When it was making rules against gender-affirming care for children, at least they could hide behind the (ludicrously false) "we're protecting the children!" argument.

They can't even do that here. There is just no justification for this beyond either "god doesn't want this to happen" or just basic cruelty.

A hate based ideology always needs an outgroup to discriminate against. It's really as simple as that.

This is how it was explained to me; I'll do the best I can to write it out in a way that makes sense.

You know how most left-leaning see MAGA as a cult of idiocy? Really Really dumb people easily motivated by propaganda, that if it weren't for trump and other republican bad actors, they would just otherwise be innocent idiots ready to be manipulated by someone else? There exists a subset of conservatives that believe idiocy and gullibility applies to both sides. Just like a simple farmer can get turned storm-the-capitol-terrorist by a few tweets and youtube videos, the theory is that an innocent dumb gay kid can be turned trans by a few tiktoks. They don't look at it like a rights issue; they don't believe that most trans people actually exist. They look at it like catering to a dangerous cult who manipulates their followers into self-mutilation and a terribly unhappy life.

The thing about making an argument in good faith, is that logic and reason generally always apply to produce the same conclusions if given the same set of facts. There are plenty of people out there perfectly content to make a bad faith argument for personal gain, and I'm not really talking about those people. The issue with trans rights is that it's very easy to make a good faith argument with only a minor dispute in facts that leads down a path of "treat the disease" rather than "give them rights" when solving in good faith for "protect the vulnerable".

Think about it this way, You probably wouldn't argue that law should cater towards the reality MAGA repubes believe the world to exist in, right?

They retool and reuse a lot of anti LGB arguments - they still hate gay people, they just know it doesn’t play well right now.

The “protect the children” crowd put out so many lies that it’s impossible to keep up with. Chuds pretend that kids can just walk into a clinic, say “I think I’m a boy/girl” and walk out with a hormone script and a surgery appointment, and because most people don’t know anything about transgender care they believe it. I don’t think your average person actually is that bothered by real trans people, they’re just lead to believe that 8 year olds are getting their penises lopped off.