Fun fact: In the 90s-00s there was an annual online 'awards' based on fan surveys run by a US fan known as Rob Jung (also the original keeper of the CTLP*) known as the 'Trannies.' Paulbot
does something similar now just among us OTCAers.

But the original Trannies was something that was available to all fans globally. It wasn't even done through an online survey site - it was just done by copying and pasting the questions and submitting your results and comments via
e-mail, and Rob would even quote memorable comments (mine got in a few times

).

It seems far too laborious to do today, but the online fandom was much smaller in the 90s and it was possible for a lone fan to manually do this.
So yeah, next time your mum says "Trannies," let her know that that's actually the name of a former fan-poll award. Transformer fans are colloquially known as "Transfans," and "Trannies" refers to something completely different within Transfandom. Oh, and something else completely different outside of Transfandom, but who cares about what Mundaners think, right?
Jung called them "Trannies" because as a portmanteau of "Transformers" and "Grammies."
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*Complete Transformers Listing Page; a very useful online resource long before sites like TFU.info or tfwiki ever existed.