Correct. Most of society doesn't have enough information to make informed opinions on this and so will just trend towards what the media and the "experts" will tell them, and really we all do this with things we don't know about so it can't be faulted too much.

Most people will understand quite well that it's abnormal for someone to identify as something they are not, but they lack enough understanding of psychology or the issue in question to really think deeply about what it means or do anything about it, so it just falls along partisan lines, if you're a liberal surrounded by other liberals you'll be told of the bad things the conservatives are doing, using trans people as pawns in political games (which is true) and if you're surrounded by conservatives you'll be told the bad things the liberals are doing using trans people as pawns in political games (which is also true).

Right now the momentum overall on the social issues is moving more to the right, and this is largely because there isn't a good defense of idpol or transgender policies that doesn't basically equate to an anarcho-libertarian style position of "let people do whatever they want fuck you".

Most all things in the culture war end up getting surrounded with bad philosophy and gotcha arguments. And they are entertaining but tend to assume very bad faith on the part of everyone who is on the "opposite side" even though for the most part everyone has the same goals just different ideas on what way to achieve those goals.

This goes for transgender care as well. It's clear to everyone except the densest idiots on either side that there is a definite and measurable mental health issue and suicide problem. And everyone agrees this is a bad thing. The controversy comes down to how do you treat it. I'm perfectly fine with, within reason, allowing adults to choose their own way of dealing with it, be that if they wish to present as the opposite gender or seek psychological treatment, or both. I do find the medical profession to be very suspect in what it recommends as is to be expected in a capitalistic corporate society where profits become sacrosanct to all else. And that drug and surgery regiments are therefore preferred over potentially less involved and less profitable solutions. That's a very real concern and criticism to make, and the anger at which it is responded to only goes to show there is no real argument towards it besides an emotional one. But even so, we must be cautious not to heap blame on the individual cogs in the corporate machine for profiteering off of mental Illness when they've been told their entire lives that they are actually helping people. They think they are helping people, they aren't in this with bad intentions, but that doesn't mean they are free from criticism of what the system they are a part of is doing. The emotional response is one where they become despondent that they have been used as a tool to commit evil and that what they have been taught to be true is not, and they can't do anything except lash out at the messenger in an attempt to maintain their worldview, as it's mentally very uncomfortable to accept facts about life that you'd prefer to not know. Like the fact that your bones are wet right now.

Similar to anyone who is ever in a cult, you'll be told things that are not true. Most people don't think about it much. Some people do and tend to enter a period of becoming increasingly hostile towards anyone critical of the cult and have a deep psychological need to defend it, but as they do slowly the truth will be there, they'll be forced to reconcile their own beliefs against arguments that the cult has tried to keep them from through the use of adversarial argumentative styles and baffling responses designed to bewilder critics and keep them away, they'll slowly come round and out, but it's a long and psychologically devistating process and can either lead to sanity or more insanity depending on what they are grounded in. Seen many people leave the church only to fall into weird woke circles or weird pagan circles. Unless they are well grounded in logical reasoning they'll be just as susceptible to bad arguments as they were before.

It is an unfortunate reality of human nature, that even intelligent people, your friends family and loved ones, are able to be manipulated by others through psychological tricks, media, emotional arguments. Few if any fully understand it, even you and I cannot, and we are as susceptible to it as well, even going so far to lie to ourselves that if we are aware of it we are immune.

Yet this is the reality of the world, it is, and I do believe this, a kind of magic in a way, charisma, music, media, speaking, has the ability to manipulate the non-physical, to make change to the soul of man if it were, and as a materialist myself I cannot describe this as anything other than a kind of "supernatural" force, something that goes beyond the simple physical world of nature and into a kind of emergent property of the human psyche as a whole. It's impossible to fully understand it with the tools of science, it's unequivocally real, and that power of the mind, the power of word itself is something we much always be aware of. For how can it be described as anything other than magic, that I may make you feel sad, or happy, or angry, based on nothing more than a skillful recitation of a carefully created set of words?