I can't say I have ever knowingly met a transexual/transvestite in all my years.
I heard about them working the redlight district in Boston in the 1980s but they got rid of it.

Well actually....there was a person who dressed androgenously at this financial company I used to work for and used a gender-neutral name "Dana". Talking to the person you couldn't even tell if they were a man or woman. I'm thinking woman because very short and not very heavy..like 4 foot 3 and like 60 lbs..looked like an 8th grader...not many guys that small. Sort of felt sorry for the person as they must get treated like a kid everywhere..and to make it worse they have some gender issue.
So you said "prevalent"...so I assumed you were suddenly seeing a bunch in Pakistan...or are you just watching videos on youtube and suddenly think they are lurking behind every tree?
At another company there was this Indian guy who announced he was marrying an another guy. Can't say I pressed for any details about it. That is the only gay marriage I have ever run across. I"m sure there were others were but it's not like I was asking people or they were yapping about it at the water cooler.
As for the Hollywood connection...you are talking about people who enjoy putting makeup on, wearing different clothes, and acting like people whom they aren't.
Shouldn't that give you a big big big tip-off as to what types of people Hollywood would tend to employ..and this isn't exactly recent..it's always been like that. Even many 1950's leading actors were truly acting and if you met them on the street your "
gaydar" would go off. Even James Dean was a flake.