LGBTQ+

There's a lot of people who are "okay" with trans people, but when you ask them about any actual policy, they side with transphobes. Many people who are self-reportedly "comfortable" with trans people still think women should be forced to use the men's restroom, for example. They'll support bans on coverage of medical care for trans people. They'll continue to deadname or misgender those trans people. Etc.

So many people like to believe they're not a bigot when they're not. If you asked my parents if they're racist, for example, they'd say "no" without hesitation and believe it. But then they'll say things like black people are dangerous and assume someone is likely to kill them just because of their skin color, complain about black people using welfare and how white people are discriminated against, etc.

Four years is a long time, especially after prevailing conservative media converged on transgender people as their punching bag du jour. Effective capture of the once-considered thoughtful, left-leading media landscape (see Washington Post, New York Times, The Atlantic, etc) and using it to flood the zone with biased, horseshit talking points does a lot to nudge public opinion.

Remember all those Iraqi WMDs that everyone said were totally there?

It's going to take time to turn people around, and the work is going to fall onto the backs of transgender people being oppressed and victimized until those media sources can no longer deny the inhumanity they facilitated.

Not that they'll apologize for it or anything.

North Carolina had the first "bathroom bill" in 2016. As well, by 2021 there were ten states with trans athlete bans. https://www.npr.org/2024/05/06/1249406353/transgender-bathroom-bill-republican-states