There are a lot of factors at play that make transness an easy target to be the scary other bigots rally around.
The simple truth is that unless you yourself are trans you cannot understand the trans experience. There is no way to explain the scope or impact it has on someone’s life. It’s automatically alien and provides essentially a permanent out group. Anyone who is uncomfortable with people who are different or that have different experiences than themselves are almost certainly transphobic to some degree. Right now to the best of my knowledge transphobia is the only thing all hate groups share.
Trans people are the current scapegoats because prior to the pandemic we had an explosion of trans people feeling safe enough to come out online (I blame Obama making us all feel safe). They are particularly effective because both white nationalists and evangelicals use queerness as a scapegoat all the time anyway so it was easy for them to rally around. Which is why conservative politicians fearmonger around trans people.
It’s not that simple, but it’s close enough for a lemmy comment.
I’m a queer gender non conforming lesbian who grew up in the 90s and was horrifically violently assaulted for it on the regular by bullies that school authorities never gave a shit about.
I remember the Obama years. I remember back then not trusting the “acceptance”. I never thought it was genuine and to this day I still don’t. I feel bad for those who thought we made real progress. It was always an illusion.
Me too, existing as a queer person. I didn’t even know I was queer, I just knew something about me was different. It wasn’t until my late teens that I figured out what was ‘wrong’ with me that the other kids hated so much.
I’m also ADHD and most likely autistic as well. So there’s that.
