Research examining risk and resilience among transgender individuals suggests that connection to a transgender community may be protective. Utilizing archival survey data of 3,087 adult transgender participants collected in 2005-06, this study further evaluated how awareness and engagement with other transgender people influences risk and resilience during early gender identity development. As hypothesized, among male-to-female and female-to-male respondents, both prior awareness and prior engagement with other transgender people were independently related to less fearfulness, less suicidality, and more comfort. These relationships were not significant among male-to-different-gender or female-to-different-gender participants. Implications of these findings are discussed.