KALAMAZOO, MI -- Just as gay and lesbians have moved into the mainstream, now it's time for transgender persons in Kalamazoo County and elsewhere to come out of the shadows, said Jay Maddock, executive director of the Kalamazoo Gay Lesbian Resource Center.

"The 'T' has been a silent part of the LGBT community. For a long time, it was just a letter to round it out," Maddock, who is transgender, said of the acronym.

Jay Maddock, executive director of the Kalamazoo Gay Lesbian Resource Center.

The trans community "is finally coming into its own," he said.

It has helped there are more high-profile transgender people in popular culture, including Caitlyn Jenner's recent transition from Bruce Jenner, and Laverne Cox, a star on the TV series "Orange Is the New Black.

Locally, transgender issues will be among the topics at the 2015 Kalamazoo Pride festival, set for Friday and Saturday, June 12-13, at Arcadia Creek Festival Place. Lourdes Ashley Hunter, co-founder and national director of The Trans Women of Color Collective, will be the featured speaker June 13 at the Pride Brunch at The Union Cabaret & Grille.

Maddock estimates there are hundreds of transgender persons living in Kalamazoo County, based on the numbers served over the years by his organization's transgender support group. That includes people who have transitioned to another gender, as well as those who have not but struggle with gender identity.

The population ranges from a 5-year-old whose parents are trying to figure out how to handle his insistence he's really a girl to a 71-year-old who recently transitioned from male to female after her spouse died.

A 2011 study out of University of California Los Angeles roughly estimated that 0.3 percent of the American population identifies as transgender. That translates into about 780 people in Kalamazoo County.

"We're your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues, your parents," Maddock said. "We're just as much a part of the community as any community resident."

Dawn Vollink, a Kalamazoo counselor who works with transgender patients, said she currently has four transgender clients and over the past 20-some years has seen a steady stream of patients with transgender issues.

"Others think it's just people on the fringes of society, but it's not," Vollink said about the trans community.

Other misunderstandings abound, such as failing to recognize that gender identity is a separate, distinct issue from sexual orientation, and confusing transgender people with gays or cross-dressers.

Even gays and lesbians can struggle to understand the trans community. Dyrk Hamilton, a Kalamazoo resident who recently transitioned to male, said a lesbian therapist once suggested "I was just a really, really butch lesbian."

"It's harder for people to wrap their heads around, to understand the feeling of rejecting a gender," Vollink said.

The trans issue really speaks to cultural power of gender identity, say Vollink and other experts. It is why trans people feel so distressed before they transition, and why their friends and family can feel so distressed when a transition occurs.

"We live in a society that is very gender-based," Maddock said.

Moreover, unlike gays and lesbians who can choose to live a closeted or partially closeted life, "there's no way to hide coming out as a trans person," Maddock said.

Vollink said it is important to understand "how tortuous it is for trans people to live their lives in the wrong body. Having to pretend to be the gender of their birth body and having to hide who they really are comes with a big price."

"To not be able to be themselves or feel the only way to be accepted is to be someone else is exceedingly painful," she said. "The sheer joy and liberation they experience as they transition is always noteworthy."

But there is often a cost to transitioning, she said, and "that is the rejection of others."

Vollink said even families who consider themselves open and progressive can be unnerved when a family member comes out as trans.

One transgender man told her, "Now I'm at peace, but everyone else is not happy with it."

Still, Vollink said, societal acceptance of transgender people is growing, and one sign of that is the age of her clientele.

For years, Vollink said, her clients tended to be people in their 40s to 60s -- people who for years tried to ignore their gender identification issues until they couldn't take it anymore.

Now, she said, she's beginning to see more people in their 20s or even parents seeking help for children questioning their gender identity.

While it's important for young people to be absolutely certain before undergoing a gender transition, Vollink said, the trend of people transitioning at a young age also spares the pain that occurs when a person comes out as transgender after he or she is married and has children.

Those situations can be especially painful, Vollink said.

Still, she said, "surprisingly, I know a lot of relationships that have survived" a partner making a transition.

Maddock said the acceptance of transgender persons still varies considerably based on a person's race and income.

People of color, especially those in low-income communities and those transitioning from male to female, continue to face considerable discrimination, and frequently are the target of violence, Maddock said.

A 2011 survey of 6,450 transgender persons by the National Center for Transgender Equality found 41 percent had attempted suicide; 55 percent had lost a job because they were trans; 51 percent were bullied in school and 61 percent had been the victim of physical assault.

"We've definitely made improvements" in regards to acceptance of transgender people, Maddock said.

"But we still live in a state where you can lose your job or get kicked out of your house because you're trans. Doctors can refuse to care for trans people," he said. "There's a lot of work to do.

"Transphobia is alive and well," he said. "It should be unacceptable."

Julie Mack is a reporter for Kalamazoo Gazette. Email her at jmack1@mlive.com, call her at 269-350-0277 or follow her on Twitter @kzjuliemack.