[theprincess]

The common thread between homophobia and transphobia is a dislike of gender non-conformity. Since the days of Ernst Rohm [0] there has been an element of the gay community convinced that gender non-conforming gays - femmes - were the real problem. There are plenty of straight conservatives who are willing to play along with this for a time too since a masculine man isn't hard to accept as long as you don't think about what he does in his bedroom.

What you call "gender ideology" - a dogwhistle similar to Trans Identified Male and Trans Identified Female, acronyms specifically chosen to aggravate trans people by spelling out stereotypically female and male names - is, in some ways, everything that conservative gays and conservative straights disliked about stereotypical homosexuals distilled into its purest form. It violates the taboo of males being overly feminine (queens) and females being overly masculine (d*kes). It's also why drag queens, who are not transgender, are being swept up into the current moral panic.

It's strange to watch anti-trans activists make a big fuss about trans people changing their physical appearance, then go out and support things like drag bans which are also being used to prevent trans people from appearing in public [1]. Those bans are 100% about forcing people to wear certain clothing. I feel like legislating people's wardrobes according to the sex they were assigned at birth really gives away what's really going on here.

Even if all trans people stopped getting any hormones or surgeries tomorrow and even if they stopped using the pronouns that they feel fit them, and even if they stopped using the restrooms that fit them they would still be hated and attacked. They would be attacked for the same reason that feminine gay men and masculine gay women have always taken the brunt of homophobia.

Because what people hate is gender non-conformity. They want males to be reasonably masculine and wear clothing that is considered stereotypically male, and vice versa for females. The talk about scary medical procedures and men and women being erased and even fairness in sports is just a way of making that impulse sound reasonable and justified.

[0] https://daily.jstor.org/ernst-rohm-the-highest-ranking-gay-n...

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/library-cancels-trans-sp...