of clothes. Still working as a nurse. Now doing jewelry.
Frankly, except for the pronoun, she seemed exactly the same person she’d been before. I assume at some point Christopher became Christine, but same name, even. She didn’t seem a lot happier. Dressed frumpy. Bitched a bit about the scarcity of decent men for a woman of her age. (Yeah, like she helped with those statistics.)
I personally know three that I am aware of - one friend from college who finished his FtM transition about a year and a half ago, one friend currently transitioning who I used to go for lunch with every weekend, and one of her friends who finished her transition long before I ever met her, but was quite happy to talk about it.