Discussions like this often end up at WW2 and that's not what I'm saying here, but Germany in the 1920s was essentially the Gay/Trans hub of the world until it wasn't: https://www.netflix.com/title/81331646.
But even that's not the beginning of 'trans'.
The reason trans isn't 'flying under the radar', isn't because trans people got too proud. Its because one political party decided to shine the magnifying glass to turn trans into a political issue.
How many do consider reasonable to sacrifice in the name of political expedience?
Trans women until VERY recently were forced to go into prostitution and were excluded by the wider society. Trans people were not force teamed into any war, or rather, this is partially right, they were forcefully forced to pick a team by the side that aims to take away their bodily rights, protections, and mark them as undesirables again.
I hope you make it out here one day, if you haven't already.
Treating people as 'a politically losing issue' is weird to me. There are certainly some nuances to <18 transgender care, but that statement doesn't address any of them and just suggests we embrace political cowardice.
> When policies around it changed, that tipped the scales from the public ignoring trans women or seeing them as victims, towards many members of the public seeing them as monsters who are out to get their children.
This is worse. It wasn't because politics around it changed, it was because republicans (upset that they could no longer target gay people), reused the same crappy arguments against trans people, and then wrapped it in a pedophilic flag.
The change in policy is just effective propaganda making people concerned that random doctors are allowing their children to get sex change operations without consent, when that isn't how ANY of this works. Children <18 can socially transition, get puberty blockers, and MAYBE get hormone treatment. WITH parent consent.
The fact that the media and comments like yours continues to pretend its a reasonable 'discussion' perpetuates the nonsense.