Panini

This is a good question, and unfortunately there’s not a consistently good answer. Partly because we’re diverse humans all experiencing our transitions and differently, and partly because it can be a touchy subject for some of us and a lot of us have had a lot of bad experiences around being noticed, which combined with not so great political environments can make a lot of us varying degrees of paranoid.

Some people (like myself) have no idea what to do with compliments period, so I wouldn’t know what to do with that kind of supportive compliment either. Others might love compliments, but are terrified of being clocked (someone else recognizing we’re trans when we’re trying not to be noticed as such) in public, either due to personal insecurity, or due to legitimate personal safety concerns. Others know they don’t pass as cis, but still don’t want it acknowledged. Others would appreciate the gesture. There’s just no simple “correct” way to go about it, you just kinda have to sus it out individually.

Most of the time, not saying anything you wouldn’t say more or less the same to a cis person is the safest bet, at least until you have any queue from the person in question that they’re open to recognition of their trans identity.