This is a HUGE observation and deserves further amplification. Well done!
The current social flail about pronouns, gender identifications that are non-binary, and all that related stuff is in a similar place today socially as veganism was 30 years ago. Setting aside for a moment the amplification possible by both honest social media and dishonest disinformation-spewing social media. Which is rampant now and was absent then.
My point:
When your interest in something is a) one in a million, and b) life-alteringly important to you, it looms large in your character and shows up in everything you do unless you need to hide it to avoid persecution. See ordinary garden variety homosexuality in the 1980s, veganism in the 1990s, and the non-binary sexual orientation stuff today. Suddenly it seems to ordinary folks that a small contingent of very noisy people have burst on the scene from nowhere and they’re not taking “no” for an answer.
Fast forward a few years and once your interest is recognized by a hefty fraction of the populace as at least legit, if not to their taste, your own need to play an offensive form of defense goes way down. At the same time, once the interest becomes more mainstream, the number of people who practice it at least somewhat (or feel safe enough to practice it more openly) goes way up. Providing strength in numbers.
Such as the attitude of ordinary gays or vegans today; at least those fortunate enough to live in non frothing-red reactionary states/counties.
Please understand this analogy is about the degree of social pushback and the attitudinal and behavioral differences between practitioners of whatever, believers of whatever, and True Believers®™ of whatever. There is no attempt here by me to equate the voluntary personal choices involved in carnism/veganism with the involuntary inherent psychological contours of anyone’s individual experience of gender.
It’s an analogy; don’t stretch it until it either breaks or chokes you.